any exceptional 56k modems?

[cyberey66]

I just found out my modem was a winmodem. When I bought it I thought it was hardware, but oh well. Will I notice a difference if I upgrade my modem? While playing UT, my ping is at first around 200ish, but later it will shoot up every now and then to 500, 700, and over 1000 a few times. Are external hardware modems really that much better? I heard of 3com making an internal 56k gaming modem, but reviews showed it the same as a regular modem. I do get disconnects sometimes during UT, I don't know if that is modem related though.

So final question, are there any really exceptional 56k modems that will have better performance over standard ones? I'm looking to get decent gaming performance(decent for 56k).

 

[David]

Before spending the moolah consider the following:
1) fine tune the settings
2) Check phone line quality
3) try a different isp?

 

[cyberey66]

Well I found a way to lower my ping. Stop using AOL, and use netzero. So whenever I play UT I'll use netzero. It's really messed up that netzero gets better connections than AOL. O'well, AOL just plain sucks. Well, it is a good feeling to actually have a chance at a fair game online now.

 

[WyrmMaster]

Your pings will drop if you disable all compression. Downloads will be slower, but it helps pings.

 

[cyberey66]

Your pings will drop if you disable all compression. Downloads will be slower, but it helps pings.

I think that's why games are better with netzero for me. I can disable compression with netzero, but I don't know how to with AOL. It think the only way to do it in AOL is to use a different Int string. AOL only has options to change the string, and no matter what you put in the modems properties AOL seems to ignore it.

 

[glassknife]

ping

How can you check your "Pings" and what are they. I need a good 56k too as I live in the woods but need to game.

 

[cyberey66]

On the same server in the same hour, my ping with AOL was 500-1000, and with netzero it was 150-200. Also with netzero I received no disconnects.

 

[cyberey66]

Just found out my modem is not a winmodem, it's just controllerless. So it's like half hardware. I doubt I'll get better performance from an external modem.

 

[TUK101]

If you get a controller based modem it just takes most of the load off of your processor. My external made a big difference when I was using it with my 500 Celeron, but with the 800 I dont know if it matters anymore