wireless network and online gaming

**Brownfloaty** · February 22nd, 2003, 09:33 PM

I'm going to be moving from an apartment to a house soon. If we decide to go the wireless path, will that effect my online gaming much? I don't know much about wireless, but was doing some reading and I thought I read that the wireless networks didn't transfer as fast as our current cable setup. If this is true does anyone have any experience with how it might have effected your online gaming? I don't want to setup a wireless network to find out that battlefield 1942 or everquest is unplayable because the wireless can't transfer fast enough.

Right now we have two computers and a laptop sharing our cable modem with regular cat5 cabling. The house will have that plus maybe one more computer. We have sufficient bandwith right now for all the computers.

Any ideas?

**vass0922** · February 22nd, 2003, 09:43 PM

How far of a distance are you thinking the wireless will reach? How many walls/floors will it have to go through?

Considering cable on a GREAT day is around 1.5mbit, and no game will be going anywhere near that limit for quite some time, and wireless goes up to 11mbit (802.11b that is, unsure of the new stuff) (with a good connection not many walls/floors and a moderate distance) you shouldn't have to worry about it too much

Just don't try taking a laptop to the next door neighbors and playing

although if you're in a townhouse you could probably do that too

**Brownfloaty** · February 22nd, 2003, 10:14 PM

It's a three bedroom townhouse acutally so I'm thinking the distances shouldn't be bad. The same for the walls/floors, it should be mostly one wall or floor.

I'm doing a little more reading right now on wireless systems and I see that the 802.11a runs on the 5ghz frequency as opposed to the b and g that are on 2.4ghz. Is interference on the 2.4ghz freq that great or widespread that it would warrant buying the 802.11a? Every time I make a phone call with my 2.4ghz phone is the network going to crap out or just slow down from the interference?

My biggest concern as a gaming geek I guess is can I get enough perfomance to play, heh. Like you said no games are going to be at the maxed out level and they design most of them to be played off a dial up connection. I've just gotten too comfortable with my connection now to step down, but even if it degraded a little I guess the games should still play ok. I guess I would feel it most when trying to download music or files.

**The Punisher** · February 22nd, 2003, 10:30 PM

it should be fine actually i have 3 comps in my house..and we're doing wireless....the only thing is on transfer rate its 11mbps..but it should be fine on battlefield etc..works great

**Brownfloaty** · February 22nd, 2003, 10:44 PM

Great! That's reasuring to hear. Just out of curiosity, do you know what format you are using? 802.11b? Also, how about hardware? I'm looking at a picutre of linksys BEFW11S4 wireless access point router right now. We use just a regular hub at the moment. I'm wondering is it easier to just use a regular wap as opposed to one with the router and switch?

**The Punisher** · February 22nd, 2003, 10:51 PM

alrihgt this is what i got...so i can do wireless and also attach 4 comps to my router if neccessary : Linksys EtherFast Access Point with 4 port switch..which you can add on..hubs / etc.

**The Punisher** · February 22nd, 2003, 10:53 PM

o yea i forgot to add on im using the 802.11b standard...really wireless doesnt have much effect on gamin...the only latency would be on transferring files through a network..if you were sharing but thats not a biggie...any questions just ask

**Brownfloaty** · February 22nd, 2003, 11:00 PM

Thanks a bunch, that's what I wanted to hear. I'm going to plan on putting in the wireless network when we move into the place. Assuming I can get it all working right, it should be a nice change not to have cables running around the house.

**The Punisher** · February 22nd, 2003, 11:13 PM

yes its really easy to setup and everything you'll be fine

**Siliconjunkie** · February 22nd, 2003, 11:26 PM

I just went from 802.11b to 802.11g, 801.11g is 54 mb and almost the same price. I havent had any interference problems. But....you will never get 100% out of it I got 6-7 on b and get about 40 on g.

Also, I would go ahead an d get the router, even if you dont need that part right now, it doesnt hurt to have it.

Once you do get it setup WEP or MAC filtering.

**Brownfloaty** · February 22nd, 2003, 11:32 PM

Is there any other difference between the 802.11b and g besides the transfer speed? Any reason not to go with the g format? I think I read the g format is still being... standarized, I guess is the word I'm thinking of?

**The Punisher** · February 22nd, 2003, 11:37 PM

the g standard's frequency is higher i think if im not wrong

**Siliconjunkie** · February 23rd, 2003, 12:31 AM

2.4ghz as well, not sure if it is using compression or how it is doing it. Perhaps there is a subtle difference in frequency.

**Brownfloaty** · February 23rd, 2003, 12:41 AM

I'm doing some more reading trying to plan how I'm going to setup this wireless network and I've been over on linksys website. They show the connection I need for the wireless is to run my cable modem into their wireless access point with a router built in or run it into a router then connect the wireless access point to the router.

I don't have any experience with routers as we just use a hub right now. It looks like it could be a headache with having to set different ports for different programs.

Is it possible to run my cable modem into the regular wireless access point without a router at all and then just use a software firewall on each individual computer?

**davidamarkley** · February 23rd, 2003, 12:56 AM

I believe the 5 ghz 'G' standard is not as far-reaching as the 'B' standard. I use an SMC Wi-Fi router with 802.11b and we just got done having a two-day nonstop LAN party. I used the wireless built-in on my laptop, and there wasn't any lag. Normally when you would look on the 'Ping' section on MOHAA or CS, then you would get 1-2 using wired 100Mbps cable. With my wireless, I was about 100 feet away from the router, two or three walls were in the way, and I get about 4-5!

As long as it's not over 100 or so, you won't notice it a bit.

So, I say, go for it. If you want to get the 'G' standard, that's fine. I just have had no experience with it, and although it does cost a little more, it has a wider bandwidth range, and not as many devices use 5ghz.

Also, don't worry about interference even with the 802.11b. I've used it while our microwave was going, 2.4ghz telephone was being used, and a 2.4ghz wireless audio-video transmitter was on. No difference in pings or speed. The routers and WAPs(wireless access points) have a built-in set of channels, and if it notices any interference whatsoever, it changes to the clearest channel.

Conclusion:

802.11b --

Pros: Cheaper, more 'standardized', and widely used and available, longer line-of-sight than other standards.

Cons: Slower, smaller selection of frequencies.

802.11g --

Pros: Faster throughput, wider selection of freguencies, more ability to improve on the standard.

Cons: Not as widely used or available, more expensive, shorter range.

HTH,

David

**Siliconjunkie** · February 23rd, 2003, 01:01 AM

Without a doubt you want to go with the router. Takes about 3 min to setup and is ALOT more secure than just a hub. Literally can just plug it in and go, its not hard at all.

**The Punisher** · February 23rd, 2003, 04:42 PM

its really an easy setup..cable modem to routher/access point.. and you can add comps into router etc..and the wirless ones just go wherever..as long as there in range

**masusee** · April 5th, 2003, 11:36 AM

Yes, you will have a problem playing games such as; MOHAA, Counterstrike, and Veitcong online. All of the above listed will play smoothly of course, but the wirless access points will "scan" every few minutes or so, actually breaking the connection to the router and reastablishing it. Causing your game to "stagger" and "Query" for the connection. Of course this only happens when in a firefight. To them, you just appear "frozen" an easy target... It is an annoying problem. For general surfing, it's great!

As far as playing online and thoroughput, it will be plenty. You could take one access point and connect on one machine and hardwire 2 more to it and all play MOHAA at the same time!

**kwebb** · April 5th, 2003, 11:07 PM

I believe the 5 ghz 'G' standard is not as far-reaching as the 'B' standard.

802.11a uses the 5 Ghz ISM. 802.11g uses 2.4 Ghz. Someone mentioned compression as a guess as to how the higher speeds are achieved. It's a modulation type. OFDM at 54 Mb for both g and a. CCK for 11 Mb 802.11b. PBCC for 802.11b+ at 22 Mb. Someone else mentioned they got 40 Mb with their 802.11g setup. not sure how your getting your numbers but you'll not see better than 20 Mb or so under perfect conditions with the current crop of firmware. Even with mature drivers and firmware I doubt seriously we'll ever see better than 25 Mb+ with .11a or g.

Also, if your client devices or AP stutters it's your wireless cards and their drivers and/or firmware causing that. The technology on the whole will cause no stuttering and gaming should be fine. You might think about playing with your settings. Disabling XP's zero wireless configuration might be something to try. My experience is mostly with enterprise wireless Hardware. Cisco..Orinoco, but my speedstream 2624, a soho router causes no pauses or hiccups while gaming. A wild guess would be that your using Linksys hardware. Notoriously bad hardware if you task the equipment or don't have it configured just right.

Someone also mentioned that their AP changes channels when interference is detected. At least inferring the AP will auto-detect and change frequency sets on its own. Also false. These are direct sequenc spread spectrum devices. You can manually change the default frequency but they will not change themselves. The AP's anyway. The client cards will scan when they first initialize, looking for AP's. If they continue this behavior once associated to an AP it's a bug in the firmware. They will send beacons out every once in a while but it will cause no noticeable connectivity problems if the software is written correctly.