50 replies to this topic

[JestersHK]

No basement? Baseboard it then. You got hardwoods so at least your fingers wont be massacred by carpet tacks LOL.

[Deathwalker]

The honest answer is NO ONE KNOWS. Til we get ing to the game with more then just a few beta players we won't know what kind of packets are flying back and forth. to be safe I would say Cable but in all honesty wireless should be fine in this day and age

[Elkarlo]

With 4 Walls i would suggest Cable, because when the Walls get Hummid they Block perfectly 2.4ghz Waves.
Beause it's one of the Frequenzies of Water...


Go up to the Attic and lay it over there. And as sayed 2x 50 Foot Cable no problem, just connect them with a RJC45 connector ( Which gives away about 30 Feet distanz but even so you are far below the 300 Feet maximum for good Wired Connection).
Wired have a reach without additional Powersource for 300 Foot.

[Vulpesveritas]

Elkarlo, on 22 June 2012 - 10:33 PM, said:

With 4 Walls i would suggest Cable, because when the Walls get Hummid they Block perfectly 2.4ghz Waves.
Beause it's one of the Frequenzies of Water...


Go up to the Attic and lay it over there. And as sayed 2x 50 Foot Cable no problem, just connect them with a RJC45 connector ( Which gives away about 30 Feet distanz but even so you are far below the 300 Feet maximum for good Wired Connection).
Wired have a reach without additional Powersource for 300 Foot.

why 2x50 when a 100 foot is cheaper?
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16812119318

[Elkarlo]

Vulpesveritas, on 22 June 2012 - 10:35 PM, said:

why 2x50 when a 100 foot is cheaper?
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16812119318

Only a Suggestion, that you can use splitted Cables, for easy laying. Personally i use fixed Wire with Wallconnector Jackets.
They give a Dampening of 15Foot each, but very easy to Repair a damaged Patch Cable.

[Gorthaur]

i say ethernet cable as well. another option you could look into if you feel like spending some extra cash is ethernet over power line.

http://www.newegg.co...line-Networking

[AkuPyro]

This whole thing is debatable and can some what be a mute point depending on your internet connection quality. Having a large bandwidth amount is all well and good, but if the latency is higher, it might not matter if you go wired or wireless in your house. If you are going with the jack by your computer first, that may be the easiest to start. If your wireless is not dropping and you do not have many devices using it (something important at times), then I would start there. If it works, it works. You would be out nothing. Take it from there after you get a chance to play. I personally prefer wired as it is a direct connection; less that can go wrong there. I am a network guy though, and I tend to prefer my dedicated bandwidth to my switch; but hey, that is just me. I would recommend though, try with what you have first. If it works, your good, if not, then that is when you can try the other things.

[Odins Fist]

If you're going to hard wire, check this out, I use these... http://www.newegg.co...N82E16812119434
50ft Cat-7.. (backwards compatibile) for $13.99 plus 4 bucks shipping, you can't touch this for that price in a retail store anywhere that I know of. I have ZERO degradation that I can see using this cable in my home network, I also run wireless N+ router with a built in 4 port Gigabit, switch sometimes when I feel Lazy for a round of 2 v 2 Supreme Commander (Forged Alliance) LAN party / beer fest, and yea I have a mini "DAS BOOT"..!!!! Using (high quality) N-1, and N+ wireless USB adapters (a couple of years old), I have 5 of those, and they work great as well.

[Tears]

With a good wireless router you would be ok. Unless you have the rare problem we have at my house. The frequency of the fancy microwave my roommate bought is so close to wireless one that when it is on there is no signal in the house. So we all changed to wired.

So I guess long story short WIRED

[Catamount]

As others have said, go wired. Even in a make believe world where wireless technology somehow is operating under the most ideal circumstances possible, with little or nothing blocking the transmission source and receiver, and devices absurdly close together, you'll still get somewhat superior latency with a wired connection (although some of these people are claiming as low 2-10ms, again, in tailoredly perfectly conditions not representative of most setups, so the difference would be modest in that case).

In the real world, especially in your situation, OP, it doesn't matter what your internet setup is as some others have claimed; the reality is that regardless of your situation, going wireless will add 20-50ms of ping onto whatever you're already getting, and regardless of what other sources of latency there are in your situation, that added latency is just going to hurt things one way or the other. Getting a wire will be cheaper, and the results will be better.

[Biglead]

While "Wired" will usually give you a better signal. I was always under the impression that over 50Ft the signal starts to degrade. Any who, ABSOLUTELY check your modem/router to see which version it is. (1, 2 or 3 according to my ISP). Your current Tier of modem may not be compatible with faster speeds that are available and even with a wire you would still have slow speeds. I went through 1 modem and 2 routers before I figured this out (always buying the Tier 2 version Modem/Router and expecting Tier 3 connection).

Edited by Biglead, 23 June 2012 - 06:41 PM.

[Mr Bosko]

Wired is deffinatley better. A friend of mine plays with wireless and looses connectivity every now and then, even if it is just for a second it is enough to drop you out of games and interrupt connections sometimes.

I live in a fair sized apartment and our modem is set up in another room. instead of wireless, we ran a long assed cord to the computer room. We just tucked it up to the wall by the floor, a few tacks to hold it in place, and we have no problems with connectivity.

[Catamount]

Biglead, on 23 June 2012 - 06:40 PM, said:

While "Wired" will usually give you a better signal. I was always under the impression that over 50Ft the signal starts to degrade. Any who, ABSOLUTELY check your modem/router to see which version it is. (1, 2 or 3 according to my ISP). Your current Tier of modem may not be compatible with faster speeds that are available and even with a wire you would still have slow speeds. I went through 1 modem and 2 routers before I figured this out (always buying the Tier 2 version Modem/Router and expecting Tier 3 connection).

I'm presently on 100ft, and all pings are >1ms, with absolutely no packet loss.


Also, OP, there's another problem with wireless that I'm surprised no one has covered: WLAN Autoconfig

This is a program in Vista and Windows 7 (XP had something very similar, but different name), that will disconnect your wireless connection every 60 seconds for a few moments, to poll wireless networks around you. It cannot be turned off.

The result of this is that every 60 seconds, for about 1-2 seconds, your wireless connection drops, resulting in a momentary lag spike, that happens over, and over, and over, and over, and over, every single minute. That's why if you do a constant ping of a router on wireless long enough (say, type ping 192.168.x.x -n 100), it'll look something like this:

Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time 40ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time 40ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time 40ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time 40ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time 40ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time 40ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time 40ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time 40ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time 40ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time 1872ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time 1428ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time 40ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time 40ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time 40ms TTL=64

Even 60 seconds that happens


There are software workarounds for this (two that I'm aware of), but they don't work 100% of the time, even if one of them (WLAN Optimizer) usually does a decent job, and work or not, these program have to constantly run, and represent an extra hassle to wireless.

Edited by Catamount, 23 June 2012 - 06:51 PM.

[Necrodemus]

I prefer wireless. You can ping the outer edge of your cable modem to see the combined latency of your equipment in-house. Beyond that it's really out of your control. Typically it should be less than 1ms... maybe 2 if you're keeping the cable modem busy. Anything less than 5ms to the outer edge of your network is already faster than a decent monitor refreshes.

As for the WLAN Autoconfig issue mentioned above.... maybe I'm lucky. I've never seen that.

Edited by Necrodemus, 23 June 2012 - 06:55 PM.

[Catamount]

Necrodemus, on 23 June 2012 - 06:51 PM, said:

I prefer wireless. You can ping the outer edge of your cable modem to see the combined latency of your equipment in-house. Beyond that it's really out of your control. Typically it should be less than 1ms... maybe 2 if you're keeping the cable modem busy. Anything less than 5ms to the outer edge of your network is already faster than a decent monitor refreshes.

As for the WLAN Autoconfig issue mentioned above.... maybe I'm lucky. I've never seen that.

Everyone has this problem; as I said, it can't be turned off. It's an integral part of Windows Networking, that's no more optional or less present on all machines than Windows Explorer.

If you haven't noticed it, either you don't play games where 1000-3000ms lag spikes matter, or you've just gotten used to your connection behaving that way. I know I was in the latter situation. Eventually I just got used to my games having a huge lag spike for a moment, every 60 seconds. Some games also doesn't reveal it as well as others. In BF2142, it was obvious because the game would literally "pause"; some games gloss over such lag spikes, so they still occur, and you miss any action that takes place in that 1-3 seconds, it just isn't as obvious.

[Biglead]

Catamount, on 23 June 2012 - 07:10 PM, said:

Everyone has this problem; as I said, it can't be turned off. It's an integral part of Windows Networking, that's no more optional or less present on all machines than Windows Explorer.

If you haven't noticed it, either you don't play games where 1000-3000ms lag spikes matter, or you've just gotten used to your connection behaving that way. I know I was in the latter situation. Eventually I just got used to my games having a huge lag spike for a moment, every 60 seconds. Some games also doesn't reveal it as well as others. In BF2142, it was obvious because the game would literally "pause"; some games gloss over such lag spikes, so they still occur, and you miss any action that takes place in that 1-3 seconds, it just isn't as obvious.

Wow, wasn't aware of that. May have to rethink my wireless setup even though its only 4 feet from the modem.

[Arfer]

Cable if you can. New router if you can't.

I thought I saw some device that plugs into electrical outlets and basically uses your house's wiring as an Ethernet cable. Any thoughts on those things?

[Catamount]

Biglead, on 23 June 2012 - 07:15 PM, said:

Wow, wasn't aware of that. May have to rethink my wireless setup even though its only 4 feet from the modem.

Like I said, you should be able to see it. Just have CMD/Powershell do a long, constant ping (just append like -n 1000 to the ping command), and every minute or so, you should see a HUGE spike in the ping. If it's only four feet, I'd just grab a cheap 7ft Ethernet cable ... that is, if I'm understanding correctly? Your computer is only four feet away?

In any case, this is something that's been known for years, but for some reason, MS refuses to fix/change it, even though it screws up gamers royally

http://www.google.co...w=1105&bih=1066



IF Wireless is your only feasible option, get WLAN Optimizer:

http://www.martin-ma.../wlanoptimizer/

It works... usually

Edited by Catamount, 23 June 2012 - 07:24 PM.

[Volume]

Crawling around in closets, drilling holes, leading 100ft cables up two floors...

Oh, that was a fun day.

But 100% worth it.

[Phatt]

LordDeathStrike, on 22 June 2012 - 09:59 PM, said:

early wireless may have had issues with speed and packets, but these days wireless > wired. in most of the usa the new 4g lte > cable internet speeds and quality, and its wireless too, expect within 5-10 years for your broadband to be delivered wirelessly since the infrastructure is so much easies to build and maintain then wires. (just need towers and recievers in the homes, beautifull aint it.)

I live in Australia and we have 4G Wireless Internet services that use the Mobile phone network. I have experienced two different wireless ISP's and came to the conclusion that wireless internet sucks when compared to ADSL2+, which in turn sucks in comparrison to FTN (Fibre to the Node) cable internet. This is why our government is currently rolling out a National FTN network. The main problem with Wireless internet is that it dramaticaly slows down when it is oversubscribed or in some cases you just get kicked off the network untill the traffic reduces.

So in my opinion I would always recomend cables over wireless unless you don't have access to cables. Also if you install your cables properly you don't get rat nests of cable.