What is online gaming and what do I need to know?
When you get on the Internet and play a game against someone else, that's online gaming! In my opinion, It is the greatest use of the Internet. It's entertainment galore! We all know just how popular video games are. Online gaming is where it all is headed. Why play against a computer when you can "frag" your friends online!?! (frag =kill). You can even frag absolute strangers when your friends are not around!
Okay, so how does this work? Well, since you are at our web site, you are already online. Good. You have weaned yourself away from the puny console gaming machine and are ready to take on some real action! But first, you will need to get a grip on some basic concepts.
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The Need for Speed
Online, there are three major factors that influence a game's performance. Connection speed, Internet load, and host speed. I will call this collectively the "latency." How fast you connect to your Internet Service Provider (ISP) and how fast they connect to the Internet is the first. Internet load is how fast the Internet is at any given time is dependent on the volume of traffic online. And finally, the host speed refers to connection speed of the machine(s) that you are ultimately connected to on the other end.
Don't Be A Lagger
Now you need to be able to measure this latency. This is easy. There are these things called "pings" and "packet loss." If you are in Windows 95, you might have a program called Ping.exe in your "C:\Windows" directory. Use ping.exe to measure the time it takes a packet (a small bundle of information) to travel from your machine to another computer's IP address and back again. If you want to play shooting games, you can understand why you would be interested in knowing this. The travel time is called a "ping" and it is measured in milliseconds (ms). You will need less than a 600 ms ping to have a decent game. Cable modems rock with ping times of fewer than 100 milliseconds. A 28.8 modem should get between a 200-500 ms ping, and a 14.4 modem gets between 500-1000 ms. The lower the ping, the better the gameplay, and the more players you can successfully challenge.
Packet loss is simply the percentage of a ping's packet that gets lost on the Internet between the two IP's. If you get 25 percent or greater, you have a bad connection, even if your pings are great. Usually, you should get under 20 percent packet loss; but what you want is something under 5 percent. Your ping.exe can also measure this.
How Do I Use ping.exe?
From your Windows 95 desktop, make a shortcut to "C:\windows\ping.exe?" The question mark tells Windows 95 to prompt you for an IP address. Download this zipped file to get it working correctly. You can get a better ping utility program to evaluate at ipswitch.com.
How do I know my IP?
You can run the "winipcfg" from your start menu!
What do I do to start playing?
Usually you need to subscribe to a service (see below), but more and more games come with free Internet support. Games like Heavy Gear by Activision and Diablo by Blizzard both have free Internet gaming built in. All of the games with free Internet gaming use Windows95. Several gaming services use Windows95 and DOS. A few to consider are:
| SERVICE |
COST |
OPERATING SYSTEMS |
| Kali |
$20 initial registration.
Unlimited use. |
Windows 95, DOS |
| Mplayer |
Free for some games, $29/yr. for unlimited games. |
Windows 95 |
| Dwango |
$7.95/month for 5 hours.
Additional time costs extra. |
Windows 95, DOS |
| TEN |
Rate plans - hourly |
Windows 95 |
Who is online?
EVERYONE! Mostly males between 18-35, but hey those are the gamers of the world. Plus, more and more women are kicking butt online! Ever get fragged by a chick? If you haven't, you will!
Where are the games found?
There are usually about 2000-4000 people on Kali playing almost every game you can think of. There are game servers and services for all budgets. It is safe to say that all of the online gaming services have good technology now. You can't go wrong, but I use Kali.
How do I keep from getting my butt kicked?
Well, HELLO, you have to know how to play and you need to know how the Internet affects gameplay. With the information about latency, you are ahead of the pack. So, apply this knowledge. If you shoot someone, sometimes it takes a fraction of a second for the damage info to reach his or her computer. Some games send damage packets to your enemy's computer that say, "You're hurt" and some send out packages that say, "If this packet hits you, then you are hurt." This impacts gameplay dramatically. If you are playing against someone who is severely lagged, it means that you must shoot where the enemy will be, not necessarily where he is. Get it? Now you are ready . . .
Can I make a living at this?
Well maybe not yet, but hopefully someday! In the mean time, you can find me online and take your chances... Ultimate Gamer holds tournaments. Come get some!
Did I already say be sure to check out the tournament page!?!
What is 3Dfx?
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