Wireless for Gaming????

V

VolvoR

Gawd
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Jan 28, 2004
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878
I'm running a pretty good (IMO) pc, 6600GT OC's in SLI, 2GB of RAM, AMD 3500+ and an ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe Mobo. Right now it's hard wired to my wireless router. I'd like to move the router and go wireless.

I play alot of BF2, would it hurt gameplay at all? It's a "g" router btw. The card would be g as well.
 
it will DEFENEATLY hurt your connection in games. my friends tried it and didnt like it, i tried it... i just got a new laptop, and right now im mixed. i was playing CS:S via wireless and it changed my ping from 88 *server is on eastcoast im on west* to 100. i dont mind it because with the wire it would get that high, i dont notice a difference. gameplay is fine, but it will hurt in other games.at the moment im pretty satisfied with it, i dont need a ultra low ping anyway. i recommend stay with a wired connection. oh and by the way, the laptop is right next to the wireless router, i dont know if that has anything to do with it, but that might be why its not that bad. but i can be wrong.
 
Im using 802.11b over about 1/3 to 1/2 mile. It sucks for gaming.

Ut2004 - "Speed Hack detected"

BF2 "There is a problem with your connection"

Ping times? Pinging google gives me about 36-50.
 
I'll be about 20 feet from the router, almost a straight line. No 1/4 mile ranges here. Nothing crazy at all actually.
 
alright well now, im sitting here in my living room 20 feet away from the router, and im getting lag... reallllly bad. i dont think you will like gaming with wireless. i just did a ping for hardforum and it was 506ms. try it, you may or may not like it.
 
straight line has nothing to do with it, they are radio waves, so they are not affected by walls/nonstraight lines reallly, only distance and even that can be amplified with bigger antenas(sp) . If you are using 802.11g then there is no way that you are limited by that, it would then be limited by your cable/dsl/ISP speed. 802.11b is old technology, if you are going to buy new stuff make sure it is G stuff. Linksys stuff i find is always the best and most configuerable esp. if you are a gamer you are going to want to probably open certain ports up and have the forwarded to certain computers. I say once you go wireless you will never go back, wires are so 20th century.
 
I gamed for 6 months using wireless. It worked fine for me. It did add ping, but I only documented 1 or 2 ms difference. YMMV, I stopped using it because I re-did my office and I got tired of anytime the microwave oven was in use, my signal went to crap (MW oven was in direct line between computer and AP in the other room).

Other than that, if you get 500ms ping time via your wireless, you've got something hosed up seriously.....

It doesnt suck, but its less reliable.
 
Turn off Windows Zero Config when you game or you'll get peed off like me! :rolleyes:
 
Wireless is good for browsing or downloading files, but wired is a MUCH more reliable way to go as far as gaming goes.
 
I'm surprised everyone is so against using wireless for gaming. At most I've had ping times increase by 30ms, and that was with a house full of gamers on the same AP. Typical latency for broadband is in the range (<40ms) that you're usually not going to see an impact to performace from any increases associated with going wireless (1-15ms increase).

Yes there may be a latency increase, but it will be negligible with modern equipment. Now if you've got a house full of gamers, downloads galore, etc, then yeah, you'll have issues. But that's be the case regardless as your pipe usually becomes the bottleneck in those kinds of situations. Then again, evironmental variables can play all kinds of havok with wireless connections. So I guess I've been fairly lucky with that aspect.
 
RHollister said:
straight line has nothing to do with it, they are radio waves, so they are not affected by walls/nonstraight lines reallly, only distance and even that can be amplified with bigger antenas(sp) . If you are using 802.11g then there is no way that you are limited by that, it would then be limited by your cable/dsl/ISP speed. 802.11b is old technology, if you are going to buy new stuff make sure it is G stuff. Linksys stuff i find is always the best and most configuerable esp. if you are a gamer you are going to want to probably open certain ports up and have the forwarded to certain computers. I say once you go wireless you will never go back, wires are so 20th century.
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Correction: Radio waves can be affected by walls. It depends on the compound of the walls, the insulation, as well as the degree that that the radio passes through the wall (for example, a 1 degree angle will take off around 1-2 metres to the range, roughly. The paint compounds will also affect the performance (bad experience for me here, I have to physically move the router to improve the range, because the signal has to pass through heat-resistant paint). As the signal passes through objects, it uses up some of the energy to penetrate it (that was taken from Grade 12 physics). Think of it as the same as an electric current; its going to lose energy passing it through a wire, a resistor, etc.

Wireless is OK for gaming, so I've found from friends, but have yet to find out how true this really is for myself. As long as you can get the full data rate (54Mbps, or 108Mbps if using G+), and a good signal, it should work fine.
 
Under perfect conditions, meaning signal strength and more importantly signal quality in the excellent range, then wireless will add 1 to 2 ms to your ping. Those having problems don't have optimal wireless environments or aren't setting up their gear correctly. Is a wire more reliable? Of course. Can you game wirelessly without problems generally speaking? Absolutely. The obstruction comments are valid. The more obstructions you put between you and the AP, the more possibilities of packet resends and yes, that will affect your ping. So you may have trouble if your not in a good wireless environment. Besides walls etc.. you can also run into interference from other gear on the same frequency base. Phones, neighbors WLAN's etc.. If it's possible to wire then you should always do that. However gaming can be problem free on wireless and no significant added latency. All depends on you, your surroundings, the gear you buy, and how you set it up.
 
RHollister said:
straight line has nothing to do with it, they are radio waves, so they are not affected by walls/nonstraight lines reallly, only distance and even that can be amplified with bigger antenas(sp) . If you are using 802.11g then there is no way that you are limited by that, it would then be limited by your cable/dsl/ISP speed. 802.11b is old technology, if you are going to buy new stuff make sure it is G stuff. I say once you go wireless you will never go back, wires are so 20th century.
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G is old stuff....get Pre-N/MIMO....blows the doors off of G when it comes to keeping that signal strong across the house.

And yes walls and structure DO affect wireless performance, as well as many other factors such as electrical wiring, cordless phones, microwaves, etc.

Bigger antenna's have been proven to pretty much be marketing hype and gimmick sales.

If you're picky about your online gaming performance...then stick with wired ethernet. If you don't mind an increase in latency (ping)...and an occasional hiccup, then go with wireless.
 
In my experience, wire sucks for gaming, unless you're in some environment where you can remove every potential thing that might cause interference.
 
Bigger antenna's have been proven to pretty much be marketing hype and gimmick sales
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Er.....no. Perhaps the mid to high gain you get from BestBuy or some cheap antenna that isn't putting the gain they say they are is not giving the results advertised. Added gain on radiators however is most certainly an effective way, the effective way in fact, to solving cell coverage issues. You increase the effective power every 3 dB.

Won't regurgitate my whole post but if you do it right and have reasonable expectations wireless is fine, on par with a wired LAN, for gaming. There are clearly more things that can go wrong and cause problems. No question, but wireless not being good for gaming as a blanket statement is born of ignorance.

Now what may be closer to the truth, though not 100% valid, is cheap wireless equipment is a poor gaming choice.


The monkey wrench with wireless is typically environment however, not the gear.
 
I used to run a Jedi Knight 2 server off of my laptop wirelessly. I found that I'd only get good results if my laptop(the server) was within 5 feet of the WAP.
 
ktwebb said:
Er.....no. Perhaps the mid to high gain you get from BestBuy or some cheap antenna that isn't putting the gain they say they are is not giving the results advertised. Added gain on radiators however is most certainly an effective way, the effective way in fact, to solving cell coverage issues. You increase the effective power every 3 dB.

Won't regurgitate my whole post but if you do it right and have reasonable expectations wireless is fine, on par with a wired LAN, for gaming. There are clearly more things that can go wrong and cause problems. No question, but wireless not being good for gaming as a blanket statement is born of ignorance.

Now what may be closer to the truth, though not 100% valid, is cheap wireless equipment is a poor gaming choice.


The monkey wrench with wireless is typically environment however, not the gear.
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Thank you. I couldn't have said it better myself.
 
So, as long as my signal strength was very good etc, I'd be fine with a wrt54gs router and what 54g wireless nic? I just want to check to make sure so I'll know if I should still consider paying the extra money for that D-link gaming router or not.

In my experience, I get the same ping wired or wireless, but I'm not sure if that's a direct translation into similar online gaming performance.
 
rosco said:
I get the same ping wired or wireless, but I'm not sure if that's a direct translation into similar online gaming performance.
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It never is...the "ping" command shoots out a tiny tiny signal, doesn't really tax your connection at all, and doens't hit your CPU hard. Playing online games...it's steady throughput...and depending upon the game...really varies in throughput...with some games such as those based on the Battlefield engine shooting upwards of 60k steady. That can tax your computer more, tax your CPU more, tax your connection more, tax your router harder...all things which can sum up to wireless being a hair slower.

Other things come into factor too, how many other wireless clients are on your router? What security is being used? What wireless NICs are being used? What version drivers on them? Waat "environment" is the wireless LAN setup in?

All things which make "Your mileage may vary" true. One person might have a router, be the only wireless client on the router, be located only across the room...see that they have very little, if any, rise in latency while playing online. So they'll stand up and tell the world "Wireless doens't affect my ping at all, so it must be true for you."

There's just too many factors to consider to make one blanket answer for all. Wireless will always...ALWAYS...have this. Wired ethernet on the other hand...is always consistant.
 
Wrong again. Sounds like your experience is not too good but given the right gear and right person setting it up there is no problem.

I could agree that yes, environments are going to vary. As an installer I wouldn't guarantee every job because one might be in an apt with 75 other AP's within 100 yards or whatever. So in some ways your post makes sense. What's good for Joe isn't necessarily good for Bob or Jane. I can assure you given the right circumstances, and I am not talking about an isolated or uncommon environment, I could setup a WLAn equal to a wired LAN as it relates to gaming. The problem people have on most boards is irrational expectations and gullibility towards wirelss gear advertisements. That and shear ignorance. If there are problems with gaming on wireless then it can almost certainly be fixed. Might not be practical for the user (removing phones or spending lots of money on quality hardware) but there are not too many situations I couldn't put a guarantee stamp on a WLAN for a gamer. University dorms, apartments, clustered garden homes etc.. being the most obvious.
 
I bought a better antenna for my wireless router, and im getting around 40 latency on CS:S and I can get about 3mb download and 400upload. I am about 100+ feet from my router, and I get a full signal with the new antenna...I never get dropped signals and it never bogs down on me! I couldn't be happier. I play with a bunch of friends, and they are all hardwired and they barely get any better pings than me!

Also when I pinged hardforums, I got avg. 40ms....anyways, I hope it works for you like it works for me.
 
I game quite heavily on my wireless setup:

PC - WAP11 WRT54G - SB5100

And even though my WAP is slowly dying and getting flakier and flakier, I still get just fine pings. West coast servers I never see above 40 ping

I'm only like 25 feet from the router, however
 
ktwebb said:
Wrong again. Sounds like your experience is not too good but given the right gear and right person setting it up there is no problem I could setup a WLAn equal to a wired LAN as it relates to gaming.
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I disagree. As an installer myself, and I'm talking more than just home DStink WLAN networks, up to corporate sized WLANs with full BuffaloTech or Cisco gear, I've seen enough to know that wireless is not as 100% guaranteed high availability/guaranteed service levels, or equivelant performance to wired.

For one, wireless has more overhead, on both the WAP end, and the client end. There is simply more CPU cycles used. Any gamer that's graduated a couple of years past playing on kiddie consoles and has moved into good computer gaming gear knows the rule of thumb for a killer gaming rig is having top quality hardware controller based gear and stay away from CPU intensive hardware. One reason most hardware gamers stay away from USB NICs.

You stated " I could setup a WLAn equal to a wired LAN as it relates to gaming"...yet in the first page of this post, you state, if my eyes are working correctly, lemme go double check...yup...that "Under perfect conditions, meaning signal strength and more importantly signal quality in the excellent range, then wireless will add 1 to 2 ms to your ping." Hrrrmmm....contradiction in statements right there. Aaaaannnnd...."under perfect conditions"....how many homes are setup "under perfect conditions?"

The only area I'd partially agree with you that wireless can perform close to wired is if you're comparing a good, combined with a good quality wireless NIC, against a wired computer using some crap 19 dollar NIC that's 1/2 software driven like a Winmodem. And with an older online game that has a low client rate. But to compare wireless against a wired using a quality NIC such as an Intel Pro, a 3COM 90X series, or an nVidia nForce based NIC...sorry, I'll never agree, especially with some of todays bandwidth hungry online games that have high client rates.

Does wireless always suck? No, I'm not saying it does, I'm typing right now on wireless through my IBM Stinkpad. But to say "there is no difference between wired and wireless"...I disagree with that. Wether the difference is big enough for the average gamer to notice or care about, that's up to the gamer and their level of expectation, or maybe it's still "good enough". But a literal "toe to toe comparison", you'll see a difference if you pound it hard enough over time.
 
Wired: get good equipment and wires and it'll work reliably and in a consistent fashion.

Wireless: hit-or-miss. Better equipment helps, but you've to consider the entire environment, including other WAPs in the vicinity, broadcasting antennas, high-voltage lines, metal in walls, wireless phones and microwaves. Also, bandwidth is still shared, and performance may fluctuate during the day.

In short, wired is the best option unless there are some strong reasons why it wouldn't work.

As for the latency question, wireless will of course add to the latency because of the increased possibility of transmission errors (noise) and the additional steps involved in converting the radiosignal to/from the electrical representation of the signal.
 
YeOldeStonecat said:
For one, wireless has more overhead, on both the WAP end, and the client end. There is simply more CPU cycles used. Any gamer that's graduated a couple of years past playing on kiddie consoles and has moved into good computer gaming gear knows the rule of thumb for a killer gaming rig is having top quality hardware controller based gear and stay away from CPU intensive hardware. One reason most hardware gamers stay away from USB NICs.
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Access point wired straight to the computer = the win
You stated " I could setup a WLAn equal to a wired LAN as it relates to gaming"...yet in the first page of this post, you state, if my eyes are working correctly, lemme go double check...yup...that "Under perfect conditions, meaning signal strength and more importantly signal quality in the excellent range, then wireless will add 1 to 2 ms to your ping." Hrrrmmm....contradiction in statements right there. Aaaaannnnd...."under perfect conditions"....how many homes are setup "under perfect conditions?"
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1 or 2ms is nothing as it relates to gaming,

The only area I'd partially agree with you that wireless can perform close to wired is if you're comparing a good, combined with a good quality wireless NIC, against a wired computer using some crap 19 dollar NIC that's 1/2 software driven like a Winmodem. And with an older online game that has a low client rate. But to compare wireless against a wired using a quality NIC such as an Intel Pro, a 3COM 90X series, or an nVidia nForce based NIC...sorry, I'll never agree, especially with some of todays bandwidth hungry online games that have high client rates.
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You do realize that even the crappiest 10/100 NICs still far exceed the 10mbit link you have between the cable modem/dsl modem and the router, right? I won't disagree that for true 100mbit connections that a good NIC is essential and your point about CPU cycles is dead on. But for an internet connection......
 
I used wirless for gaiming, but i'm switching to wired fro my computers becuase it pisses me off when i won't connect or the signal is low even though the day before it was a strong connnection. Its good if all you want ot do is surf the internet but i will stick with wired. Just becuase its faster.
 
Well, in the end, I've decided what I'm going to do...I'm going to Best Buy, gonna get an 802.11g Linksys card and try it, if it works, great, if it doesn't, it can be returned!! :p
 
Vertigo Acid said:
Access point wired straight to the computer = the win
1 or 2ms is nothing as it relates to gaming,
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He states in his opinion he can get it down to a 1-2ms difference in ping, under ideal situations. I don't but his statement that it's only a 1-2ms difference..."in game", not at the command prompt with a ping, I'll say it's closer to at least 10ms difference.."in game", under the best conditions.

Now I'll go out on a limb and wager that most people can grasp the concept that sending an ICMP packet ping test is really just a tiny packet, and it doesn't really push your connection at all, compared to some of todays online games. Heck, it doesn't even tax a 14,400 dial up connection.

For example, the Battlefield game engine can use up to 80 Kbps for the client. That's pushing your wireless LAN a lot harder...which does affect latency. I think most people will agree (if not...go test it)...that actual in game latency will differ (be quite a bit higher) from doing the old "ping" test at the command prompt.

So, doing a ping command to your online server of choice may net you 4x returns of say..45ms, yet fire up your game, and if your connection is pushed a bit...your game might actually show your players latency as 76ms.

Vertigo Acid said:
You do realize that even the crappiest 10/100 NICs still far exceed the 10mbit link you have between the cable modem/dsl modem and the router, right? I won't disagree that for true 100mbit connections that a good NIC is essential and your point about CPU cycles is dead on. But for an internet connection......
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Err...yes, but I wasn't talking about LAN transfers here, or trying to maximize downloads or uploads to something like an FTP server. Online gaming doesn't even exceed 1 meg of throughput (from the clients point of view), my point about the network cards was based on hardware controller based network cards, and CPU utilization.

Network cards come in various quality, like most other things. Possibly you might remember or know about, back in the dial up days...when "Winmodems" came out from 3COM/USR. They were cheaper, "software controlled" modems...they used the CPU heavily, and gamers were wise to stay away from them. Compared to much higher quaility hardware controller based modems, more expensive, but they didn't tax your computer much at all do to their job. If you took the same computer, setup a Winmodem...and playing an online game, recorded your latency in game...then removed that winmodem, installed something like a nice USR external 5686 or Courier modem...you'd see lower latency...because the modem did all the work for itself, and your CPU was free to deal with your game.

It's the same thing with network cards, I've done some experimenting myself, and I've read a few online tests...that benchmarked network cards. The cheaper 9 and 19 dollar network cards rely more on CPU utilization, they are more software controller based much like Winmodems were, compared to good quality network cards. Take the same computer...on the same internet connection, and test a half dozen varying network cards, while playing your online game, you can see varying results in your ingame latency.
 
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