Pinging on Windows

Before you can check the ping, you need to know the address of the server you wish to check. Windows 98 comes with a utility called ping. Open a DOS box from the start menu and type:

ping ###.###.###.###

If your address is 63.64.121.169, you should see:

Pinging 63.64.121.169 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 63.64.121.169: bytes=32 time=662ms TTL=248
Reply from 63.64.121.169: bytes=32 time=607ms TTL=248
Reply from 63.64.121.169: bytes=32 time=593ms TTL=248
Reply from 63.64.121.169: bytes=32 time=645ms TTL=248

Ping statistics for 63.64.121.169:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 593ms, Maximum = 662ms, Average = 626ms

The ping you are looking for is the time=###ms part. As you can see, the server I'm pinging isn't very playable right now. Also Check the Packets: line (3rd from bottom). Make sure you didn't lose any. If you lose more than 10% of the packets, you'll have problems playing on that server. Also, check the average ping versus the maximum and minimum. If it covers too broad a range, that means the server won't be too steady and will be hard to play on, even if it has good ping.

Advanced

If you want to just keep pinging a site forever (until you tell it to stop), type:

ping -t ###.###.###.###

In this mode, type 'Ctrl-Break' to show a status report (like the bottom portion of the report above). This won't stop the pinging though. Type 'Ctrl-C' to stop it.

If you want to ping more than 4 times, but less than forever, type:

ping -n$ ###.###.###.###

where $ is the number of times you want to ping.

ping -n20 ###.###.###.###

pings a site 20 times.