How low does ping have to be to play online for the PS2?

May be...

i just got high speed internet (not broadband) and i was wondering how low your ping had to be to play online with other people.

What do you mean "high speed but not broadband," is it one of those dial-up lines that go twice as fast as normal dial up lines, that is, 112 kbits/s? Because if so, you will be limited in the games you can play online with it. If on the other hand it's DSL, that is broadband and you'll be fine.



As for ping time, ideally you should shoot for a ping below 100, but a ping between 100 and 200 generally will not result in any lag on most ps2 servers. On ps2 you will generally start seeing lag issues somewhere soon after 250. If there are a lot of people on the server, lag can come with less ping if there are more than one person with the high ping.



Online multiplayer games have gotten more advanced in reducing lag and handling high ping times. On Motor Storm for ps3, for example, I hardly ever see any lag at all; I think the server actually lets the games run on the individuals machines, predicting player's control responses in some instances, and if necessary correcting itself later on. This can cause a player to suddenly teleport to a spot 20 feet away, but it prevents ping from affecting the game.



Warhawk also is excellent at handling ping. The Sony servers always ping 99, I don't know how. I've never seen lag on one, and they routinely have players from halfway around the world in the same game, from the US west coast, to the Middle East.



PS2 games mostly haven't got those creative, advanced ways of handling high ping, so you'll have to keep yours as low as possible. Shoot for under 100, but if you can keep it stable below 200, it should still be fine for most games.