What's the max ping you consider acceptable for FPS?

[Barfo]

I remember trying to play RTCW with my 56K once. Had a 450 ms ping, had my ass handed to me and didn't try again until I had DSL.

I try to play in servers with less than 50, but frankly I can't tell the difference as long as it's less than 100, I can go as high as 150 while still considering it tolerable, although it starts to feel laggy.

 

[dpodblood]

< 100

 

[AstroManLuca]

< 100

One time I really wanted to play a game online but my wife was watching Netflix and it made my ping shoot way up (not the best connection). So I tethered my computer to my phone and played. Ended up with about a 150 ms ping, it was kinda laggy but better than the 400+ I had otherwise.

 

[sandorski]

Played CS and TFC with 160+ for a year or so. Did reasonably well and at the time it seemed fun and what not. Wouldn't want to do it again though, I definitely had to compensate. I agree with you though, <100 is perfectly playable with negligible compensation required.

 

[JSt0rm]

well if minimums stay at 60fps I'm happy.

 

[maniacalpha1-1]

People with 20 or less ping have an advantage over people with 50 ping, however, people with 50 ping don't have a meaningful advantage over others unless it's at least 100. Or, that's what it seems like to me.

 

[M0oG0oGaiPan]

depends on the game and player population. <150 is generally good enough for me. I'd rather have worse ping with little to no packet loss than low ping constant packet loss.

 

[imaheadcase]

Less than 100ms.

JStorm you are confusing FPS and lag. Why do people do that all the time..sheesh. Its bad enough hearing people complain in games "i'm lagging I skipping around" and everyone chimes in and say "get a better GPU". /end rant

 

[gothamhunter]

well if minimums stay at 60fps I'm happy.

...fail

 

[DarkForceRising]

< 150 ms here.

30-80 ms makes me very happy, but it's not uncommon for me to play with people across the pond at 100+. Works fine, for the most part.

 

[brandonb]

When I had a great 10 megabit connection in my apartment building, and playing TF2, I was on a server hosted close to me and had under 10ms ping. People used to say I was the one running the server since my ping was so low (and I'd kick ass)... Now I moved and have 3G wireless internet and the ping is about 50ms-250ms (on the same server, AlphaOmega), and when it starts hitting over 180ms, I start to really notice the lag, but otherwise things are pretty good.

I'd say 150ms or less and I'd be happy with ping.

 

[Karstein]

Depends on the game.

For Quake Live: < 50 (preferrably < 30).
For CS: <~70.
For something MMO like Planetside: Probably <100-150.

Ideally, though, for all games I like it to be < 50. I also have no idea how I used to enjoy playing on my 33.6 with 200 ping when I started online gaming.

 

[goobernoodles]

Depends on the game, but for CS:S I try to find something under 60, but won't bitch until I have a 90+ ping.

I loved RTCW btw. Long live OSP mod. :'( My broke ass friend used to play on 56k at his girlfriend's apartment. It absolutely amazed me how he managed to be pretty good on that crap connection.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

it really depends on the game as various engines and netcodes can be far more forgiving for higher pings

that being said I like to stay under 100, although I prefer sub 50s

my ISP used to host some of their own dedicated game servers and for a short time I was able to enjoy near LAN quality connections (under 8ms )

of course I'd rather play on servers where everyone was around 100ms or less rather than me being 8ms and everyone else being 200+. Opponent latency can be just as critical.

 

[JoshGuru7]

There's definitely a curve that most FPS players progress through:

- Starting out. 200ms ping is acceptable. Favorite weapons have lots of spread (rocket launcher, shotguns) and basic tactic is spray and pray.

- Intermediate. 100ms ping is acceptable, lots of switching between spread damage and focused damage at longer range, often sniping through a scope.

- Advanced. <50ms ping desired. Very few wild shots fired, and heavy weighting towards accuracy in weapons. Increasingly likely to be wrongly accused of aimbotting.

I think you can have a lot of fun with higher pings if that's what you have known, but you get spoiled quickly and it gets extremely difficult to play with a higher ping if you have been accustomed to a lower one.

 

[KeithTalent]

Has to be under 100; I was playing TF2 on th weekend and the server kep having spikes where I would end up at 120-130 and it was pretty much unplayable. Way too herky-jerky and laggy at that point, it just became frustrating.

KT

 

[NoSoup4You]

Depends on the game, TF2 can be played just fine with a ~200ms ping and even higher. Pyro, Engineer and Medic lose almost nothing at those pings.

If you're playing a twitch game or in TF2 the Sniper class... you want at or under 125ms. Obviously the lower the better.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

<100 ms, >30 fps, let's rock

 

[rstrohkirch]

For tf2 and cs2 you really need to look at the servers actual in game tickrate on netgraph. I usually only play on one server and it's pretty consistent at 60+ with 32 players. When that server is busy I'll generally play on some others and it amazes me how many servers have issues even keeping it over 50. It'll sit there and cycle between 30-60 all the time which is horrible. This is way worse in my eyes then slightly higher ping.

 

[Stringjam]

I prefer < 100ms for Crysis Wars. Fortunately I'm usually ~90 on my favorite server.

I find it quite playable up to 200 ms, though I obviously prefer less.

 

[KeithTalent]

Depends on the game, TF2 can be played just fine with a ~200ms ping and even higher. Pyro, Engineer and Medic lose almost nothing at those pings.

If you're playing a twitch game or in TF2 the Sniper class... you want at or under 125ms. Obviously the lower the better.

I disagree, I kept losing track of the guys I was healing when the pings were spiking that high. It was very discombobulating.

KT

 

[makken]

under 80ms. I used to be able to tolerate 150 to 200ms back when most people still have dialup. Now whenever I get a spike to 120ms or above, everything becomes nearly unbearable.

Less than 100ms.

JStorm you are confusing FPS and lag. Why do people do that all the time..sheesh. Its bad enough hearing people complain in games "i'm lagging I skipping around" and everyone chimes in and say "get a better GPU". /end rant

I had a roommate that would refer to shutters and low FPS from the GPU not being able to keep up as "server-side lag"

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

For me with Unreal Tournament III, the servers show up at 16 ping

 

[minmaster]

150 or less

 

[motsm]

Depends on the game, with something like Quake Live where the net code is very precise, I like to find severs around 30, which isn't too challenging to find normally. In something like BFBC2 however, where the net code forgives pingers in the most annoying fashion, it doesn't really matter, as having a high ping can be an advantage.