I think I will be in another locale for a few weeks with somewhat limited Internet...but don't know. So wondering how demanding on internet and wireless internet is this going to be?
Thinking I may have to wait until back in my place for better internet?
Thoughts?
@2042onthemove Not very demanding.
As long as you can maintain even a reliable 5Mbps down / 1 Mbps upload connection, that should be sufficient to run Battlefield 2042. In short, most modern ISPs and wireless networks these days will be fine, so I would be more concerned with data limits.
I base this partially on assumption and partially on the research by BattleNonsense on Battlefield V bandwidth measurements:
https://youtu.be/8Kvj5TZNNJ4
Since there will be a greater quantity of players and other in-game objects per map, I would expect a corresponding increase in the needed bandwidth to play Battlefield 2042 comfortably.
Use wired connexion, that way, you internet will perform at its best.
Wifi can cause some lags and interruptions, especially if you use a wifi adapter on your PC.
@Player55 wrote:Use wired connexion, that way, you internet will perform at its best.
Wifi can cause some lags and interruptions, especially if you use a wifi adapter on your PC.
Fully agreed @Player55 ,
Any FPS game should absolutely not be played through a WiFi connection!
Even with a great home WiFi setup, you will always have a high variation of latency and especially inbound package losses. These two issues are like toxic to a good game experience. Both for the player himself/herself but also to all his enemies in the gameplay.
Same btw for the players thinking about using a 3G or 4G connection.
Please don't.
Both for WiFi and 3G/4G, your average line speeds might be fantastic and all, but the quality of the line is simply not supportive of FPS gaming, due to the nature of the technology which allows/causes high latency variations and frequent package loss.
Hard wiring all the way, is the way to go!
Eeeh, little less clear cut than some make it out to be, though it's arguably correct you'll have the lowest latency on a wired connection, *all other factors being equal*.
If your ISP is a satellite ISP for instance, it won't make much difference if you've got fiber between your router and PC at home, or if your ISP has you on gigabit fiber but your traceroute shows that your traffic is being bounced via the parent company of said ISP 7 countries away before routing it to it's intended destination adding a nice 80ms via a comical amount of hops, it doesn't matter than your home lan is 10gbit capable/all wired/packet traffic prioritized.
(i've changed ISPs in the past due to the last scenario)
You can do just fine on 4g/5g (especially the latter) if that's your dedicated gaming connection for instance, provided your routing setup is either dedicated to just you or at least some kind of QoS set up to prioritize your gaming device packets.
It's never quite as simple as "wired is best", though as others have stated and i said at the start, yea, all other things being equal then you'd be better off wired, but it's not the end of the world if that's not an option nor is 4g/5g/wifi "bad" for gaming, it's just not "the best if you can throw money at the problem".
Some 5g peddlers claim (and i emphasize claim here, as the 5g provider in my area certainly can't provide it) to provide wireless house broadband with 5ms latency to the backend, at which point you're generally better off than your average coax broadband provider.
Again though, still have to add latency between your home router and the gaming device, or in the OPs case, whatever his access point is while away.
Been a while since i needed to, but i've used my phone as a travel-AP plenty of times because the hotel net was garbage with both 3g/4g/5g, it works "fine". Not optimal, but certainly better than random hotel networks unless you pay for the business options some provide.(and even then it might be better latency-wise).
4g and up my "oh i absolutely need a dedicated gfx card, you know, for presentations" laptop has been more of an issue than the network connection tbh.
@CyberDymeGaming through wireless connections is done all the time and is only going to grow. How else would mobile gaming have grown so rapidly?
@2042onthemovespecifically asked about the demands of wireless internet. TCP/IP connections over any medium, but in this case a IEEE 802.11 or TDMA, CDMA, etc. standard, are self-repairing and self-correcting. Packet-loss can still occur, but this is usually only if the signal quality / strength is very poor or low and even then, the connection is more likely to be dropped entirely.
To your point though, wired connections should be preferred in general due to its more secure and reliable physical media, if @2042onthemove is able to facilitate that connection. Many laptop vendors these days are dropping wired NICs in favor of built-in wireless adapters, so it may require purchasing something like a USB-to-Ethernet adapter.
Again, my original post provided one potential answer and it is still valid based on the information provided.
Sorry @carsono311 ,
I will politely have to disagree with regards to playing a FPS game like the BF2042 over WiFi or 3G/4G !
Your claim is valid @carsono311 , that more and more games are working perfectly fine on mobile, through WiFi and 3G/4G. But the distinct difference is here that those games are made specifically with the severe communication protocol weaknesses in mind that are directly linked to the WiFi and 3G/4G data protocols.
Why do you think that a special group is established within EA to make a specific BF version for the mobile device world? If you now think its perfectly fine anyway to play the full BF2042 game on the same network infrastructure? Aka there is no insurance of that packages are received and then ordered into correct sequence upon arrival. And the assigned data buffers are proportionally small and drop the previous packages upon receiving newer ones when buffer maxes out. Resulting in severe rubberbanding and missing hit registrations!
For doing your emails, browsing internet pages, watching NetFlix etc is all absolutely perfectly fine through those data protocols. As all those applications are not time critical in same way and also have built in many seconds of data buffering to restore the full stream in correct data packat order before projecting to the user. But for FPS purpose, absolutely not OK.
I am OK that technology improves every single day. And one day it will work sufficiently well also for gaming like BF2042. But as of today, we are still not there. And I do have empathy for the folks not having access potentially to a local wired ISP connection to their location. Matter of fact is though, the gaming experience, especially for all their counterpart enemies in the game is poor as a result. So can it work in some few exceptional cases, yes probably yes. Is it the norm to work well. No, far from it.
Seeing the player's latency, variation and packet loss on the scoreboard should in any case be an absolute must-have in BF2042.
And I would prefer to let the hard data be the decider if any player is adequately connected to play on a given server. And there I dont care about how they are connected. Aka I also recognize that also wired connections can at times be terrible poor, so reason why I recommend EA enables the judgement to be objectively data driven.
@CyberDyme wrote:... Aka there is no insurance of that packages are received and then ordered into correct sequence upon arrival. And the assigned data buffers are proportionally small and drop the previous packages upon receiving newer ones when buffer maxes out. Resulting in severe rubberbanding and missing hit registrations! ...
I must again point out the error detection and correction capabilities of TCP/IP:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Error_detection_and_correction
Applications -> Internet
The packets should be processed at such a rate to make a buffer unnecessary. If anything a buffer would be the culprit for increases in latency or "lag".
I think ultimately, we are in agreement that gaming over wireless networks is certainly possible and even competitive with wired connections, but overall not as reliable due to a variety of factors.
OK @carsono311 ,
I pulled out some supporting data from UK technical report last year on the mobile networks...
Trust you see here that 3G is with a terrible high latency as baseline for any case of FPS gaming.
Next both 3G and 4G have terrible high levels of jitter. (Latency variation) Which is actually much worse than high latency on its own, as the server has to reset the connection speeds to the client non stop and then again and again... Its the jitter that is an intricate part of the technology and their data protocols. And reason why they are still not good enough for our realtime FPS gaming.
Last but not least, look at the average packet loss.
Absolutely not acceptable for FPS gaming.
This really depends on your setup.
I've played for years on wireless on my desktop (couldn't get an ethernet cable going), but the adapter had 3 antennas and just very good reach.
@CyberDymeSince you are focusing on cellular data networks (CDMA, LTE, etc.) here, I will agree with you.
I do not recommend playing any game requiring a broadband connection over a cellular data network through a hotspot. For all the reasons you listed.
Since @2042onthemove did not specify what kind of wireless will be in use, your concerns are justified. I was merely pointing out the possibility and feasibility of using wireless internet, not what is most optimal or not.
