Playing online via satellite

zitto

Hey - anyone play NWN:EE with satellite level latency (600ms - 1.5s)? I may be moving into the boondocks soon, and satellite is one of my options. I suspect it should not really be a problem, but would love to hear from anyone who has experience with it or similar. Thanks!

sknymick

I play on wireless (radio). It's pretty miserable internet. I can still play fairly reliably, as long as my internet is not being particularly obnoxious.

DallianceHither

I had Hughes Net (Directv dish internet) for a while, so I will give you my experiences.

All right, you're not going to have quick reactions. This is manageable; combat is relatively slow with a round of combat being six seconds. Your results may vary in server environments and DM events. I will say I played on some dangerous, low level modules.

NWN is also a game from when bandwidth was much more restrictive, it is pretty lean and mean in that regard. You won't really have to worry about going over your limit with it. But everything else will, you will probably want a download manager and set things to go during your free or bonus time; I was slapped with speeds that might've been slower than a 56k modem for going over my 24 hour (or w/e) bandwidth limit.

I would also suggest setting your home page to your modem's bandwidth meter, or at least keep an eye on it.


Now, your connection will deteriorate in bad weather. Overcast seemed to be fine, but a light rain will absolutely murder your latency. You may not disconnect, but you will have impossible lag.


So yes, NWN is doable.

zitto

I forgot about the connection deteriorating in inclement weather. I had satellite many years ago, and even a strong wind could cause latency as the dish needed to be precisely aligned. In practice this wasn't really an big issue, but it did happen on occasion.

I'm using Linux, and I found that there is a built in tool in the kernel that you can use to simulate latency and packet drops. The HOWTO can be found here:

https://wiki.linuxfoundation.org/networking/netem#emulating_wide_area_network_delays

Anyway, I set it to a 1 sec delay and played a bit online, and there was a noticeable difference. Even trying to bring up the list of multi-player servers had strange delays introduced. Walking around seemed to be just fine, but trying to do anything, such as casting a spell, bringing up inventory, and other interaction with the UI, there was a somewhat annoying delay. I think over time I could get used to it, and at least moving about was still smooth (no rubber banding, etc).

So, after playing around for about 15 minutes online, I would rate the experience about a B+. Doable, but not without some pain. In RL, the 1 sec delay may have been a bit excessive, but I just chose the middle ground to try it out.