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Paying for the 'pro' gaming upgrade option is it worth it ?

hertsmas
Newbie
Posts: 5
Registered: ‎24-10-2011

Paying for the 'pro' gaming upgrade option is it worth it ?

LO all ,
I have just requested a migrate over to Plusnet and signed up for the gaming upgrade for the extra 5 pounds monthly so thats 22.22 a month and for that I am hoping for decent pings as i dont do much else thats 'heavy' with my broadband.
I am always a little sceptical of such claims and my old ISP did provide low pings so I'm doubly sceptical.
My question is do any of you have this option and have you genuinely found it makes any difference. I'm hopeing that it does.
My own setup is a 3 to 3.4 meg line synch and I play BFBC2 ( soon to be BF3 of course) with local server pings ( on decent servers)
of 26 to 28 and then elsewhere they vary greatly of course.
See you on the battlefield
Mas
14 REPLIES 14
jelv
Seasoned Hero
Posts: 26,785
Thanks: 971
Fixes: 10
Registered: ‎10-04-2007

Re: Paying for the 'pro' gaming upgrade option is it worth it ?

The Pro option will make no difference to your pings (it's not meant to).
If the game is listed here Pro will make no difference to playing games. It WILL make a difference if you play games not on that list or when new versions of games come out that require signature updates. It will also make a difference when downloading updates to any games.
jelv (a.k.a Spoon Whittler)
   Why I have left Plusnet (warning: long post!)   
Broadband: Andrews & Arnold Home::1 (FTTC 80/20)
Line rental: Pulse 8 Home Line Rental (£14.40/month)
Mobile: iD mobile (£4/month)
hertsmas
Newbie
Posts: 5
Registered: ‎24-10-2011

Re: Paying for the 'pro' gaming upgrade option is it worth it ?

What are you serious !,    it is clearly advertised as prioritising your gaming traffic and particularly if the game is listed with Plusnet, you seem to be suggesting the opposite I.E it will only help if the game isnt listed.
As for not lowering your pings , what the hooj is prioritising game traffic if it doesnt lower the ping ?

A direct lift from Plusnets website :

For gamers
Priority is given to gaming
traffic, meaning your favourite
games will run faster and
smoother


Please tell me how a game runs faster without lower pings Huh  , I havnt even migrated over yet and alarm bells are ringing already
Not wishing to be rude but this is important to me , I think someone needs to clarify if you are right or if the people selling the 'upgrade' are right please.
Regards
Mas
jelv
Seasoned Hero
Posts: 26,785
Thanks: 971
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Registered: ‎10-04-2007

Re: Paying for the 'pro' gaming upgrade option is it worth it ?

Pro lifts the unlisted games to the same priority as the listed games which are already given priority on all account types.
Pro also gives higher priority and faster speeds on other protocols. See http://www.plus.net/support/broadband/speed_guide/download_speeds.shtml and the How is traffic prioritised section of http://www.plus.net/support/broadband/speed_guide/traffic_management.shtml
jelv (a.k.a Spoon Whittler)
   Why I have left Plusnet (warning: long post!)   
Broadband: Andrews & Arnold Home::1 (FTTC 80/20)
Line rental: Pulse 8 Home Line Rental (£14.40/month)
Mobile: iD mobile (£4/month)
jelv
Seasoned Hero
Posts: 26,785
Thanks: 971
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Registered: ‎10-04-2007

Re: Paying for the 'pro' gaming upgrade option is it worth it ?

Quote from: hertsmas
As for not lowering your pings , what the hooj is prioritising game traffic if it doesnt lower the ping ?

Ping time is principally dependent upon the physical distance the packets have to travel and the connection speed of the line (that's why stateside servers have higher pings than European servers). When there is contention, either on your link or the wider Plusnet links it is managed by selectively dropping packets, packets with lower priority are dropped first. That's why Plusnet's prioritisation of gaming traffic benefits gamers.
jelv (a.k.a Spoon Whittler)
   Why I have left Plusnet (warning: long post!)   
Broadband: Andrews & Arnold Home::1 (FTTC 80/20)
Line rental: Pulse 8 Home Line Rental (£14.40/month)
Mobile: iD mobile (£4/month)
hertsmas
Newbie
Posts: 5
Registered: ‎24-10-2011

Re: Paying for the 'pro' gaming upgrade option is it worth it ?

Thank you for pointing out to me that ping times are dependent on travelled distance , I would
though have to mention that an ISP has some control over how traffic is routed as you I'm sure know very well  Smiley
I don't agree with everything that you have posted but most definately did not come on to the forum for an argument.
As a result , I think I'll just wait and see if my gaming experience stays as good as it is at the moment or if it goes downhill.
If it does i'll just be a very short lived customer and swallow the 25 pounds loss.
Cheers
Mas
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Paying for the 'pro' gaming upgrade option is it worth it ?

Edit : Deleted what I said because 'hertsmas' completely reworded their previous reply, so my original wording no longer made sense in the context of the thread.  Crazy
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Paying for the 'pro' gaming upgrade option is it worth it ?

Edit : Deleted this too as I can't be bothered any more with this repeatedly edited thread  Crazy
jelv
Seasoned Hero
Posts: 26,785
Thanks: 971
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Registered: ‎10-04-2007

Re: Paying for the 'pro' gaming upgrade option is it worth it ?

Quote from: hertsmas
Thank you for pointing out to me that ping times are dependent on travelled distance , I would
though have to mention that an ISP has some control over how traffic is routed as you I'm sure know very well   Smiley

They have no control on the part of the route that matters which is between your PC and the Plusnet gateway which is over the BT network (that is the part that is mainly affected by the priority the ISP gives to traffic). For most UK servers you will find that from where you connect to the ISPs gateway to the server only adds a handful of milliseconds whereas from you to the ISP will typically be in the low teens and upwards. You can see that if you do a tracert or pathping to a server (pathping is better as you get the average over a large number of packets).
Providing the ISP has sufficient capacity on their peering links you shouldn't see a lot of difference between ISPs from when it leaves the ISPs network.
jelv (a.k.a Spoon Whittler)
   Why I have left Plusnet (warning: long post!)   
Broadband: Andrews & Arnold Home::1 (FTTC 80/20)
Line rental: Pulse 8 Home Line Rental (£14.40/month)
Mobile: iD mobile (£4/month)
hertsmas
Newbie
Posts: 5
Registered: ‎24-10-2011

Re: Paying for the 'pro' gaming upgrade option is it worth it ?

" The Pro option will make no difference to your pings (it's not meant to) "     versus    " Low latency & quick ping times : More chance to keep the upper hand over your opponents"  
Either someone is having a little laugh and these two statements contradict each other or my understanding of the written word is not what I thought it was.
If the part that mattered was just the BT part then we would all get roughly the same speed and quality of connection from our very different ISP's.
Of course we don't all get the same service do we as all ISP's are different.  We rely on how an ISP's customers use that ISP capacity and how that ISP use traffic management , prioritisation , shaping etc to cope. This use of traffic/capacity management proves how important the ISP part of the route is , otherwise ISP's wouldn't bother would they.
And whilst we're here ! who says the part that matters most is from my house to the Plusnet gateway thas just not true.  I give up .......................................
rongtw
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Re: Paying for the 'pro' gaming upgrade option is it worth it ?

I game regular every day  Wink BC2 soon bf3  Cool and have tried the pro add on ,, and in my case it made no difference to my gaming at all  Cry
Asus ROG Hero Vii Z97 , Intel i5 4690k ,ROG Asus Strix 1070,
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jelv
Seasoned Hero
Posts: 26,785
Thanks: 971
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Registered: ‎10-04-2007

Re: Paying for the 'pro' gaming upgrade option is it worth it ?

Quote from: hertsmas
If the part that mattered was just the BT part then we would all get roughly the same speed and quality of connection from our very different ISP's.

Not true. What is crucial is whether the ISP has bought enough capacity from BT to support all it's customers and how well they manage the usage to prevent heavy downloading by other users affecting the experience of gaming, VoIP etc.
jelv (a.k.a Spoon Whittler)
   Why I have left Plusnet (warning: long post!)   
Broadband: Andrews & Arnold Home::1 (FTTC 80/20)
Line rental: Pulse 8 Home Line Rental (£14.40/month)
Mobile: iD mobile (£4/month)
tracycrossan
Dabbler
Posts: 12
Registered: ‎30-09-2011

Re: Paying for the 'pro' gaming upgrade option is it worth it ?

I would say the Pro Add-on is definately worth it..... but not to increase your ping.
The best thing about Pro is that there is no Traffic Management (throttling)
If you have Fibre and you don't have the Pro Add-on then you are not getting anywhere near the speeds you should be getting due to the heavy throttling that all ISP's have.
Compare the this speed chart and be sure to look at the Pro Add-on section in comparison to the standard products.
http://www.plus.net/support/broadband/speed_guide/download_speeds.shtml
scootie
Grafter
Posts: 4,799
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Registered: ‎03-11-2007

Re: Paying for the 'pro' gaming upgrade option is it worth it ?

i would add to the thread but jelv has all ready swung the hammer at the nail,
am sure the ps3 an xbox guys notice there updates and games on demand etc downloads coming down faster than the 0x60 gold plated queue there normally in compared to the streaming 0x80 gold queue on pro
pro on the ping front is best for pc gamers, a lot of sigs are needed for all the pc games where consoles are pretty straight forward all tho am an xbox fan boy if i was a PN cust still i would have pro on just for piece of mind that the lower priority's under 0x80 don't have to be investigated if there was a problem and the fast downloads.
oh the good old days with a isp that lets you see how there treating your packets http://teh-r0x0rz.co.uk/?p=134
StuartUK35
Grafter
Posts: 281
Registered: ‎09-09-2011

Re: Paying for the 'pro' gaming upgrade option is it worth it ?

Quote from: tracycrossan

The best thing about Pro is that there is no Traffic Management (throttling)
If you have Fibre and you don't have the Pro Add-on then you are not getting anywhere near the speeds you should be getting due to the heavy throttling that all ISP's have.

Not all ISP's kill your internet connection, and ones that do tend to only throttle a few protocols... Its only BT and PN i can see that heavily kill off your connection for 2/3rds of the day.......