Guys the speed of your connection has little to do with the ability to host a server. Really you need a very good CPU and large amounts of RAM which a quick pci-bus which enables the fast flow of infomation essential in todays games.
Phoenix is on the right lines with uploads speeds too, yes 10mb is likelly to have a 512k up line as above this is very unusal at the moment.
This doesnt mean you cant host a server, simply what im saying is that a 10mb connection alone is not enough. However having spoken to nigel before he knows his stuff so im sure his pc is pretty good!
Theres several types of hosting available for online gaming, the two most common being peer to peer or client/server. Peer2peer is perfect for when you and your mate just want to have a couple of games; one machine hosts the game and the other machine dials into it (normally using an IP address and Port number). This is fine for a 1v1 game and will work fine however the more players that join, the slower its going to get; the hosting pc is playing the game, whilst having to calculate every other variable for every other player. It then has to send this variable out to the other computer which has to acknoledge this and send it back. All this takes time and can create whats know as "lag" when the computers become out of sync.
Client/server is a much more stable and efficient way of doing things. It is however much more costly and hasslesome. One computer acts as a standalone server, thus to say there is nobody actually playing a game on it, its just exchanging information. Then all the other computers will join this one via an IP number. These sort of servers are rarely windows based (windows is crap!) and will generally be running Linux or Unix operating systems running off a highend backbone connection such as T3. Normally they are rented from a company such as Mutliplay or Ea. This method of game setup is best as there is no lag between componants and the standalone machine will not get bogged down.
__LAG EXPLAINED__
Lag is the term used for when an online computer game starts to jump or pause erratically. This is normally down to packet loss. PC's communicate to each other using "packets" of infomation. When theres a breakup in the link, packets going missing and produce the ingame "jump" when the computer cannot adjust the variables due to missing data.
Your "Ping" times are also VERY IMPORTANT when gaming online. A ping is the amount of time (measured in seconds) that it takes one computer to send a packet to another pc and back again. The higher your internet connection speed the lower your ping times will be. Anybody using ADSL or above should always have a ping of below 25 or something is setup wrong. When your ping rises to above 100ms this is where things become iffy as, in the real world translation this means there is a 100ms delay between you and the other players. This wont be so noticable in the slower paced tatical games but in shooting games it will make a LARGE difference.
EG: Two players; player one has a 28ping and player two has a 150ping. They both see each other at the same time and press the mouse button to shoot at the same time. However because player twos ping is much higher he dies first!
This is because both pcs send the "player is firing" command to the server, but due to player two haveing a slower ping it takes a longer time to get there. By the time it arrives player ones details have already been processed and player two is dead.
Im going to stop writing now, i could waffel on about pcs till the cows come home.......
