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Latency: Wireless vs. CAT5

L

Ladyhawk

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 5, 2005
Messages
244
I'm curious...is there a latency difference in games when using a wireless connection? Theoretically there shouldn't be as far as signal travel time goes, but perhaps ethernet and wireless cards process the information differently.

My new motherboard (ASUS P5W DH Deluxe) has a Gigabit CAT5 ethernet connector (2 of them actually) as well as a wireless adaptor. Which should I use for gaming? The cable doesn't really matter because it is out of the way. *shrug* I was just wondering if there was a difference. I could ping for myself, but I thought someone could save me the trouble. :D
 
The only game i have played online wireless is The Ship. Runs just as well on my laptop as on my main rig. Anyway. My Main rig is wired my laptop is wireless. I get on average 15-30 ping on my main rig and 20-40 on my laptop. I think there is a small difference between the 2 but its not noticable in that game. I'm running through a 54g router btw. 2
 
I use wireless for gaming. Im in an apartment with thin walls and my router is just in the other room. I always get a full signal strength 54mbps and almost always get a sub 100 latency in CS:S(Usually 20-40), same goes with BF2.

Only time you will notice a difference is if you have blazing fast cabl/dsl company and the wireless is struggling to keep up. That would lean more towrads downloads though and not really affect gaming whatsoever.

So from my experiece, as long as you have good signal to the router, you wont notice a difference.
 
Well, I hope you have WPA encryption set up. While you could certainly get away with gaming on it, you'll be sending TONS of packets that anyone and their brother in nearby apartments could easily sniff. This would make pretty quick work of 128-bit WEP if someone had motivation and capability.

Personally, I'd hook up via Cat5 just for security in the tight confines of an apartment complex.
 
One of my roomates comps is hooked up wireless, its only about 8 feet from the router, but Ive seen over 600 KB (10 mb charter :D) a sec when downloading in firefox.
 
I definitely have WPA enabled since Day 1. Theres at least 4 other wireless routers in my complex(that I could access from my apartment) and surprisingly 3 out of the 4 either had WPA or Wep enabled.

My roommates room is right across from mine and the cable connector for the modem is on the same wall as mine as well. So I am just going to run a cat5 connector through the wall and into a plate on the wall so we both can be wired.
 
Lan cable latency to router is less than 1ms, where wireless will range from 1-4ms typically the best ping you can get is 20-40ish to a game server. But, most likely you wont notice it.. its the packet loss that you can experince


open command prompt type 'ipconfig' then type 'ping <insert default gateway> -t'

example

ping 192.168.0.1 -t

this will run until you tell it to stop. after an hour or so, hit CTRL+C

report your findings~ *btw do this while connect via wireless
 
I got so tired of my wireless doing a random drop during a multiplayer game that I just ran some cat5 and I am very happy.
 
Yeah, that's the major issue...piece of shit Belkin routers dropping wireless signals for no reason in the middle of a game. WiFi itself doesn't introduce enough latency into the mix to make an appreciable difference in an application where you're already at 20+ ms.

BTW, Cat 5 cable is only rated to 100 mbps, Cat 5e, Cat 6 or Cat 7 is what's used for GigE...although they all use RJ45 connectors. And the GigE makes no difference to you unless you have a home network being run off of a GigE router; as soon as you plug that sucker into the wall, you're back at 10/100.
 
Regardless of speed, CAT5 connections are more stable and stay connected for longer. If it weren't for the fact that my room is on the top floor and the router is on the bottom, I'd use a wired connection instead of wireless.
 
Well, it has to do with how much data is being sent from one device to another and how quickly the receiving device is able to interpret the data. (This was a limiting problem in early wireless mice since they had lower update rates due to less "bandwidth", but the technology has upgraded in newer generations and has made this limitation irrelevant since the bandwidth is now more than enough for the refresh rates of today's mice.)

The speed of wireless and the speed of wired are both the speed of light. Unless you want to worry about resistance, then WIRED would actually be a ridiculously small amount slower(in terms of the distance between your devices and your computer.) The problem with wireless is that the signal can get interference if there is any present, causing the result to be garbled...but if it gets there, it's getting there at the same speed.

I have indeed gotten single digit pings in online gaming over wireless. Again, note that it's wireless between your computer and your router, and then it's your provider's wires leading between nodes up to the destination server.

The difference between a wire leading to your router or wireless leading to your router should be irrelevant in terms of ping.
 
BronxBartoni said:
One of my roomates comps is hooked up wireless, its only about 8 feet from the router, but Ive seen over 600 KB (10 mb charter :D) a sec when downloading in firefox.
Click to expand...

What does latency have to do with download speed?! :rolleyes:
 
Tazman2 said:
What does latency have to do with download speed?! :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
Yeah really, my friend has PDA cellphone w/ Verizon Wireless web service plan and it can download relatively fast @ 80kB/s HOWEVER the latency is like 2 seconds LOL.

Also, wireless should be treated as a last resort. Go wired whenever possible.
 
Ladyhawk said:
but perhaps ethernet and wireless cards process the information differently.
Click to expand...
killerNIC people said:
standard network adapters can't process packets efficiently as the KILLER NIC and this can seriously degrade your gaming performance leading to LESS KILLS and therefore LOSING THE ROUND
Click to expand...
OH NOES! Time to get the Killer NIC :)
 
Wired -Secure, fast, reliable, etc.

wireless - not secure, slower, not reliable

Hence I have a spool of 1000 yds of cat5e in my closet.
 
finalgt said:
BTW, Cat 5 cable is only rated to 100 mbps, Cat 5e, Cat 6 or Cat 7 is what's used for GigE...although they all use RJ45 connectors. And the GigE makes no difference to you unless you have a home network being run off of a GigE router; as soon as you plug that sucker into the wall, you're back at 10/100.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info on CAT5-7 cables. I'm using a CAT5 cable. I think the router I'm using isn't a Gigabit router anyway. Can you believe I haven't read the documentation on that thing yet? Oh well. :rolleyes: (I just looked it up and it's a 100 Base T switch...no big.)

Thanks, everyone, for the info. I've run into problems with a wireless adaptor I have in a back room, so cable sounds good for now.
 
Skirrow said:
The only game i have played online wireless is The Ship.
Click to expand...

wow i didnt know u could play it online. how is it? is there plenty of populated servers?
 
I would never game wirelessly unless I absolutely had no choice, seems like a no-brainer to me if you can shave even a couple ms's off your ping and always have a secure connection
 
BronxBartoni said:
One of my roomates comps is hooked up wireless, its only about 8 feet from the router, but Ive seen over 600 KB (10 mb charter :D) a sec when downloading in firefox.
Click to expand...

I get 650k from giganews with my 3mb/512k cable connection...
 
What? no mention of mac address filtering?

That'll save you the trouble of worrying about WEP or not being able to use non-WPA devices like nintendo DSs.
 
JRPereira said:
What? no mention of mac address filtering?

That'll save you the trouble of worrying about WEP or not being able to use non-WPA devices like nintendo DSs.
Click to expand...

indeed. I run my network with mac filtering, ssid off and dhcp server off. Change the default gateway ip and bam, security through obscurity.
 
JRPereira said:
What? no mention of mac address filtering?

That'll save you the trouble of worrying about WEP or not being able to use non-WPA devices like nintendo DSs.
Click to expand...
Bad idea, all data is still unencrypted and the MAC addresses can easily be sniffed.
 
hmm

i will never seriously game on a wireless connection ever, and i'm a wireless network engineer / ex-pro gamer

My opinion has more to do with the lack of reliablity than overall latency. Dropping one packet for me is life or death, where for you it might not be such a serious activity.

Really its a question of how seriously do you want to play? Do you mind dying because your wife decided to microwave some mixed veggies?
 
I've yet to notice a difference in pings between my wired and wireless connections. I'm able to push 5ms pings in CS:S with both types of connections. I've also yet to experience any kind of instability, at least in my laptop. So far, i'm quite impressed.
 
Just...go with wired whenever possible. If it would take an hour or two to run some wire, I think it's worth it in the long run. If you don't care/are too lazy/are laptop-only, it's up to you. Wireless isn't bad, but dropped packets are a big issue for me.
 
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