4 ms·

It's good that latency is considered to be so critical, but for the same reason I'm sceptical that this would work well for the majority beyond quite local rang

by tomxor 5y ago

It's good that latency is considered to be so critical, but for the same reason I'm sceptical that this would work well for the majority beyond quite local ranges with very good internet connections i.e some kind of fiber... which most people don't have, although I realise a lot of the tech crowd is unaware of this (most of the worlds user end points are some kind of DSL or cell network with a 20-40ms minimum). If anyone has tried playing a processing heavy software synth on a pc in real-time you will have experienced how unplayable it is as soon as latency goes beyond 10-20ms - you can't play music if there is noticeable delay between your fingers and ears, and we are much more sensitive to sound latency, it would be the same problem trying to play in time with each other. I like the idea, but feel like the internet isn't there yet for the majority of users, and latency hasn't exactly been improving at a great pace. I expect it will still be useful in internet rich areas like city to city.

weepy 5y ago
Actually I can jam with ease with my friends in London from Denmark. That's over 1000km. And if you don't believe me - check the testimonials on https://sub.live https://sub.live ^_^ Also you have a much lower tolerance of latency for your own actions that other people's. I'm hopefully going to record a video this weekend to show everyone!
- weepy 5y ago
  Also I live in a village in Denmark near Aarhus. I believe my connection goes via Copenhagen which is actually the wrong direction! Though it is true that Denmark is very well connected.
digitallyfree 5y ago
Yeah, the hop to the internet exchange point is the main issue with DSL or cable. I live in a major city and it takes around 10ms to hit the internet exchange point (using Ethernet the LAN latency is neglegible) and thus I get a minimum of 20ms or so just connecting to a server hosted by someone in the same neighborhood. I've actually tried this experiment with some of my nearby friends - pinging each other's public IPs on DSL or cable takes around 20ms. With fiber, you can hit the exchange point in 1-2ms. So I suppose this tool would work well fine over fiber assuming everyone is in the same city. I've even heard of people successfully using protocols like Dante (professional audio over IP intended for LAN) over gig fiber lines as well. From my experience, a couple milliseconds of latency is fine for keyboard or guitar processing, but anything more than that starts to mess me up. There are artists who insist on using a full analog chain for monitoring for that reason, and refuse to use digital mixers or digital wireless systems that can add several ms of latency.
- spenczar5 5y ago
  Why does fiber have lower latency to the exchange than copper? That surprises me. I thought that ISPs generally run fiber for most of the distance, and coax is only used for the last few hundred meters. The speed of signal propagation is actually faster in copper than fiber, but nobody (afaik?) does long runs over copper so it’s a moot point.
  - digitallyfree 5y ago
    Yes the ISP runs fiber to the DSLAM or the CMTS, and copper is used for the final hop to your home. The latency comes from the buffering and processing required to get a clear signal over copper - for DSL I think you can get in a perfect scenario 7ms or so with fastpath, more if you use interleaving. For fiber you can pretty much treat it as like an Ethernet connection, with latency determined almost solely by distance.
    - tomxor 5y ago
      Yup I remember fastpath, it's a choice of low latency vs higher bandwidth. I'm not sure if ISPs still actually bother offering this option to end users anymore though? I mean it's all turned into scripted tier 1 support nonsense if you call an ISP these days.
      - digitallyfree 5y ago
        I had to specifically ask for fastpath for my DSL connection, without it I get around 35ms to the exchange. You however do need a decent connection to the DSLAM for it to work properly without packet loss. You can get the same bandwidth over fastpath as interleaving if the line is clean.
        weepy 5y ago
        woah what is this fastpast magic ?!
    - 5y ago
retrac 5y ago
True for many users. My mobile latency is ~100 ms, and that's still impressively quick to me. But I find DOCSIS to be very low latency where I live. My connection at home is ~10 ms to other home users on the same provider in this city, and generally within 20 ms anywhere in the southern part of the province and 40 ms most of the way across the continent. As long as they aren't on DSL or mobile on the other end, anyway.

by tomxor 5y ago

weepy 5y ago

Actually I can jam with ease with my friends in London from Denmark. That's over 1000km. And if you don't believe me - check the testimonials on https://sub.live https://sub.live ^_^ Also you have a much lower tolerance of latency for your own actions that other people's. I'm hopefully going to record a video this weekend to show everyone!

weepy 5y ago
Also I live in a village in Denmark near Aarhus. I believe my connection goes via Copenhagen which is actually the wrong direction! Though it is true that Denmark is very well connected.

digitallyfree 5y ago

Yeah, the hop to the internet exchange point is the main issue with DSL or cable. I live in a major city and it takes around 10ms to hit the internet exchange point (using Ethernet the LAN latency is neglegible) and thus I get a minimum of 20ms or so just connecting to a server hosted by someone in the same neighborhood. I've actually tried this experiment with some of my nearby friends - pinging each other's public IPs on DSL or cable takes around 20ms. With fiber, you can hit the exchange point in 1-2ms. So I suppose this tool would work well fine over fiber assuming everyone is in the same city. I've even heard of people successfully using protocols like Dante (professional audio over IP intended for LAN) over gig fiber lines as well. From my experience, a couple milliseconds of latency is fine for keyboard or guitar processing, but anything more than that starts to mess me up. There are artists who insist on using a full analog chain for monitoring for that reason, and refuse to use digital mixers or digital wireless systems that can add several ms of latency.

spenczar5 5y ago
Why does fiber have lower latency to the exchange than copper? That surprises me. I thought that ISPs generally run fiber for most of the distance, and coax is only used for the last few hundred meters. The speed of signal propagation is actually faster in copper than fiber, but nobody (afaik?) does long runs over copper so it’s a moot point.
- digitallyfree 5y ago
  Yes the ISP runs fiber to the DSLAM or the CMTS, and copper is used for the final hop to your home. The latency comes from the buffering and processing required to get a clear signal over copper - for DSL I think you can get in a perfect scenario 7ms or so with fastpath, more if you use interleaving. For fiber you can pretty much treat it as like an Ethernet connection, with latency determined almost solely by distance.
  - tomxor 5y ago
    Yup I remember fastpath, it's a choice of low latency vs higher bandwidth. I'm not sure if ISPs still actually bother offering this option to end users anymore though? I mean it's all turned into scripted tier 1 support nonsense if you call an ISP these days.
    - digitallyfree 5y ago
      I had to specifically ask for fastpath for my DSL connection, without it I get around 35ms to the exchange. You however do need a decent connection to the DSLAM for it to work properly without packet loss. You can get the same bandwidth over fastpath as interleaving if the line is clean.
      - weepy 5y ago
        woah what is this fastpast magic ?!
  - 5y ago

retrac 5y ago

True for many users. My mobile latency is ~100 ms, and that's still impressively quick to me. But I find DOCSIS to be very low latency where I live. My connection at home is ~10 ms to other home users on the same provider in this city, and generally within 20 ms anywhere in the southern part of the province and 40 ms most of the way across the continent. As long as they aren't on DSL or mobile on the other end, anyway.