Xbox – the minimum required speed for Xbox live

wifixbox-360

I'm curious as to what the minimum internet speed is to allow access to Xbox Live.

What minimum speed does it require?

Best Answer

It's really difficult to say as it depends on so many other different factors as well. At first glance your download speed look acceptable, but upload speed is pretty low and your ping is fairly high as well which will both have an impact. There's also the issue of contention, which may see your broadband speeds rise\fall depending on how many other households are using the line at that particular time.

Then there's the type of game\service you want to use. Some games require more bandwidth than others, for example a first person shooter game will require a lot more than say, a turn based game like Uno. Streaming films also requires a lot, depending on the quality.

So taking into account these factors here's my recommendation:

Heavy bandwidth games (COD, Halo): Most likely have lag, and be hard to play online
Medium bandwidth games (Mortal Kombat, SFIV): Should be fine, may have some lag
Low bandwidth games (Uno, Texas Hold 'Em): Should be fine
Movies: May struggle with buffering and stutter

although don't take this as definitive, you can hook up to xbox live for free and you usually get a months free gold membership too so you can test out some online gaming before you commit to a paid membership, and I'd advise you ultimately to do this.