Is this Wifi Card fast enough, low latency enough for gaming?

DWD1961

[H]ard|Gawd
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I posted this is Computers and gadgets and didn't get any replies, so I'm trying here.

Is this going to give me any problems with input lag gaming?

I've tested it using speed test and it gives me the same speeds and latency/jitter as a cable. But maybe I missed something.

ASUS(PCE-N15) maximum performance Wireless-N Network Adapter ( 300Mbps Transmit / 300Mbps Receive) with PCI-E interface
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0054L9PWO/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
 
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Are you planning on becoming a competitive gamer, or are already competitive gamer?

as in a professional
 
Are you planning on becoming a competitive gamer, or are already competitive gamer?

as in a professional

No, but I don;'t want to be disadvantaged because of some form of latency issue that keeps me missing my opponent by 2ms while they beat me into the ground. Casual or professional, that's not fun.
 
Human reaction time is ~250ms. My iPhone’s latency to google home wifi is 29ms . That is a factor of nearly 10

Any decent pci-e (or integrated) wifi card should be fine

The Asus PCE-68 or 88 would be my picks if latency was a concern. Alternatively the intel ax200 cards look good

USB adds latency, but I still doubt it would be enough to hamper gaming, provided it is not some cheap $5 dongle.
 
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You won't even notice the latency of almost any wireless card unless it's some absolute POS.
Only time wireless latency even becomes a factor in network design is if you are doing some mesh or P2P2P2P2P with many hops. Even then it's only a few ms per hop after the first two.
 
At this point, I wouldn't spend money on a "N" card. At the very least get an "AC" card or an "AX" one.

I already have that card! lol. I didn't want to buy another one. I was more worried about what type of lag the card, or any car for that matter, would add to latency, that is, how much "more" latency / jitter, etc would it add between my computer and the router vs a direct cable.
 
You won't even notice the latency of almost any wireless card unless it's some absolute POS.
Only time wireless latency even becomes a factor in network design is if you are doing some mesh or P2P2P2P2P with many hops. Even then it's only a few ms per hop after the first two.

Latency for network design is different than gaming design though. Looking at web pages or connecting to do VOiP or Video conferencing is a lot different than gaming, where you have literally a very short time to react and make a hit.

However, your points are well taken. As I understand it, for gaming, it isn't just how much latency you have for one aspect of a connection. For instance, sure, a card may introduce 3ms of latency because of overhead, then the PCI port another 1ms as opposed to a direct cable to a LAN cable. So you have to add up all of the additional latency given a piece of hardware.

I remember back in the day when we had to create a server on our machines to play 1 vs 1 (back in the original Doom days) because there were no game servers back then. I don't remember what then latency was back then (my friend lived on the east coast and I lived on the west coast, but the person who created the server had a distinct advantage over the other person. It's true that humans cannot react faster than X, but latency of 250ms vs 40ms puts you at a disadvantage in some types of games. In fact, when you get the that point, there has to be prediction algorithms in place, or the person with the higher latency just simply gets slaughtered.

I play Mortal Online (or I am in the process of coming back to it) and their server is in the middle of Western Europe. Mortal, even though it is an MMO, has direct attack system like an FPS, not select attack which does away with a lot of latency issued in PVP. I live in California. My latency to the game, if remember correctly back in 2012, was 160-180ms.People playing in Europe had 40ms latency. My latency from California to New York, where the jump from the US to the European continent through the Atlantic cable in creased my latency from 40ms (from CA to NY) to 160-180ms!

Anyway, every ms starts to add up until you're looking at 1/4 of a second. That doesn't seem like a lot, but when you are swinging an axe, it's an eternity, and your opponent has already left the strike box area by the time you see it on your screen.

I was just wondering how much MORE latency using a card would introduce. If it's 2ms total, then that's not a big deal. I assume using a wifi card in a PCI slot adds some overhead vs a direct cable plugged into the LAN port? Also, if it is 2ms added overhead one way, that's 4 seconds round trip?
 
You may not notice latency with most modern wifi hardware but you can of course experience packet loss due to other factors such as distance between points and/or any other obstructions or additional radio waves. The existence of other wireless networks can also affect the range and signal quality.
 
As mentioned, the latency of wireless depends on how many other devices are around and transmitting at the same time.

The easy answer is “if latency matters that much to you, go fibre”

SFP+/10GB on Mikrotik switches/routers is relatively inexpensive and will give you sub 1ms internal network latencies with inexpensive fibre cards(mellanox or chelsio)

That said, with ping times in the order of 100-200ms you probably won’t miss anything as a normal gamer
 
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I think there are more important factors to consider other than the card you use. I would be more concerned with your distance (and obstructions between you) to the access point and any other radio/wifi devices in your area.
 
I was just wondering how much MORE latency using a card would introduce. If it's 2ms total, then that's not a big deal. I assume using a wifi card in a PCI slot adds some overhead vs a direct cable plugged into the LAN port? Also, if it is 2ms added overhead one way, that's 4 seconds round trip?

As others said the WLAN conditions are much more of an impact than the actual use of the wireless card.
But in reality you might get an order of magnitude higher latency on WLAN than LAN all things equal I think that's the answer you are looking for. In the end as long as you are connecting to the same point, you ain't really going to notice that in any FPS. Sure it adds up but not enough for just LAN/WLAN connection to matter. And I don't miss overseas server either as you mention.. that said some FPS games gave me an advantage on occasion because I could literally glitch around and avoid being hit at times.. while hitting people in what I believe was a client side game, Joint Operations lol.
 
if you already have the card, why dont you try it? it should be fine...
I don't have a way to determine if it is actually causing gaming problems, like a latency or something with the older tech in the card--although they are still selling that very card. strange in the card itself. I was hoping people would know about the card,etc. It's been a long time and back when I bought that about 7 years ago, I probably researched it and it was fine, for then. But things change. I wouldn't be able to tell if I were at a disadvantage because of the card. Prolly just get my ass beat and *cry*.
 
You may not notice latency with most modern wifi hardware but you can of course experience packet loss due to other factors such as distance between points and/or any other obstructions or additional radio waves. The existence of other wireless networks can also affect the range and signal quality.
Yeah that's a good point. I'm only 9 feet from the router with nothing inbetween.
 
You're 9 feet away and using Wifi? Wire it!

Yeah, true,I could, but I'm in a unique situation. The cable would be going across the living room floor. :) It's not like I have my own man cave and can do that easily. Otherwise, we'd not be having this convo. Mother Fer would be hardwired up and done.
 
it you are really that worried about lag or packet loss or whatever, hard wire.

I'm not that worried about it depending on how much MORE latency, packet loss, etc., I would get using it. If it adds a few ms to the overall round trip and the packets and jitter are all good, I'm good . can't easily hard-wire it in in my situation or it would be a done deal, bro.
 
If you're in the same room, it'll take an extra $5 and a couple minutes to tuck the cable under the trim at the perimeter of the room. You won't see the cable, won't be a trip hazard, and your ping will be significantly lower. Not to mention throughput will be much higher.
 
If you're in the same room, it'll take an extra $5 and a couple minutes to tuck the cable under the trim at the perimeter of the room. You won't see the cable, won't be a trip hazard, and your ping will be significantly lower. Not to mention throughput will be much higher.
It would take about 50 feet or wire and it would have to go underneath the carpet in one area, or over an entryway. It's just not realistic if I can useWifi.
 
It would take about 50 feet or wire and it would have to go underneath the carpet in one area, or over an entryway. It's just not realistic if I can useWifi.

I would use Ethernet over Powerline before I would depend on Wireless for any gaming system. New power line kit is faster/more consistent speeds than wireless and just as low-latency as Ethernet.

I had a good experience with switching from WIFI to TP Link 1gbps Ethernet over power to the other side fo he room: I now get 350 Mbps real throughput, no matter how congested the wifi is. You would need at least $150 Wifi access point to match that consistently.
 
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I would use Ethernet over Powerline before I would depend on Wireless for any gaming system. New power line kit is faster/more consistent speeds than wireless and just as low-latency as Ethernet.

I had a good experience with switching from WIFI to TP Link 1gbps Ethernet over power to the other side fo he room: I now get 350 Mbps real throughput, no matter how congested the wifi is. You would need at least $150 Wifi access point to match that consistently.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! - Forgot about that option.

However, I don't even have an internet connection that could use that sort of LAN bandwidth. It's not about bandwidth for me though. I don;t need to download any faster than I already have with my ISP (60MPS). I just need latency as low as possible and a clean connection.
 
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!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! - Forgot about that option.

However, I don't even have an internet connection that could use that sort of LAN bandwidth. It's not about bandwidth for me though. I don;t need to download any faster than I already have with my ISP (60MPS). I just need latency as low as possible and a clean connection.


Well, it's only $40 for the adapter. That's only $15 more the wifi card you were asking about.

And, my FIOS connection doubled form 50-100mbps, so suddenly I was ably to notice a a massive difference in download speed over my 802.11n 300 wifi (50mps best-case).

Or, you can pick up this one for the same price as that wifi adapter, but I would expect a max throughput of 150mbps:

https://www.amazon.com/TP-Link-AV1000-Powerline-Ethernet-Adapter/dp/B00AWRUICG?tag=hardfocom-20&th=1

I've been using their products for the past two years, and have had zero issues. very reliable.
 
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Well, it's only $40 for the adapter. That's only $15 more the wifi card you were asking about.

And, my FIOS connection doubled form 50-100mbps, so suddenly I was ably to notice a a massive difference in download speed over my 802.11n 300 wifi (50mps best-case).

Or, you can pick up this one for the same price as that wifi adapter, but I would expect a max throughput of 150mbps:

https://www.amazon.com/TP-Link-AV1000-Powerline-Ethernet-Adapter/dp/B00AWRUICG?tag=hardfocom-20&th=1

I've been using their products for the past two years, and have had zero issues. very reliable.

no shit eh!
Done!

Just going to use the Wifi card. It will be fine. I remember testing it back in the day and if I remember correctly, I wasn't seeing any type of degradation, jitter, packet, or otherwise. But, after I came back last month after 6 years off, I had no idea 60FPS wasn't enough andI needed a 144Hz monitor. lol

Thanks for all of the information.
 
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