Internet Speed Test
An internet speed test measures the connection speed and quality of your connected device to the internet. It does so by running multiple consecutive tests that analyze different aspects of your internet connection, namely ping (latency), download speed, and upload speed.
Not all speed tests calculate the same essentially your ISP “Internet Service Providers” speed test will always show you great speeds however this is not always true as they don’t want to be caught up in False Advertising issues with that said use both available services see the difference the one with the highest is most likely the most accurate of the two.
Understand the basics before you test your speed get an idea of the What and why speed testing is important there are various situations that can affect your speed if you have any questions please don not hesitate to contact me concerning your results if your getting extremely low speed results there are other options to look for most important your own network issues must be ruled out before calling the Provider.
Internet speed may be affected by a number of variables, including:
- The host server and its Internet connection.
- The Internet routers through which data travels before it reaches your network.
- Adware or spyware that causes a computer to process data more slowly.
- A corrupted or poorly configured Web browser.
- Incorrect TCP/IP configuration.
- The speed of the processor, network, hard drive, graphics accelerator and the amount of RAM on a computer.
- An inefficient, corrupted or misconfigured operating system.
- A networking device or router that is older, has outdated software or is misconfigured or overloaded.
Internet Speed Test Explained
Ping (latency) Defined:
Latency is the time it takes for your input to reach said destination and send the result back to your computer screen. The further your destination is from your physical location, the higher your latency will be.
Latency affects how long it takes for your input to respond to the action you did on your peripheral. Click you mouse button? The time it takes to actually initiate the action on your game is the latency between your mouse and the application you are using.
Understanding this will allow you to understand why selecting a Shadow Data Center closest to you will give you the best optimal latency, and the lowest input lag when using Shadow.
What can affect Latency?
There are a lot of factors that can contribute to latency. Your monitor, your keyboard or mouse, pretty much any peripheral that you have connected to your PC.
Your network can also affect latency as well. Have a bad Ethernet cable? Your latency could increase. Bad router/modem? Latency could be increased. And then their is your Internet Service Provider. If there is any degradation to the lines from you to the destination, that can also affect your latency.
A lot of factors play a role, and when it comes to Cloud Gaming, you need to understand how and why everything can affect you. It will make your experience online better if you do.
Jitter Defined:
Jitter is also referred technically as packet delay variation. This pertains to the variance in time delay in milliseconds (ms) between data packets over a network. This is typically a disruption in the normal sequence of sending data packets. It also means that there is a fluctuation in delay as packets are being transferred across a network. The level of delay throughout the transit would fluctuate and could lead to a 50 milliseconds delay on packet transfers. As a result, there is a congestion of networks because of how the devices fight for the same bandwidth space. Hence, the more it gets congested, the greater the possibility that packet loss will happen.
Functionality
In transferring data and visiting a website, since the website is a collection of all data packets, the packets will be sent from a server over a network to the user’s computer or connected device and will be loaded by the web browser. With high jitter, there will be 3 packets that will not be sent when requested. When the lapse of time is already complete, all 3 packets will arrive at once. This causes an overload for the requesting computer device. This leads to congestion and a loss of data packets across the network. Jitter can be likened to a traffic jam in which the data cannot move at a reasonable speed because all the packets have come to a junction at the same time and nothing can be loaded. Then, the receiving computer device will not be able to process the information. As a result, there will be missing information. During packet loss, if these do not arrive consistently, the receiving endpoint has to make up for it and try to correct the loss. In some instances, exact corrections cannot be made and these losses become irretrievable. For network congestion, networks are unable to send an equal amount of the traffic that they receive and this is why the packet buffer will fill up and will start dropping the packets. Even though jitter is considered as an obstacle that causes delay, breach, or even loss of communication over the network, sometimes, there are anomalous fluctuations that do not really have a very long-lasting effect. In these situations, jitter is not really too much of a problem because there are acceptable levels of jitter that can be tolerated such as the following:
Jitter that is below 30ms
Packet loss less than 1% of data transfer
Overall network latency less than 150ms
The above figures show conditions to consider where jitter is acceptable. Acceptable jitter simply refers to the willingness to accept irregular fluctuations in transferring data.
For best performance, the jitter must be kept below 20 milliseconds. If this exceeds 30 milliseconds, then it will cause a noticeable impact on the quality of any real-time conversation that a user may have. At this rate, the user will start to experience distortion that will affect the conversation and make the messages difficult for other users. The effect brought by jitter depends on the service the user will be using. There are some services where jitter will be very noticeable but will still remain significant in other services like voice calls and video calls. Jitter becomes a problem during voice calls because it is the most cited service where jitter has been shown to be really detrimental. Primarily, this is due to the way VoIP data transfer occurs. The voice of the user will break down into different packets and it will be transmitted to the caller on the other side. When measuring jitter, there is a need to calculate the average packet-to-packet delay time and this is done in several ways depending on the type of traffic.
Voice traffic – measured based on whether the user has control over just one endpoint or both endpoints.
Single endpoint – measured by determining the mean round-trip time (RTT) and the minimum round-trip time of a series of voice packets.
Double endpoint – measured using the instantaneous jitter or variation between the intervals for transmitting and receiving a packet.
Bandwidth testing – Instead of using math, the level of jitter that a user is dealing with can be determined by doing the bandwidth test. Thus, the easiest way to test jitter is to do the bandwidth test.
