backgammon Connection Meter FAQ

Staying Connected

I keep losing my connection. What should I do?

The network quality meter, located in the lower right corner of the GamesGrid client, indicates the quality of your connectivity to GamesGrid over the internet. If there are problems with the GamesGrid service itself, we will let you know online, and on the server status page.

The meter is a VU-style progressive bar chart. The meter readings may be interpreted as follows (ping times are roundtrip times between you and our server):

meter	ping (ms)	interpretation
	0-150	Extremely fast. This is the expected speed for cable, xDSL, and T1 connections. 56K connections will see these speeds occasionally.
	150-300	Very fast. This is the expected speed for 56K connections. 33K and 28K connections will see these speeds frequently.
	300-450	Fast. This is the expected speed for 33K and 28K connections.
	450-600	Very good.
	600-750	Pretty good.
	750-900	Good.
	900-1050	Poor.
	1050-1200	Very poor.
	1200-1350	Bad.
	1350-1500	Very bad.
	1500+	Very, very bad.

The meter reading is refreshed every 10 seconds.

Note that the quality of your connection to your ISP, the quality of their connection to the internet backbones, and the quality of all paths between them and GamesGrid will have an impact on the speed of your connection.

If your connectivity is less than optimal for your modem speed and location, then somewhere on the internet between your computer and the GamesGrid backgammon server conditions are less than optimal, and the highly interactive connections required for a pleasant game experience are not being maintained.

If network connectivity problems persists, use ping and traceroute to help isolate the source of the problem.

GamesGrid servers are located at Hurricane Electric (he.net) in Fremont, California USA (near San Francisco). Hurricane Electric provides very fast access to multiple backbones, which generally results in excellent connectivity from anywhere in the world.

last modified: 2005-04-27