The Glade 4.0

So, we think we've found a place that we want to move. From the pictures we've got, it looks to be out in the middle of a forest in the mountains. So, I'm assuming we won't be able to get DLS or Cable internet and will have to settle for satellite. Latency is going to be a pretty big problem, won't it? Just how bad are we talking, though? 1 second latency? More? Less? Will it totally destroy the online gaming experience?

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Los Angeles Kings 2014 Stanley Cup Champions

"I love this **** team right here."
-Jonathan Quick

Anecdotal, perhaps, and I've not ever looked into satellite internet, but a friend who is a big online gamer who also lives in the middle of nowhere has tried satellite internet on multiple occasions, and it was completely useless for gaming. Based on her calls to the provider, it was something about how the service worked.

YMMV, of course; just throwing out the only experience with it that I have.

You're talking latencies in the 1 second+ range, for sure. Having essentially a 2-second round-trip latency will render you completely unable to play pretty much any game except for turn-based strategy games. You'd experience input delays on movement, thus running off cliffs, into walls, and past enemies you didn't see. You would have a delay in ability use (shooting in FPSes, spell use in MMOs, etc.) that would automatically tack on 2 seconds to all your cooldowns, and unless the game supports queueing of abilities (like CoX does, for instance), an unavoidable 2 seconds tacked onto any global cooldown or firing animation sort of deal as your computer waits for confirmation that the ability's allowed to fire, and then the client initiates the standard global cooldown.

So, yeah. You're better off on dial-up for gaming. Best solution I can suggest is that maybe gaming on dial-up, and patching on satellite would work beneficially.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

This...makes me sad. I hope there is some other option available...but if this is what I have to deal with, I'll have to deal with it.

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Los Angeles Kings 2014 Stanley Cup Champions

"I love this **** team right here."
-Jonathan Quick

If there's decent cell coverage, you may be able to get the Sprint EVDO, or some other carrier's equivalent type. Or you could always start your local co-op, get a line in from somebody and split it out to your neighbors via wireless.

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clearwire.

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Holy shitsnacks!

Lisa's (my GF) mother and step father have satellite internet and they have to wait until after 2am to do any downloading or data transfer because they are limited to 200 Megs a day or else the internet provider cuts them off for 24 hours. Of course they are 25 miles north of Kingman, there closest neighbor is a wayward Dingo that I am convinced Amdee has hunting me down.

Whatever plan that is; avoid it like the plague. Otherwise I have no information to contribute.

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Darksiege
Traveller, Calé, Whisperer
Lead me not into temptation; for I know a shortcut

Yeah, I forgot to mention the cell coverage as a potentially viable option.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

What they said. My parents have lived for years where there is no terrestrial broadband at all. They've been using Hughes - it's for web browsing and email, that's it. It's useless for anything where latency is an issue. You might even take a look at (don't laugh) ISDN, if cell reception is shoddy. If there's a CO somewhere out there, they might be in range of it... not really predicated so much on actual distance as on attenuation, so line quality plays a role and if it's some backwater copper wire, you can probably forget it, but anyway it might be worth pursuing if all else fails. Dual channel ISDN will still beat the tar out of dialup, and you could even go nuts and think about muxing a couple BRIs or something

My younger brother still lives with our parents, and they have satellite internet. Whenever I've visited at home and we've played games online, there is at least a 1 second delay. FPS are impossible, MMO's can be done, but it's tricky. Much hate for the satellite internet. (Thank god my house has Comcast business class.)

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"I've got twenty ways to tell you shut the f*ck up / nineteen of them are twenty-four bars long / the other one goes: SHUT THE F*CK UP" - Aesop Rock
"There is no God higher than truth." -- Gandhi
Formerly: Tulamian