anyone game on 802.11n?

[jeremymwilson]

I have an older router (Fritzbox 7390) which uses 802.11n.

My PC has always been connected with a network cable but I am rearranging my setup and I will need to use wifi or run a very long cable to the network port, which is inconvenient and very annoying to my wife.

My PC doesn't have wifi onboard and have been looking around for a good usb or pcie adapter.

Does anyone do online gaming using an older router like this one? i.e. not 802.11ac

Is it ok? And has anyone changed to a 802.11ac router and noticed a big difference?

If there is a significant difference, I might go ahead and replace my router, but that's a lot more money.

Thanks for your help.

 

 

 

[goto10]

i would jist find the way to make more convenient the long ethernet cable

 

if you really cant do that, another option but sadly more expensive is powerline, ethernet over electric wiring on your house

 

last option should be always wifi

 

if you plan to buy a wifi, try to get a internal card with detachable antennas, so you can put some 5 or 6 dbi antennas to get as good signal as possible

 

another option could be a wifi repeater with ethernet ports in the back, you can connect the repeater via wifi with the router but from the repeater connect ethernet cable to the desktop, so you avoid adding a wifi adapter

[Jurrunio]

Problem with Wifi gaming is not transfer rate, but packet loss. I hate even AX for gaming for this reason.

[jeremymwilson]

2 hours ago, goto10 said:

i would jist find the way to make more convenient the long ethernet cable

 

if you really cant do that, another option but sadly more expensive is powerline, ethernet over electric wiring on your house

 

last option should be always wifi

 

if you plan to buy a wifi, try to get a internal card with detachable antennas, so you can put some 5 or 6 dbi antennas to get as good signal as possible

 

another option could be a wifi repeater with ethernet ports in the back, you can connect the repeater via wifi with the router but from the repeater connect ethernet cable to the desktop, so you avoid adding a wifi adapter

I actually have a powerline adaptor with a network port. I connected this to the desktop and the speed was terrible - 6mps download compared to over 20 connected to the router.

 

thanks for the tips though

[uberas]

I’ve been gaming on both 802.11n 2.4GHz and ac 5GHz - it’s all fine for me, and I can spot a difference between like 60 and 120fps so I would say if something major disturbs me. To be honest only difference between them is stability, however you can play competitive games on both 

[jeremymwilson]

2 hours ago, uberas said:

I’ve been gaming on both 802.11n 2.4GHz and ac 5GHz - it’s all fine for me, and I can spot a difference between like 60 and 120fps so I would say if something major disturbs me. To be honest only difference between them is stability, however you can play competitive games on both 

good to know, cheers

[Kisai]

10 hours ago, jeremymwilson said:

I have an older router (Fritzbox 7390) which uses 802.11n.

My PC has always been connected with a network cable but I am rearranging my setup and I will need to use wifi or run a very long cable to the network port, which is inconvenient and very annoying to my wife.

My PC doesn't have wifi onboard and have been looking around for a good usb or pcie adapter.

Does anyone do online gaming using an older router like this one? i.e. not 802.11ac

Is it ok? And has anyone changed to a 802.11ac router and noticed a big difference?

If there is a significant difference, I might go ahead and replace my router, but that's a lot more money.

Thanks for your help.

 

 

 

Do not game on wireless connections. Period. The WiFi parts will consume CPU, and if the CPU reaches a certain load, it will certainly drop the wireless connection. Weak wireless connections will draw more CPU time from the CPU.

 

For gaming (not streaming/downloading) you should only use a wired connection, even if that means using a USB ethernet adapter. You can certainly "play" a game on wireless, but unless you're the sole person using it for a mile around, and have no other wireless gear, you are not guaranteed any stable connection, and the wireless will add 2ms to most latency round trips even on clean connections.

 

This is also why you should not game using 3G(UMTS/HSDPA)/4G(LTE) unless it's a very turn-based game (like most mobile CCG's.) As the connection quality is subject to the whim of the carrier and other people connected to the base station.

[uberas]

2 hours ago, Kisai said:

Do not game on wireless connections. Period. The WiFi parts will consume CPU, and if the CPU reaches a certain load, it will certainly drop the wireless connection. Weak wireless connections will draw more CPU time from the CPU.

I don’t know what kind of processor you would have to have to experience such thing, I’ve used USB WiFi adapters all the way down to E8400 and it NEVER affected my cpu usage in a way I would feel it. Now I’m running Ryzen 5 2600 and I can’t imagine it’s 12 threads struggling to manage some WiFi lmao.

2 hours ago, Kisai said:

 

For gaming (not streaming/downloading) you should only use a wired connection, even if that means using a USB ethernet adapter. You can certainly "play" a game on wireless, but unless you're the sole person using it for a mile around, and have no other wireless gear, you are not guaranteed any stable connection, and the wireless will add 2ms to most latency round trips even on clean connections.

And most monitors have 5ms REAL latency, I’m living in a flat and people around me have tons of routers, WiFi devices and there’s simple fix for that - just choose another unoccupied channel?

2 hours ago, Kisai said:

 

This is also why you should not game using 3G(UMTS/HSDPA)/4G(LTE) unless it's a very turn-based game (like most mobile CCG's.) As the connection quality is subject to the whim of the carrier and other people connected to the base station.

Yup, GSM networks are about to be unplayable  I mean anything below HSPA+ at least. I’ve also played games on 3G (HSPA+) and 4G(LTE) and while 3G is having somewhat high ping LTE does it’s job just fine for most of the time unless ridiculous amounts of people start using it 

 

Recently I’ve seen some article comparing WiFi (AC 5GHz, N 2.4GHz), Powerline and Ethernet. Why you usually use WiFi or power line? Because of its convenience, I mean I will not make my flat looks bad with some weird wires unless I’m God in some games.. but to the topic - they actually found out that Powerline is worst in everything, only transfers are better also depends if that’s same socket or no - but even if it’s still worse than AC by A LOT. 

(That’s not the one but topic is similar https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/powerline-wireless-networking,2470-10.html)

So.. back in a day I would say if you really need stable “aka wired” connection go for Powerline, however now I would say go for AC/AX WiFi if you’re casual gamer and know how to configure your channels plus the distance isn’t far away or you use some antenna to strengthen it you’re really good to go.

 

And finally conclusion OP: If you can afford AC standard it will give you few milliseconds delay less, surely but only IF your network isn’t bottleneck so you really need to have a fibre. The difference is there and it’s pretty big I would say 802.11N 2.4GHz will have typically 3-5ms delay while 5GHz ac around 2ms. It is actually the best solution to have internet connection in unreachable by Ethernet cable places nowadays, I mean more affordable because obviously AX and it’s management is amazing but costs even more money 

[jeremymwilson]

2 hours ago, uberas said:

I don’t know what kind of processor you would have to have to experience such thing, I’ve used USB WiFi adapters all the way down to E8400 and it NEVER affected my cpu usage in a way I would feel it. Now I’m running Ryzen 5 2600 and I can’t imagine it’s 12 threads struggling to manage some WiFi lmao.

And most monitors have 5ms REAL latency, I’m living in a flat and people around me have tons of routers, WiFi devices and there’s simple fix for that - just choose another unoccupied channel?

Yup, GSM networks are about to be unplayable  I mean anything below HSPA+ at least. I’ve also played games on 3G (HSPA+) and 4G(LTE) and while 3G is having somewhat high ping LTE does it’s job just fine for most of the time unless ridiculous amounts of people start using it 

 

Recently I’ve seen some article comparing WiFi (AC 5GHz, N 2.4GHz), Powerline and Ethernet. Why you usually use WiFi or power line? Because of its convenience, I mean I will not make my flat looks bad with some weird wires unless I’m God in some games.. but to the topic - they actually found out that Powerline is worst in everything, only transfers are better also depends if that’s same socket or no - but even if it’s still worse than AC by A LOT. 

(That’s not the one but topic is similar https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/powerline-wireless-networking,2470-10.html)

So.. back in a day I would say if you really need stable “aka wired” connection go for Powerline, however now I would say go for AC/AX WiFi if you’re casual gamer and know how to configure your channels plus the distance isn’t far away or you use some antenna to strengthen it you’re really good to go.

 

And finally conclusion OP: If you can afford AC standard it will give you few milliseconds delay less, surely but only IF your network isn’t bottleneck so you really need to have a fibre. The difference is there and it’s pretty big I would say 802.11N 2.4GHz will have typically 3-5ms delay while 5GHz ac around 2ms. It is actually the best solution to have internet connection in unreachable by Ethernet cable places nowadays, I mean more affordable because obviously AX and it’s management is amazing but costs even more money 

Thanks uberas

[Donut417]

19 hours ago, jeremymwilson said:

I have an older router (Fritzbox 7390) which uses 802.11n.

My PC has always been connected with a network cable but I am rearranging my setup and I will need to use wifi or run a very long cable to the network port, which is inconvenient and very annoying to my wife.

My PC doesn't have wifi onboard and have been looking around for a good usb or pcie adapter.

Does anyone do online gaming using an older router like this one? i.e. not 802.11ac

Is it ok? And has anyone changed to a 802.11ac router and noticed a big difference?

If there is a significant difference, I might go ahead and replace my router, but that's a lot more money.

Thanks for your help.

 

 

 

I used to game on a Dual band wireless N router. 5 Ghz is key here as it tends to be more reliable, but you have to be careful because range and penetration power can be limited. Just be aware that you might have hiccups ever once in a while. As long as you have decent signal and understand that wireless can be limited, you should be fine. My advice is to go with a PCI express adapter. Stay away from USB, they are trash. 

[Kisai]

On 7/30/2019 at 8:53 PM, uberas said:

I don’t know what kind of processor you would have to have to experience such thing, I’ve used USB WiFi adapters all the way down to E8400 and it NEVER affected my cpu usage in a way I would feel it. Now I’m running Ryzen 5 2600 and I can’t imagine it’s 12 threads struggling to manage some WiFi lmao.

 

Live in a WiFi 2.4Ghz congested area, and you will see the exact effect I stated. There's only 3 non-overlapping 20Mhz Wireless-G channels, and everything above G essentially consumes the entire spectrum to run (40Mhz used in wireless-N, so only one channel can operate) and if there's 30 other wireless AP's near you, the CPU is doing a lot of error correction. Plus all those bluetooth and propietary wireless mouse/keyboard/gamepad's use 2.4Ghz. I had friends that gamed on their laptops and would always disconnect when they entered congested areas of MMORPG's because the CPU usage would spike for more than a few seconds, causing the wireless adapter drop the connection. I also knew of people who lost their WiFi connection every time any microwave was operated in an apartment building. 2.4Ghz radios can reach a quite far away, though may not really operate that far (I could reach a hotel's WiFi from 500 meters away, given I had complete line of sight to it.)

 

5Ghz is usually the a/ac/ax configuration, and is preferable due to less distance (eg it's usually room sized, not house sized) , However many cable/dsl models that have 5Ghz are wireless-N devices not wireless-AC, and tend to just operate as two separate radios in a 40Mhz configuration rather than a combined configuration or using 80Mhz or 160Mhz. This also means that you are almost always better off putting a better router on the DMZ port.

 

As for latency, wireless will always result in additional latency, so if you are playing MMOFPS or MMORPG games you will always be better off directly connecting via ethernet, turning off the Nagle algorithm and leaving all other settings at defaults in the OS. 

 

[jeremymwilson]

update: bought a TP-Link usb adaptor as that was the only thing I could find in the shops and it was relatively cheap. But it works great. haven't tested online gaming yet but I only do WoW currently so I guess it will be fine.

 

And where I live it's not congested at all, so I don't experience the same issues as described above.

 

Next year we're moving back to a city but by that time I'll have bought a mesh router.

 

Cheers everyone.