I think the instinctive answer to that would be "nuthin", but I'm looking for any sort of online, multiplayer game. I've tried to play Ares over the internet, but it is much too slow and my computer ended up freezing, probably the other guy's too. I was just wondering if there was anything out there and how to find it.

Thanks!

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Wow! Due to all this feedback it sounds like my own answer may have been correct. I will patiently await one who can prove me wrong though!

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You could probably play most turned-based games, such as stratego, chess, etc.

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The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."
Have a stop by Ambrosia Members Tonight. Better yet, record some crap and i'll add it to the collection!

What about something like Alpha Centauri? Do you think the graphics would make the game take altogether too long?

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[This message has been edited by Shrout1 (edited 01-18-2002).]

wait

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Behind every great fortune, there is a crime.

I've played a lot of DiabloII over my 20k connection, and rarely had problems. Aside from when B.net or the backbone is laggy, I haven't had very many problems. Granted, I don't play Hardcore (where a single lag-burst can be fatal), but softcore is very do-able.

I'd imagine that several other games can be decent too, as long as you keep your expectations realistic. You're almost never going to get sub-100 pings in Quake3, for example.

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Well, I am very new to the online gaming world and have had no experience with any of this. I know these terms - I've heard them often from many of my friends but I don't really know what they mean. In the end they come down to speed, I'm guessing lag is time between data packets and pings are when a server checks on your status (I think) but I don't really know how they apply. Do you think I could do Starcraft with this connection (I'm considering purchasing it)

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Umm.... OK, I'm waiting.

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And so Shrout1 finally arrived
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Does it actually connect with 20K speed, or is it at the usual 1/10th of maximum performance? If it runs at 20K, you should be able to play SC.





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flargh: slank - you realize, of course, that you've just dragged about 40,000 volts of static electricity off the tip of your vacuum cleaner attachments over your CPU.
-The Construct, Gameranger

Well, it's a 33k modem which dials up at 24k. When I went to testyourspeed.com it gave me a readout of 20.8k. Unfortunately this really messed up a game of Ares I was playing, It just froze and said it was waiting for me. Once in a while I'll get a 26.4 dial up, probably a 22k connection. I want to get a 56k modem but $ is low and our phone lines are awful.

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I usually connect at around 21.6 and I can play Starcraft, Warcraft 2, and Diablo online without any problems. D2 tends to lag a bit too much to play online, but you may have different results. Baldur's Gate will not run online at such speeds, and first person shooters are a definite no way.

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My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Official Resistance Website

Well, that's good to hear. I've got to get Starcraft first but I look forward to some online gaming. How about normal processer speed? Can I run it with 100 mhz? 275? We're looking into buying a new computer so it shouldn't be a problem. Mainly I want to be able to play it on my own computer - of course it doesn't have the net so I'll end up using this one, but yeah, what's the minimum speed?

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Starcraft is the newest of the games and according to the box you need at least a Power Mac, System 7.6 or higher, 32 MB of RAM, 80 MB of hard disk space, a 4X CD-ROM drive, and a monitor that supports 250 colors at 640X480. Warcraft II and Diablo have similar requirements.
As far as speed goes, I believe the low end machine (the 6100) of the first released power mac series ran at 60Mhz. I'm sure someone will correct me on that if I'm mistaken, but it gives you and idea of the speeds needed. Since I've only played it on a 333Mhz iMac I can't give you any idea what performance you'll get, but Blizzard games are usually pretty friendly to older macs. Hope that helps.

[This message has been edited by Kilvain (edited 01-22-2002).]

I think stratego and chess are the way to go. I'm on cable and I usually get lag on Starcraft playing with people who have a 56k. Anything less and the lag will make the game unplayable.

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Well, the area that I'm in will not allow for any service greater than 56K - and you know the dial up will probably be in the high 30's to low 40's. The connection - probably in the mid to higher 30's. I do have some friends who play with 56k and they say that they do not usually experience lag. Although I don't know why it would, could playing someone with a slower modem (dial up) while you have a faster one (cable/dsl) affect the lag of the game?

Oh yeah, what do you guys pay for service - cable/non-cable. We pay 20$ for our AOL service. If we were to go cable then we'd have to first buy the cable tv service and then pay more for the cable modem and its service. That would come out to 90$ a month here. What do you think of that?

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I actually had a 6100/60, clocked up to 70mHz (uh yeah ) and it ran Starcraft very fine. I could very well play over ISDN 64k. Unfortunately, since I have DSL, my lag grows so bad I can't even enter any game… strange…

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I don't care…

I have two computers (up and working, that is ) in my house - one 233 G3 Powerbook, which connects at around 48000 to, sometimes, 50k. On this connection, I really never have problems playing games like StarCraft, Diablo, Warcraft II, and Civilization II. I know someone who plays Myth I & II at those speeds just fine, as well. I've also tested games like Unreal, and they do pretty good, so long as the game doesn't get absolutely HUGE. Yep... you'll get moments of lag, sure, some pauses every once in a while... but those are not a big deal at all. On average, playing SC, I'll get one or two pauses, and other than that the game will play perfectly smooth.
Now, you have a 20k, not a 50k connection, but I have some good news - my other computer, a PowerMac 7300 180mhz, connects at around 26, sometimes lower, rarely higher. It ALSO runs Starcraft just fine, no lag, and Warcraft II. I haven't tried the others on that one, but I suspect they'd be fine.

Remember, though.... it's not all on your shoulders. A lot rests on the server you areplayin with... on the weekends, b.net is horribly laggy at times, making everything get nice and jerky. This has nothing to do with the connection, but the service. Other times, weird things happen.... you just have to reconnect and try logging on again.
But overall, I think you should be just fine. I would even try a low end shooter game, if you want, I think you might be surprised. I have a friend who is a die hard player of Unreal Tournament, and plays it all the time on htis 26k connection. So something slightly lower might work fine for you.
I'm surprised Ares didn't work.. I'd try again, that might have been the odd time out.

As for your service, AOL is fine, and twenty dollars is a pretty normal price. But keep in mind, you can also get services like Earthlink for slightly less and they might well be faster... AOL can be finicky. Of course, then you lose AOL services, and despite all the scoffing you might hear about those around here, they ARE pretty nice. So keep that in mind.
Although, if you or your family don't use the AOL services much, I'd suggest switching services.

Cable is very nice, very fast... but only you can decide if you want to pay for it.

And like K so rightly noted, Baldurs Gate is NOT playable!! I doubt a broadband ultra fast connection would change that.

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I may not have the strength to hold you up/ but if you fall/ I will fall under you/ and make it as soft as I can
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Oh but we do. I can't say that AOL service is too bad, I don't think it has much to do with our bad connection speed (I have a 33k modem - back in RI we'd get a 32k connection all the time) it's our bad phone lines that slow us down so much. I'm really considering just buying a 56k modem - they're not all that expensive and the internet service will not cost anything extra. Of course I don't know exactly how I'd fare with connection speed; I may not do much better.

AOL - I do like how AOL provides a stable E-mail address (my father has had his for 5 or 6 years, me 3) and the fact that you can automatically check your mail when you log on, have your IM up automatically and tell when you get mail at any point while you're on. So it's not all bad. It has its quirks though. For some reason I do not have the ability to download - you have to run Netscape (using AOL to access the internet). Of course my access level does not allow me to run Netscape, so no downloading. I can't attach files to my E-mails - I don't know why, I should be able to but I just can't. Also my favorites file (bookmarks) are inaccessable. I just e-mail myself any important addresses so they hang around in my sent mail file for a while. Does anyone know why this is happening (maybe?)

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"You will find that your device is highly non-functional...." - Bad Guy
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I'd suggest trying it, if only because you can pick up a second hand 56k modem for around ten bucks! Search around, hook it up... you may well do a lot better.



Yeah... AOL has a lot of nice features... as for your glitches, I don't know! That is odd... I do know that someone I know who uses AOL has to do the same regarding downloading. Here, however, is something you CAN look at... you can get a regular ISP, and then you can use it along with AOL... AOL will charge you less for not using their net numbers, right now it's around ten bucks a month. That's what I do.... I did hear, though, that they are thinking of raising their prices to 15.00 a month if you use them in conjuction with an ISP, which is really lame..... still, if you can find a really cheap ISP, it might be worth it.



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I may not have the strength to hold you up/ but if you fall/ I will fall under you/ and make it as soft as I can
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Resistance Web Page

Well, talking about ISP's - I've heard that NetZero (free) can mess up multiplayer stuff because of all their ads. It might be one way to go if it does not. I wish though that the cable company here wasn't so stupid. I live in a neighborhood that will soon have about 33 houses. It started out at around 10 when I got here. Anyway, the cable company had no interest in putting cable into the neighborhood because there were not enough people. So we sat for a year with... nothing. No tv channels at all. It's not like the worst thing that could possibly happen to a man or anything, but it did put a bit of a strain on our movie collection. I think I watched more documentaries from the 1980's then was healthy (my father was having some sort of a VCR fetish when he taped them). So, they finally get the bright idea to run some cables through, last summer. There wer probably 20 houses then. So they run their wires but have yet to activate them! We have cable wires running to the house, but they have sat there inactive for almost six months! What is wrong with this cable company. Well, it doesn't matter now - everyone in the neighborhood has sattelite service (including us), so the company will probably never activate their wires. The second stupid thing they do is their cable modem service. You have to have their TV service in order to use their modem service, a total of 90$ a month. If these idiots would activate the cables and give internet service at least they'd make some money there. I mean are they aiming to screw themselves over? For now, however, they're a monopoly on our area, no other companies even thinking of moving in. I wish one would though. If someone intelligent actually started a cable company they'd blow the existing one out of the water. Anyway, there's my last complaint for the evening.

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"You will find that your device is highly non-functional...." - Bad Guy
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Come visit the Nova6 Webboards.

"Although I don't know why it would, could playing someone with a slower modem (dial up) while you have a faster one (cable/dsl) affect the lag of the game?

Oh yeah, what do you guys pay for service - cable/non-cable. We pay 20$ for our AOL service. If we were to go cable then we'd have to first buy the cable tv service and then pay more for the cable modem and its service. That would come out to 90$ a month here. What do you think of that?"

Well, I'm only paying $40 a month for cable here, which is how much I was paying for AOL plus a second phone line. Also, the reason why they would slow me down is that when you play people on the internet, you are sending packets of data to their computer telling them what you're doing, and they're sending your computer packets of data. They do this back and forth to keep track of what's going on. If you're computer takes ten minutes to send the data back to my computer that's sending it every ten seconds it's going to give me ALOT of lag.

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Well, looks like som bad news for me. My father logged on to the internet with his work laptop (56k modem) and only got a 24k connection. Stupid phone lines! I want to burn them or something! They'd probably work better! Well, I see what you're saying about that second line. Having a cable modem would defray some of the costs by ridding yourself of it. I'll have to conside that. I don't think we pay so much for the line though that it would be economically viable to get a cable modem on the basis of not paying for a second line. I'll see how much we're paying though.

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"You will find that your device is highly non-functional...." - Bad Guy
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Come visit the Nova6 Webboards.

If you were using a PC instead of a Mac, I'd suggest a game called Subspace www.subspacehq.com Kinda similar to a Massively Multiplayer Ares but lots older (I've been playing for 4 years now). You don't need a good connection for most of the zones (read: each game server uses a different "mod" to that of the others), and you could probably still get a good connection even if you emulated windows to run it.

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[This message has been edited by God (edited 20-20-6003).]

All right, 2 questions -

• Where can I get Starcraft for the least amount of money and yet use a check to purchase it?
• Are there any free windows emulators out there that I could download with this crazy modem of mine?

Any help would be great.

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"You will find that your device is highly non-functional...." - Bad Guy
-
Come visit the Nova6 Webboards.

[This message has been edited by Shrout1 (edited 01-28-2002).]