Minimum download/upload speed for Lichess • page 1/1 • General Chess Discussion • lichess.org

AllanCaoChess

#1

Just wondering, what's the minimum download/upload speed to play from the app?

chess_komplex

#2

you need a REALLY fast connection for bullet chess and maybe blitz too.

Daeburon

#3

we generally measure "internet speed" in two ways. bandwidth and ping.

my guess is that bandwidth is pretty meaningless for online chess. after all, you are generally sending just a few characters of data each move. you only need a lot of bandwidth to send large amounts of data, like streaming video, or downloading large programs.

what is more important for chess is your ping time, which is how long it takes a data packet to get from your device to the server and back, even if its a tiny amount of data. even this is only going to be really important for fast time controls.

if you can generally browse the internet at all, you can probably play chess just fine. if you run into problems with blitz/bullet, just play rapid or classic.

we generally measure "internet speed" in two ways. bandwidth and ping. my guess is that bandwidth is pretty meaningless for online chess. after all, you are generally sending just a few characters of data each move. you only need a lot of bandwidth to send large amounts of data, like streaming video, or downloading large programs. what is more important for chess is your ping time, which is how long it takes a data packet to get from your device to the server and back, even if its a tiny amount of data. even this is only going to be really important for fast time controls. if you can generally browse the internet at all, you can probably play chess just fine. if you run into problems with blitz/bullet, just play rapid or classic.

mathematico

#4

Another thing to consider and probably the most important is stability. Because even if you have satelite internet (around 800ms of ping) that shouldn't be a problem unless you're playing very fast time control like 1+0 and lower. I think lichess compensate on your time for your ping as well ( i think i saw that in changelog some time ago). So lagging of 1 sec for each move isn't that bad. On the other hand if your internet randomly stop once in a while for 40 secs good luck winning your bullet game.