Cable has a higher top speed but is shared, and DSL is a decicated line. A friend told me that on average he got 200 kbps on his ATT cable line. I''ve read that the top speeds for cable and DSL are 1.5 mbps and about 350 kbps respectively. My question is, for mutiplayer gaming (since I''m looking into multiplayer development), which is better? I live in the bay area suburbs so I know both are available and that cable and slow at peak hours but no one seems to offer any good reviews of services (I guess its hard to compare, since no one has both) and all of the comparisons I read of the two seem to be a few years old (therefore not taking into account any recent service improvements). Thanks ppl.

I used both in my Q2 days, and both ran just fine.

I guess the server & server location are the biggest bottleneck by a large ratio WRT to your connection...

I now have cable only because I have no land line (cellphone is my only phone)...

I like cable just a little more because it offers a more static IP. Of course this depends on the package you buy (some offer static IP, which I really find useful)...

www.cppnow.com

Neither could be called better. Here DSL is offered at 1.5Mbps and 3.0Mbps. Cable offers similer speeds. DSL speed is affected by how long the cable is between your house and the office. Cable is shared and so speed goes up and down depending on how many people are using it (in theory cable can carry much more bandwidth then DSL, but because it''s shared your speed is capped so that one person doesn''t bog down the whole network). However the biggest issue I think you''ll face is service. For instance know my DSL connection is slower then some other people I know, however I''ve effectively had 100% uptime, while some people on cable (many Rogers customers in particular) experience almost weekly downtime and garbage tech support for it. Of course there are also Rogers customers who don''t experience any problems. If you can get some opinions from people with different services (those in your area are best), as its useless to have a faster connection if you can''t use it half the time.

Another issue to think about is the upload speed. When they quote speed numbers, they are talking about download speed (which makes sense, that''s what you use 99% of the time). However, if you are running a game, you also need to think about the upload speed. On DSL, it is usually much slower to upload than to download (unless you get the *really expensive* connection, heh), which could end up being a limiting factor (depending on what sort of game you are talking about). Not sure about cable. Also, on shared connections, they *usually* prohibit running servers of any type.

Anyway, if you want to get an idea of the availability/speeds of services in your area, visit www.dslreports.com

It''s a very good site for that sort of thing.

Ron

gaming wise DSL is better it generaly gets much lower latency''s, also cable is a "shared" system it you have a neaiborhood filled with kazaa monkeys you will always be screwed as far as bandwidth if concerned, 3meg a sec lol try getting that though all of the other traffic on the system. of corse i got yea all beat =p www.utopianet.org i will be getting fiber to the home(in thoery my isp could use 1gig ethernet so my speed possabilitys should be very good) soon =)

I used DSL for IcarusIndie.com because DSL doesn''t have an artificial cap. It''s capped by the physical connection speed. Cable on the other hand, is artifically capped.

Qwest is run by assholes (long story posted in the banter box on my site on one of the pages) so now that my server is running on a 10Mbit line at the ISP with a flat rate + per GB charge we''re dropping Qwest DSL and going with Cox cable for internet and telephone just out of principle. And for a nice savings as well.

Cox business is a joke (at least in Phoenix). They charge you four times as much for the same line as a residential and don''t give you options for getting better speeds either way.

So really, it depends on what you intend to do with the line. If you plan on running a server, DSL may be better because you don''t have a transfer cap and it''s a dedicated line. If you just want to browse and get files faster, Cable may be better.

For my purposes, Cable is better now. I''m not doing much outgoing transfer anymore so a higher download speed makes more sense. I have a project or two I may do simply because I can but it''s nothing that warrents selling my soul to Qwest.

Ben


[ IcarusIndie.com | recycledrussianbrides.com | Got Linux? ]

Here in Sweden you can get DSL up to 26 mbps and thats far more than cable can give you, i also have found the latency higher on cable.

Friend A and I both have cable, and Friend B&C use dsl. I get lower latency and much higher transfer speeds. DSL users get around 150 kilobytes/sec dl and about 25 up. Cable users get 250 down and 50 up. In counterstrike 1.5, cable users get 20-50 ping to servers across the state, and the dsl users get about 35-70. (In general pings of both connections are about 5 higher than the minimum I listed on average). We all get about the same amount of downtime.

Also, the DSL _IS_ capped down here. IIRC, the DSL users pay about $10 less a month.

Talking about Sweden, at home I have 10 mbit up/down directly through the ISP''s back bone. I can always get full speed, and virtually no down time. I pay about 40 USD/month, and wouldn''t complain a bit if they doubled the fee. In my office we have a 1.5 mbit DSL connection (T1) with 32 IPs, for which we pay about 250 USD/month.

I''m specifically looking for comparisons of Bay Area, California DSL and Cable services. Where do you live Extrarius?