Static vs. Dynamic IP

[June Oh]

Given a choice which is the better for use with my ISP for Second Life please?

I know that static is what business people go for due to their wider usage of the internet features which an ordinary person like me would never want.

I also know that dynamic is better security wise.

So I'm left wondering as regards Second Life as I read static is better for gamers but I not know if Second Life is such a game as what gamers would use.

 

Thanks, June

[Sassy Romano]

It makes no difference.

[Jenni Darkwatch]

I have no idea why a static IP would be better for gaming. Dynamic IPs can provide a bit more privacy, beyond that it should be irrelevant whether you have a static or dynamic IP. Static IPs are common if/when you run your own services, otherwise they're fairly uncommon.

[ObviousAltIsObvious]

Static IP is handy if you want to run a serious server of some kind, but dynamic dns services work well enough for casual or hobby servers. Static doesn't really give you anything special on the client side.

 

[Perrie Juran]

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Jenni Darkwatch wrote:

I have no idea why a static IP would be better for gaming. Dynamic IPs can provide a bit more privacy, beyond that it should be irrelevant whether you have a static or dynamic IP. Static IPs are common if/when you run your own services, otherwise they're fairly uncommon.

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I'm wondering how much this may vary by ISP and where you live.

When I first got DSL all I needed to do was turn my modem off for five minutes and when I turned it back on I'd have a new IP.  The ISP supplied modem software even included a "renew IP" function.  One click and I'd have a new IP.

But now I get the feeling my ISP is assigning IP's.  After a twelve hour power outage I still had the same IP. 

[Jenni Darkwatch]

Since I ran an ISP for a decade I can answer that

Regardless of Cable or DSL, IP addresses get assigned via DHCP or a variation of PPP.

The length of a DHCP assignment can be more or less freely set. If an ISP has a fairly limited set of IPs to hand out, they often set short DHCP times. This creates a bit of traffic overhead but it's negligible. This was a common practice during dialup days. With DSL, cable and other persistent connections it makes sense to just assign the IP for a day.

PPP typically keeps the IP for the duration of the connection, but it doesn't always re-use the same IP on reconnect.

There are also some other mechanisms at play, but that's pretty much the more common ones at least in the US and Europe.

[Perrie Juran]

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Jenni Darkwatch wrote:

Since I ran an ISP for a decade I can answer that

Regardless of Cable or DSL, IP addresses get assigned via DHCP or a variation of PPP.

The length of a DHCP assignment can be more or less freely set. If an ISP has a fairly limited set of IPs to hand out, they often set short DHCP times. This creates a bit of traffic overhead but it's negligible. This was a common practice during dialup days. With DSL, cable and other persistent connections it makes sense to just assign the IP for a day.

PPP typically keeps the IP for the duration of the connection, but it doesn't always re-use the same IP on reconnect.

There are also some other mechanisms at play, but that's pretty much the more common ones at least in the US and Europe.

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Thanks

[Amber Malifozik]

About what's best? From the client side you have no advantage that I can think of for for having a static ip. On the server there are multiple advantages, and some of those are speculative as in search engines giving hligher weights.

 

If you want gaming advantage its best to remove you NAT from the equation and let the machine have the wan ip instead of the lan ip.

 

On dhcp assigning, dynamic ip addresses can be routed to the mac address of your modem and never change. But its still a dhcp address regardless. Dhcp addresses can also be assigned to a detected machine name. Ie if machine a connected to the dhcp server the server will dhcp the address it has reserved for that machine name everytime. These are common practices easily googled.