What's an acceptable ping time ?

[Fatboy40]

This may be a bit of a silly question, like how long is a piece of string

For running applications over the Internet, such as a VPN or gaming, woudl would you consider to be an acceptable ping time ?.

For example using using speedtest.net I get a ping of between 25 and 60ms from 'London'. I can game online fine and VPN connections (e.g. to work) never drop a beat.

I've friends and work colleagues, who whilst in other countries get ping times of over 500ms to the 'London' point of presence on the speedtest website.

Personaly I don't like a ping over 200 odd ms. A ping of over 500ms must be the kiss of death for using a VPN or gaming ?.

[peterb]

It depends on thge route, and the response time of the server. I get a ping time of about .5ms (500microseconds) from my computer to my webserver! (same network!)

25ms isn't bad for a London destination - tracert will give you an estimation of the route and the transit time between hops.

[Lourdes]

Well all I can say is the lower the better and there isn't really a point where you get no further advantage,

[Fatboy40]

Well all I can say is the lower the better and there isn't really a point where you get no further advantage,

Well that's a given, but how high can they go before you'd want to say forget trying to run a VPN ?.

Personaly I'm inclined to say anything over 300ms and there's going to be trouble ?.

[Agent]

A VPN isn't really ping sensitive though. Sure, its a PITA waiting for things, but its not like its going to not work due to higher latency.

Gaming on the other hand....

[dave87]

When I used to play CS my average ping on a UK server was between 10-20ms. Some of the better servers would often put me into single figures (woo for being a LPB).

It became unplayable at 100-120ms, but mainly due to the associated packet loss

[Fatboy40]

A VPN isn't really ping sensitive though. Sure, its a PITA waiting for things, but its not like its going to not work due to higher latency.

Hmm, I was presuming that high pings/latency would cripple a VPN ?

There has to be a point though where you would say 'sod it, you can't run a VPN over that !' ?.

[moogle]

For gaming you should try and keep your pings under 100 id say. Best have them in the 20's - 50's. Although I found playing Americas Army (all US servers) I could play and still own on pings of up to 160

ping www.jolt.co.uk, if you got a good connection to it you should get 20ms - 30ms off it.

[MSIC]

Playing Battlefield 2, i always screen out any server pings more than 100.
That generally seems to work for me.

[moogle]

Playing Battlefield 2, i always screen out any server pings more than 100.
That generally seems to work for me.

lucky you, cod4's server browser is sucky

[Lourdes]

As far as gaming is concerned I quite happily competed in the North American CAL leagues for BF2 with a ping of 80-120. Of course when I'd play on UK servers with a ping of 7-10ms it was certainly a whole lot nicer but so long as things are stable you can manage with higher latencies.