Understanding what "bad" internet means requires knowing the symptoms of poor performance. Not all households have professional monitoring and testing equipment, but internet performance can still be "felt" with the proper knowledge of how a connection should be performing. Online gaming is one of the most personal mergers of network performance statistics and almost tactile feedback, so consider a few of these online gaming performance problems to put words and facts alongside the feeling of a bad connection:

The Feel Of Lag On MMORPGs

Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games (MMORPGs) are a combination of the RPGs of old but in a world where players work with or fight against each other and the game world.

Although there are multiple models of the MMORPG model and different ways to deliver the game experience, there is a certain template shared by games such as Everquest, World of Warcraft, Rift, Guild Wars, and many other games.

These MMOs have action bars/hot bars and skills or spells that perform an action when you press or click their assigns buttons. Some are instant, while others have a cast time that takes a few seconds between pressing the button and the final result.

Despite the whimsical and otherworldly nature of these games, they're still computer games that are governed by equations and number results. When you slash an enemy with an instant sword skill, the result should appear in less than a second--ideally less than 100ms (milliseconds). When you cast a spell, the countdown for the spell should finish on time, and that time should be in the spell's details.

That 100ms number isn't official, but it's important. Many competitive gamers need to have the faster performance possible in order to dodge attacks on time. When playing against other players, having a slower response can mean being defeated because the enemy gets more hits in. When it's slower than usual, people can feel the difference as their spells take too long to cast or instant abilities take more than a second to land.

Bad Internet And FPS

First Person Shooters or FPS (not to be mistaken with frames per second, another important gaming term) is all about shooting the enemy. They can be in the form of soldiers fighting through real world war scenarios such as World War II or the Operation Iraqi Freedom/Enduring Freedom conflict, but there are other games that use giant robots called mechs or the Japanese mecha style. 

These games are far less forgiving when it comes to lag. In most cases, getting shot once means character death, and can end the entire game as opposed to the more drawn out MMORPG battles (when evenly matched). This also means that you need to see an enemy in order to take proper cover or perform complex operations.

If your connection can't download information about the ongoing conflict and send your actions to the game server in time, you need faster and more consistent internet. Contact an internet access provider to discuss your gaming needs and make sure they understand that you can feel lag. As weird as it may sound to some, online gamers get it.