Hi all! Today I wanna talk about games and routing.
How does data travel from your PC to the game server? Data is classified as outbound and inbound.
Outbound traffic is information that you send which determines your actions in-game. Moving from point A-B, casting a spell or triggering that rifle, it’s all outbound.
Inbound traffic is how the game affects your character, such as bosses attack animation or even other players attacking you.
Both outbound and inbound traffic use an automatic algorithm to determine the best connection path. E.g. From Singapore to Australia SG > INDO > AU (90ms). If the undersea cable in INDO was damaged or is facing high traffic, data might go via SG > HK > NZ > AU (150ms) which will significantly delay connection speed.
Latency (also known as ping) is the time information takes from your PC to the game server, and back. Factors that affect latency are your internet connection, your computer hardware and the amount of information sent. If you’re playing on high graphics on an average com, your PC can’t process information fast enough and will cause internal lag which may not be the internet connection’s fault. Always be aware of your hardware limitations and follow the game’s minimum/recommended settings.
If you suspect that your connection to the game server is not the best, consider custom routing! What you’ll need:
- Your subscriber information (NRIC or Customer ID)
- Name of Game
- Game Server IP
Not sure how to get the game server IP? Check out MR’s DIY guide here!
Your ISP can add rules to force outbound traffic to a specific path, and they’ll choose the fastest connection. Unfortunately your ISP cannot control the inbound traffic; this has to be arranged by the game itself. You’ll need to write in to the game for custom routing to your country but they’re not obliged to help you unless there’s a big community playing that game in your country i.e. Blizzard game players in SG can write to Oceanic servers and they’ll listen because Oceanic is the main server for SG players (and there’s a lot of Blizzard game players). Though big games like Blizzard actively maintain their routing so there’s no need to request for custom routing from them.