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Message ID: 4888
Date: Wed Aug 4 21:16:59 BST 1999
Author: John Kim
Subject: Re: Graphics/Bandwidth (this is long and relatively technical, you've been warned)


On Wed, 4 Aug 1999, G.W. Willman, IV wrote:
>
> common numbers are usually around 3.5-5 kbps on clean lines. Someone
> mentioned that winmodems, which are software driven, vice hardware modem
> implementations add 100 ms to ping times due to additional CPU load. Sorta,
> but not quite - the additional load on the CPU is only the actual
> decomposition of data, the relatively laborious modulation/demodulation is
> done by the chip on board the winmodem. In real terms this only adds MAYBE
> 1-2% to the CPU load and its relatively low-priority and almost nil in real
> world transmission rates (maybe +10 ms) - it doesn't make that big of an
> impact on game play. The price difference between a winmodem and hardware

After researching it a bit on the web, it seems the newest
WinModems using the Lucent chipset do what you say and do not
suffer the horrendous ping times of older WinModems. But the
older ones *do* use the CPU for the A/D and D/A de/modulation.
Those of you using older WinModems would be well advised to
upgrade. All my friends who've upgraded from WinModems to
real modems report it lowered ping times by 100-200 ms (350 ms
to 150 ms in the most extreme case).

--
John H. Kim
kim@...