Definitive Answer needed urgently.

Hellrazer

What are the best type of modems for gaming?
1.Serial modems.
2.Pci Modems.
3.Usb modems.
Makes and models would be appreciated but not 100% required.

Reason I ask is cos my crappy little Winmodem went belly up last night.And since Ive no hope of broadband yet(well I wont pay eircom what their asking)I need a good gaming modem.
Thx
Richie.

Saruman

not USB anyway... A good serial modem is your best bet.. but a PCI modem as long as its hardware will probably be slightly faster... though serials are easier to set up and you dont loose a pci slot!

Hellrazer

Thanks saruman.I had thought that serials were the better bet but was told different by someone else.
Are hardware modems better/more stable than winmodems?Also I thought that a serial port hadnt as much throughput as a PCI slot??
Thanks anyway.
Richie

flamegrill

A serial port has a max baud rate of 112,000 bps - your 56k mordem has a theoretical limit of 56,000 bps. therefore it doesnt matter. get a serial modem. I have a multi Tech 56k V.90 modem and its fantastic. pings are great- downloads are great.

if your phone line is crap there is no modem on the earth that can make a difference to you.

Quorthon

What flamegrill said - hardware modems are always better than winmodems - throughput is irrelevant as its well withing serial port capacity - I had an old ISA slot modem for years (with jumpers and everything (now show your age lads - who remembers jumpers???)) and it was outstanding.

Oh and if you are ever thinking of experimenting with Linux - winmodems are cack.

Q

Hellrazer

Phone lines seem ok,even with the crappy winmodem I was getting connects of 44,000-51,333.The problem was that the pings were fairly unstable(150 one minute and 600 the next),and download speeds were usually around 3k per sec which I believe is the winmodem using up cpu resources.
Saying that all I use my home PC for is online gaming,and a bit of surfing.

JustHalf

Flamegrill... I think that 56kbps is without compression, and the modem WILL compress the data heading into it. It's theoretically possible for you to get a connection speed higher than 56kbps on a 56k modem.

Kali

Saruman.. I'm wondering where this comment stems from: "not USB anyway"
Why not?

Quorthon - the majority of winmodems use some form of conexant chipset, drivers for which ARE available for linux.

leeroybrown

External serial modems are always good as they are pure hardware. They are also good for Linux use too.

PCI modems are mainly winmodems at the moment. If you do get one try to get a purely hardware one or if not a partially hardware one which does a large proportion of the work in hardware.

As for makes and models I'm not much of an expert.

Hellrazer

Thanks for the help you lot!So what I have learned is that I need a wholly hardware modem whether its PCI or Serial type.
And why not USB?Always thought USB modems were quite good.

SickBoy

I remember reading about USB modems when they first came out and they had some latency issues. They may be fixed now but perhaps this is what Saruman is referring too?

po0k

Was it John Carmack or Todd Hollinshead who said that winmodems such as the Lucent/Agere chipset (a HCF - Host Controller function as opposed to a HSF - Host signal fucntion or something) can give better through put, when drivers are written to take advantage of their situation?
If the ISP had similar hardware you could cut out the 50ms each side built-in to the current generation of modems - a throw back to the terminal access days where the client waited 50ms to get as much data (keystrokes generally) into one packet/burst.
This setup is fine for termianl programs, but woeful for streaming connections such as those used on the INTARW3B.
I think Apple had a World Port thing with acted like that. Pings were like ISDN, but bandwidth was that of a modem.
Throughput is the term that should be used to describe speed, as you can have all the bandwidth in the world, but had a minute or two of lag between each packet.

I have a Lucent 1646 'Mars' chipset "WinModem" - hardware DSP, controlelr less - host tells the DSP what it needs to do.
I get 3.4-3.7Kbit/sec downloads over my 31200bps cconnection (On a DACS line - bandwidth halved between us and our neighbours, ****e voice (and hence data) quality on the line).
I have pinged at 180 before.
Before I knew I was on a DACS line I went off and bought an external hardware modem with a Cirrus Logic chipset.
I got less choke and loss, but download rates were down (~2.5K) and ping was up (~250 from ~200-220).
Of course, the piece 'o shít things you get in OEM machines aren't worth a damn, but they are true winmodems, as the entire modulating and demodulating process is done by the host, where as my modem is Hybrid.

If anyone has a link to an rpm for mandrake 8.2 (2.4.x kernel i think) could they post it up?

Kali

SyxPak - this may help you regarding the rpm: http://www.mbsi.ca/cnxtlindrv/index.html

Inspector Gadget

...I'm slightly suspicious about Winmodems "outperforming" hardware modems, Syxpak...

The fact remains that Winmodems do depend utterly on getting clock cycles on an otherwise partially busy, although fast, CPU that they use to do much of the donkey work otherwise done by a dedicated hunk of silicon in the modem; the fact remains that a suitably-clocked dedicated local ASIC will outperform a much faster general-purpose CPU on the far end of a multi-purpose bus architecture that's generally doing a lot more than just servicing a modem.

The only issue remaining is how the data gets from the (serial) modem - considering that COM1 & COM3 (IIRC) share a memory address (3F8, if I can remember correctly while somewhat under the affluence of incohol) and (I think) crucially an interrupt, as do COM2 and COM4 - (my work PC, for example, uses IRQ 4 exclusively for COM1/3 and IRQ 3 for COM2/4) - is relevant here.

Or am I oversimplifying matters? Maybe I'm just one of those people who doesn't want a "legacy-free" PC - serial ports, particularly, being useful for electronics meddling, I don't know.

Gadget
P.S.> I thought it was only Rockwell/Conexant who flagged their modems as HCF/HSF? As someone who only has an (unused) Lasat Safire 560V Voice serial modem, it's not my field of expertise...

Hellrazer

Syxpak.My current modem which I got working is also a lucent 1646 mars chipset.What drivers are you using?And also what firmware version.I d/l 5.92 and 8.22 today but they slowed everything right down.i eventually went back to 5.34 and everything seems to be ok.

phaxx

I have an External Diamond Speedstar 56e, serial, I paid £120 punt for it three years ago, was a huge amount for me at the time, and I still think it's the best piece of equipment I have ever bought!

Steady 5.x /sec on downloads from good servers, pings are from 150-200, and that's including the overhead of my ****ty network here, and it going through the server and all that, could shave a few ms off that if I used it in my workstation.

Anyway... excellent modem, if you see one, snap it up quickly.

(it's big, blue, has eight leet red leds on it. go diamond! )

Hellrazer

Ok I bought a PCI "hardware"modem(on a sale or return basis) yesterday which has actually turned out to be worse than my old winmodem.So I did a google search and it turns out that most Pci hardware modems are actually"hybrid" modems.The data pump is on the modem but it still uses cpu clock cycles for data processing.My pings have gone up by roughly 100ms and even when I try to ping my Isp(all 4 of them) in Dos in the 3&4 return the ping jumps to 2145 or there abouts.I have tried different init strings,reg tweaks etc but still having probs.So if anyone is still saying that pci is the way to go then please find me a make and model which is wholly hardware.I dont think that I would trust another internal modem again.And before you ask have I removed the old winmodem properly-yes I have.I have even tried older drivers for this Hybrid jobbie.
In the meantime if anyone has a decent serial external modem 56k/v90 then PM me with the details and Ill gladly take it off your hands as my crappy winmodem has fu<ked up again.I think its gone for good this time.
Thanks
Richie.

KdjaCL

I have 2 Winmodems(1 PCI ,1 ISA with jumpers) and Supramax Pro 56k.
I managed to get avg 250 ping on this server
199.103.180.11:12203 (mohaa Clan server in Boston)
1stly with the winmodems i was getting decent pings to USA servers.Then i got the Supramax ,i found by using this website and some russian guys lil program i got great pings .
www.56k.com
808hi.com
Loads of init strings and one worked well for me.
Now i have DSL.
I paid €150 for the supramax not so long ago and it is brilliant.
Try and tweak what you have before you buy another.
there is a lot of HCF,HSF tweaks on those websites.
But that russian program you have to pay to login into the website its a free program but they charge for dloading drivers.
not sure how they get away with it but i have the program and can email it its very small.
Kdja

Hellrazer

Ok KDJA I just got my self a us robotics/3com external serial hardware modem for €45.00 so Ill give it atry when I get home from work.
BTW I d/l different programs,tweaked like f**k,tried everything possible to get my old modem connecting faster than it was.The ping were low but not stable.200 one minute and then 600 the next.Theres no way you can have any type of enjoyable experience with that type instability.
Also which modem did you find better the supra max or the winmodems.You can also mail that file to me if you dont mind.Ill send you my e-mail address by PM.
Thanks.
Richie