Lag on Satelite Internet?

Hi!

I'm just a tad worried, because I, (As in, My parents), are getting satelite internet next month, and I was wondering if anyone out there played on Satelite, and if so, how bad is the lag, and what is a fairly normal ping?

I play on a clearwire connection. It is probably only a little faster than satellite, at least in my case since I am near the edge of coverage.

My connection plays great, until the last update at least (still trying to determine if its pc, isp, or game). My ping is in the 2-300 range. Slight rubber-banding now and then. It's the only online game I can really play with my connection.

I'm wondering about satelite, because there is no ground wire.

BTW, the sat speed would be 512Kbps.

Satelite Internet has massive latency because the signal travels from earth to space & then back again. Any online-fps is meaningless to even try to play because of it.
Usually ping a few years ago was 3 seconds & more. (The 200ms sounds a bit off, 2000ms sounds more reasonable for satelite Internet).

Yup, I know a few people who have/had satellite. One of them called me and quote: "Yay! I'm getting dial up!" Not joking. /cry

But the ping times are very high, as Jello said, it has to go from earth to space and back every time. When one of them was playing wow, good ping times for him where under 1000, it was normally around 1.5-2k, sometimes higher.


So, for downloading stuff, and surfing the web sat would be great, but playing games is another story.

Well, 2k is fine, Considering I had 235,225 MS ping on my 56k yesterday...

if nothing else try looking into a Line of Sight provider (wifi) alot of them usually have a 12-15 mile range on them...I use one and it has average pings of 250-500ms its not great but it gets the job done and I rarely have serious lag..

Does it matter? Guild Wars has insane lag anyway.

On a 512 connection expect quite a bit of lag. Due to the placement of Satellites you will get some ping lag from them also. It shouldn't be too much of a problem except in area's where a lot of players are. Just redistrict to one of the last parts of the town and you should be fine.

Mega Mouse

So should I play with henchies and guild members more on sat, or would the lag not be that noticable?

You do realize that is not possible...right? As GW would have dropped you before it got that high. As that is like 4 minutes.

Yeah. I know. it should be illegal to have a ping that high. I got 87k ping this morning.

I've gotta say. ANYTHING is better than my dialup...