any app to improve PING for online gaming?

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playing America's Army now, with cable connection (at last!!!)...but my PING rates are still pretty shaky, and fluctuate a lot.

any app ot there that can keep my PING low and steady...or is this completely dependent on my cable provider?

thanks!

[phoenix89]

Couldn't it be your computer that lags ...

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i don't think its the computer....

Athlon XP 1700
512MB Crucial PC2100
Radeon 8500
Epox 8KHA+
TBSC
30GB IBM 75GXP
WinXP Pro

[prince]

It basically depends on the distance between client/server, your computer and the the location of the game server. Where do u live?
Between a rock and a hard place

[BadBrain]

Could be alot of things.

1) I've never played this game. There is more than 1 server right? Most games come with an in-game server-browser than let you sort by ping (by clicking on ping). So sort by ping and only join games where it's less than 100.

2) Your system may not be optimized for broadband -- especially if you're using a Windows9x based operating system. Here are links to two great broadband sites:

The tools here:

Broadband reports

include a speed test (to make sure you're getting what you're paying for) and a tweak test that can tell you if theres something wrong in your settings.

This site:

http://www.speedguide.net/

is a great resource for tweaks and patches.

Both sites have alot of informative material.

[ItWuzCryptic]

Broadband tweaks won't help ping time. It's dependent on the network.

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Originally posted by ItWuzCryptic
Broadband tweaks won't help ping time. It's dependent on the network.

...i was afraid of that....

[grover]

Well, for one thing, there are no east coast official AAO servers. The "east" are actually midwest, IIRC. At any rate, the connections must be lousy, as I get better pings to the west coast most of the time.

As to the wild fluctuations, I think the ping is heavily dependant on what's happening in the game and is server dependant as well as connection dependant- you can watch the count go up and down, and on some servers, pings go into the seconds when one person too many joins.

Your ping in stat net also appears to be double- the ping shown in gamespy and in the game is always half that. So take that number and halve it to get your effective ping. At any rate, gameplay feels very smooth with pings between 100-200 (200-400 in stat net) and I have no problem shooting. Don't forget to lead your target- the projective weapons are highly accurate with so there is little tolerance for aiming where the guy was 2 tenths of a second ago... So, pray and spray, and spam those grenades!