It’s no secret that video games take up a huge amount of bandwidth when played online. It’s often one of the most bandwidth intensive things that you can do. This means that the current level of bandwidth availability from Internet provider companies might not be enough. This brings up the question as to whether the spread of a fiber optic network could change the game forever.
Controversy
A lot of people are debating these days whether fiber optic or cable is better for gaming. A lot of people are saying that it really just depends on the quality of the line. You need to have a certain speed and this is what really determines gaming suitability. If the cable speed is only at like somewhere under 1 MBps, then it isn’t going to be suitable. And if the ping is really high, this is also going to be a problem. But, alternatively, if you have a cable network that has a high speed like 25-50 MBps, then it could be OK even though it’s not the highest it could be as opposed to other networks like fiber optic. So this is an important thing to consider.
Speed
However, it is true that fiber optics often have a much higher potential speed than other options. So the big thing could be whether the bandwidth required to play games continually rises. After all, graphics and computing speed are growing at an exponential pace thanks to Moore’s Law, and traditionally this has meant that more of a strain occurs on networks. This strain in turn means that there’s an economic push for faster and faster networks. As a result, people tend to shift to those networks that can handle it the best in order to make sure that they can play the best new games that come out without having any additional problems. After all, the technical ability to play games isn’t much good if there are huge lag problems when you play. Lag can really ruin games and fiber could be the solution to this lag problem.
PC on the Rise
Another important thing to consider is that the traditional lag and graphic card bottlenecks of PC gaming could be what’s keeping PC gaming from really taking off. This is because one of the PC advantages is the fact that you can download games directly to your PC using services such as Steam. But if games are too big to make this feasible, than people might be turned off by it. But, with faster speeds the advantage is that you may be able to download games considerably faster than what was feasible beforehand.. Instead of taking half a day to download a big game, you may be able to do it in just a few hours, or even minutes for networks that are fast enough. For example, the new proposed Google Fiber network is supposed to be 100 times faster than traditional broadband network speeds. This will give you high definition TV that’s completely crystal clear, but it will also give you gaming that is completely smooth and seamless.
Affording Ultra High Speed
It’s true that ultrahigh speed Internet connections may be a bit expensive in the future, sine a lot of it is experimental. You can use broadband coupons to get more expensive broadband to match fiber networks until then though, and this will likely serve as a sort of bridge solution until the networks are here. The Google one, for example, is still only being tried out in a few cities like Kansas City and it may be a while until it’s available everywhere in an affordable way.
