How It Works: Online Gaming

What's Playing on the Web

In the past, certain technological limitations--primarily bandwidth--stifled Net gaming's popularity. But with 56-kilobit-per-second modems standard on new computers and fast broadband connections becoming more common, speed has become less of an issue.

A variety of sophisticated multiplayer games can now be played online, thanks to the wider availability of fast connections. These include role-playing games such as Ultima Online and EverQuest, real-time strategy games such as Myth and StarCraft, and such frenzied shooters as Quake III Arena and Unreal Tournament.

You can also sign up with an online gaming service to facilitate finding opponents and teammates. A number of services, including WON.net and Heat.net, offer extras such as chat rooms, leagues and tournaments, and prizes.

Fans of traditional diversions such as chess, backgammon, bridge, and hearts will find an online outlet for their passion as well. Yahoo Games, for example, provides a portal for playing Java versions of these games.

After you pick your game, you need to get your hardware up to speed. Your PC should match or better the system requirements of a game. The requirements provided by game manufacturers are the bare minimum you need to play. You'll be far happier, for example, playing Quake III on a 500-MHz Pentium III with 128MB of RAM, an NVidia GeForce 256 graphics board, and a hard drive with several gigabytes of available storage. Although you don't need digital subscriber line or a cable modem to play on the Web, you'll need at least a 56-kbps dial-up connection if you intend to play shooters.

Improved Play

Slow connections and hardware can lead to lags in play, meaning your client doesn't update fast enough. These lags can cost you your gaming life. To help limit these blips, programmers are finding new ways to cut back on the amount of data that must be channeled across a network.

For instance, Dynamix's Tribes uses techniques in the client software that help predict where game objects will move, such as where a missile or leaping player will land. This cuts back on the amount of information that must be transmitted across the network. It also employs other tricks such as reducing the number of times a player's movements are retransmitted.

As Net gaming becomes more popular, many more types of games are coming out that can be played competitively across a network. These run the gamut from racing games such as LucasArts' Star Wars: Episode 1 Racer to Sierra's card, board, and casino games to Microsoft's Combat Flight Simulator.

This trend toward creating an online component for games is only likely to increase. Players are quickly realizing that challenging unpredictable flesh-and-blood adversaries is far more enjoyable than taking on the unrealistic computer-generated opponents of old.

Christopher Breen pens the Game Room column for Macworld magazine.