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How to Get Lag-Free Games on Xbox Live
We all hate laggy games—and Xbox Live has been a huge step forward in reducing the suffering. Sadly, it’s still possible to get into a laggy game, and we often find gamers who don’t understand why that is… after all, Xbox Live is a broadband gaming service, right? Right. But having broadband just means that the “road” the data follows when coming to your house is bigger—but not infinitely so. Think of the Internet as a freeway that’s completely covered by a close-hugging tunnel. Then think of your broadband connection to the Internet as a freeway exit. This is a bit of an odd freeway exit, though. The offramp leading to your house could be six lanes wide, and the onramp leading from your house to the Internet might be a small one-lane road. This is because broadband connections are often asymmetric—that is, not of equal size/speed in both directions. The larger offramp leading to your house means you can get much more information sent to your house than you can send out yourself (remember that one-lane road?). This is why you can download files much more quickly with your cable or DSL modem than you can upload. Different games have different bandwidth characteristics. One game sending data might be the equivalent of an eighteen-wheeler driving up or down your exit, while another might be a small, zippy motorcycle. In order to avoid laggy games, you need to make sure that the roadway you are using has the capacity to handle the traffic. Now, when an Xbox is acting as a host for a game, that game needs to send data to everyone who is playing. The onramp from your house to the Internet (or the upstream channel) is the limiting factor here. Let’s use that one-lane onramp we discussed earlier. Sending a little bit of information from your game is like using motorcycles to deliver packages—by using multiple motorcycles, you will be able to send information to a lot more players than you might if you were playing a game that was sending bigger packages that needed a big, eighteen-wheeler truck to deliver them. (Remember that tight tunnel? You can imagine a few motorcycles fitting in a single lane at the same time and having more room to maneuver, while the truck might take an entire lane, and might even occasionally scrape the roof!) Unfortunately, getting a lag-free game isn’t quite as easy as just picking bandwidth-efficient games to play (ones that use motorcycles). You also have to deal with latency, or the “lag” of information being delivered. An unfortunate aspect of the Internet is that the roads that your traffic will follow are highly variable in quality. Imagine driving cross-country down a nice, smooth, six-lane asphalt freeway at the speed limit when, suddenly, it turns into a rutted dirt road with potholes. You’ve driven this route a million times before, and it’s always been reliable—but not today, and you can tell your delivery is going to be delayed. This, in a nutshell, is lag—a delay in getting information delivered. The road might suddenly get a little better, or it might not. Either way, there’s a bit of a random factor that’s completely outside of your control that affects the speed and reliability of data delivery to your home. (And remember, this is a separate issue than the number and width of lanes of the onramp from your house!) The point here is that there are factors that are outside ofanyone’s control (including Xbox Live) that can affect the quality of an online game. However, there are some things you can do to increase the chances of finding a smooth game. The single biggest trick to finding a lag-free game is to make sure that the game host has either A) a high-speed up stream connection (a six-lane onramp from the house to the Internet) that can handle lots of traffic of all types, or B) is hosting a game with only the maximum amount of traffic that’s recommended. A common problem we see is that people often try to host a game for more people than are recommended by the game. The result is that their Internet onramp gets congested, information doesn’t flow smoothly to (and from) other players in the game, and everyone involved experiences a laggy game.
Tips for Finding Good Games
First, look for games that have a good connection. This is the equivalent of having a wide open freeway. Some games show this with a green bar, and some show it with a row of green dots (versus yellow or red, which show poorer connections). The trick is to make sure you don’t join games that show yellow or red bars or dots. Yellow may work, but it’s riskier, and red will almost certainly lag. Second, look for games where the host hasn’t overridden the recommended number of players. Some early games don’t show you this, and unfortunately you’ll have to just jump in to a game with a good (green) connection to find out whether the server is good. However, once you’ve found a good server, add it to your Friends list! If you want to host games, it obviously helps to have a lot of upstream bandwidth. Some ISPs will give you more upstream bandwidth for a small monthly charge. You may want to contact them to see if they’re able to upgrade you. Barring this, there are some simple things you can do to help ensure quality games for everyone.
Tips for Hosting Good Games
The most important thing you can do is to not override the game’s recommended settings for number of players in a game. This is far and away the biggest cause of laggy games. In addition, games often have settings that allow you to help configure the game session such that it might be less laggy. Here are some suggestions for hosting specific games: Ghost Recon: Be aware that the different game modes support dramatically different numbers of people that can play, even if your upstream bandwidth remains the same. This is because the different game modes have different amounts of game data they send.
Don’t change the “Server Speed” slider (on the “Page 3” tab of Create Game). If it’s set to slow, leave it there, since the game has detected that your upstream channel isn’t very fast. Remember, if you set it to high, you haven’t actually changed the upstream speed (that is, added lanes to the onramp)—you’ve only put up a sign that erroneously tells people you have a fast upstream channel (or six-lane freeway). Unreal Championship: Don’t override the recommended setting for number of players.
Questions and Answers
Q. OK, I understand that my connection to the Internet can have different speeds in each direction. How can I find out how fast my connection is?
Q. What do the other numbers on the screen mean?
The “L:” entry is latency, or the average “lag” your Xbox is seeing when connecting to Xbox Live. Bear in mind that the number you see here is measuring the speed of the connection from your Xbox to one of the Xbox datacenters on the West Coast of the U.S.A. If you're connecting from Europe, Japan, or elsewhere in the world, this number is likely to be pretty high. Don’t worry, though—your game always knows where to find the closest game host or datacenter. The “P:” entry is ping, a network term for a test that sends test packets to a location and sees how many get through. A high number (such as 20 of 20) is good; this means that your connection to Xbox Live is good. Don’t worry if a few packets get lost—that’s common. (Remember how the freeway changes suddenly?) One thing to note is that the latency and ping numbers refer only to your connection to Xbox Live. Your connection to other gamers’ Xbox consoles could be very different. Good numbers here don’t necessarily guarantee a good game with other people, but they help. At least you know that your overall connection to the Internet is working, and that the Xbox Live data being sent to/from your Xbox is being sent reliably.
Q. Why do there seem to be more servers and less lag in the PC gaming world?
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