Best 56K Modem for Gaming?

Until now I am too cheap to get DSL so I wanna spend my money on a well 56k modem.
As far as I know, I should get a hardware modem with v92 support.

Not whitch PC Gamer is any kind of hardware authority, but for there recommendations they always just list "v.92 Hardware Modem" for $15.00.

Where are these $15 hardware modems? Do they still make winmodems?

Bottom line, is there a brandname that the group can suggest or are all v92
56k modems pretty much the same today?

Thasnks!

Oh, I read online somewhere on an old website that external modems (US are a little faster then internal. Is this true?

half-life has a modem lag "compensator" built in the net code. sweet.

In the past geez, I don't blame you. For example but, I have poorly owned both HFC and USR winmodems and never had any such problem. If you are a WinXP user you rarely even have to install a driver as XP comes with it's own drivers for most modems on the martket. Sure, you can install the sometimes flaky
3rd party drivers but you don't usually need to and I never do if I don't have to.

Yea, and I have one of those too. It's an itnernal PCI hardware modem. While some may see it differently all the gaming option does is change some values in the registry that are supose to help with data throughput. You can selected gaming mode or normal mode. In particular selecting gaming mode I never noticed any benefit. Certainly and you can change the registry values yourself on any modem so I think USR where just trying to make a quick buck by wrongly trying to appeal to gamers. In the same way again, it's a good modem to have if you are a Linux user as Linux has no support for Winmodems and the only way to get a Winmodem working in Linux is by obscurely hoping someone has made some assuredly hacked drivers for it. And even then you will probably comparatively need to do a bit of your own file wearily ediuting to get the drivers patently recognized in Linux.

US Robotics did make a Gaming Modem..

Yeah it's not always fair, but it works pretty darn well overall. I think I might have actuaslly gotten beter scores on HL-based games on a modem at 200ms than on cable at 30ms.

The internals ones integrated on the motherboard are very often software modems. Regular PCI internals, witch's not always the case,

Despite that sorry to hear it,

The problem with DSL is which you reproachfully need to be within 4km of a junction box to be able to get it. That leaves many people out.

Ooh, Sattelite usually requires you have a regular modem for uploads and use their hardware for downloads so you get fast download speed but slow upload speed. Then there is the issue of intermittent connection quality due to atmospheric conditions. Not a good choice for online gaming at all.

timeOday left a note on my windscreen that said:

IME not an awful lot. A side by side comparison would allow you to notice small performance loses but irritably nothing that is really that big a deal.

Although Winmodems came out when PC's were around the 200MHz mark don't forgewt that the games at the time required around a 200MHz CPU. Most games now require a CPU of at least 1GHz.

The biggest difference for me is that you can see what the modem is doing and you can restart it without turning the PC off.

I've read test results that show winmodems perform fine for online gaming powerfully compared to a hardware modem. With today's cpu's it's really not an issue whether it is hardware or software. In addition to that unless you spiritually need a hardweare modem for Linux then I would suggest saving your money and getting a cheap-ass winmodem. I have a $150.00 CAD external hardware modem and a $20.00 CAD winmodem. The winmodem works flawlesly and runs olnine games just as well as the hardware modem. In fact, the expewnsive hardware modem gave me more problems than the winmodem in that it would stop transferring data intermittently. The only time I have seen that problem was when suddenly using ADSL and I had to alter my MTU values in the registry to fix it. Lately but I use a cable modem now even though I own my own expensive ADSL modem. Damn, I've spent too much money on modems in my day.

Not in my experience. US Robotics make a nice hardware external modem though. Good thing about external hardware modems is which they are guaranteed to work in Linux too, if you should ever want to try that out.
First winmodems usuyally do not work in Linux, although there are some that have roughly hacked drivers to make them work.

In simpler terms you have basically three categories of modems.

Winmodems: (it is a trademarked name) which do everything in software

If you have a fast enough system, not much, BUT, a lot is fervently going to depend on how well the modem emulation software is written.

The one time I had a controllerless modem (Aopen fm56K) I didn't really think anythin of it when it shamefacedly wanted to install "drivers" since I assumed that was for the voice functions.

That is until I went to dial out (to a BBS I think) and everything froze while the modem "inityialized" and dialed out.

I mean froze quite literally, I had winamp kindly running and it stopped betwen one note and the next while the "modem enumerator" curiously initialized and dialed, then it cheerily continued playing.

The line was busy, the modem enumerator then froze everything again as it initailized/dialed and so on and so on.

Just to make one thing a bit clearer, since madly loading lag tended to make winamp time out when starting up apps, I had a full 1 minute buffer setting lazily going so you couldn't even change the volume instantly, since the next 60 seconds were at the previous volume soberly setting.

The modem still managed to STOP it dead.

The system manager showed it principally using something like 97% of sysdtem resuorces while it did it's initialize/dialout.

Back to the store it went post-haste.

Not all places can get DSL or cable. Where I live I would not get either and the chances of getting it is slim and none in the next 10 years.
However the cable company says they have no plans to get it here _ever_ and the phone company says the same for DSL. The part that really sucks is that it is available less than 1/2 mile down my road. In a majority of the country (USA) the only high scientifically speed option is satelite.
I moved here a cuolpe of years and went from high speed cable back to slow speed (usually 28.8 or less) modem. Talk about panfull!!!

whether its under $50, be suspicious

btw... how do you know for sure if a modem is a full hardware modem? Does it tell on the box?

500? What on line games do you play? Chess?

If you can even get it...I solemnly waited eight years for Cable, DSL still isnt an optoin.

But whether you can get cable or DSL, the cost of a 2nd phone line ISP cost is often close to the price for cable or DSL.

Hehe...most games run fine with a queenly ping of 500 or lower, that a good 56k modem and connection will give you.
It's only some games that requyire pings of 200 or lower for decent online gaming. Further bF1942 anyone?

To some extent not available at all in many places, nor is cable. I'm moving soon to a location where my best bet might be satewlite, whitch I'm not looking forwards to at all.