Wireless Home network or not?

[Randy1]

My home network is based on a DSL wireless router and my computer that I use for AH has a wireless adapter for the connection to the internet by way of the DSL router in another room.  I can, with some effort, install a new phone line near enough to my computer so that I can use an Ethernet cable to connect to the DSL router.

Will came play improve by going ethernet direct connect over wireless?

[Skuzzy]

Generally speaking, a wired connection will always be better than a wireless connection.  Wireless connections always have a higher bit error rate than a wired connection will.  The most dramatic gains will be with the voice system in the game as it uses UDP protocols.  Once a bit error happens there, the packet of data is lost forever.

[Randy1]

Thank you for that quick reply.  I will make plans then to install a DSL phone line close enough to hook up the Ethernet connection.
 

[Bizman]

Bear in mind that indoor phone line extensions are of cheap quality, often causing signal losses in longer distances. Ethernet wire instead is specced to carry the signal up to 100 metres. It might be wise to let the dsl modem stay where it now is and do some Ethernet cabling instead. You (or your wife...) might even want to do a neat semi-permanent Ethernet cabling with wall jacks in either end, using standard short cables to connect the modem and the computer to the near wall jack.

[Randy1]

Bizman a good thought but in this case i will actually be shorting the DSL line from what the length it is now.  It  is just harder to install because of location of my computer.

Thanks anyway for the reply because it might have been the other way.

[blkblade]

Randy,
I've used a wireless (801.11n) connection for some time on the computer I AH on. My ping times are typically between 50 and 80 and I've never thought it was an issue - tho' perhaps that explains my crappy hit percentage (blaming on rubber bullets is more attractive than admitting I stink). I have no idea what my packet drop percentage is but can test if I can get the address of the server.

[blkblade]

Actually found the server to ping. With 1000 samples at one second intervals I see no dropped packets. So there you are.
 

[Randy1]

M

Actually found the server to ping. With 1000 samples at one second intervals I see no dropped packets. So there you are.
 

My wife wants a new phone jack anyway so might as well get it installed.  My pings with the wireless were like yours.

[Skuzzy]

There is more to it than you are going to get with ICMP packets.  Latency variances will occur when a bit error happens and the packet is retried.  Those latencies are what to look for in a ping plot, unless you are using the UDP protocol.  Then packet loss is the issue to watch for.

[blkblade]

Scuzzy,
Is there a good way to get some kind of apples to apples comparison between wired and wireless connection? It'd be non-trivial for me to (neatly) run cat 5 to my AHing computer. If I were to temporarily string a wire what could I do/test to see how bad the wireless is relative to the wired? I had (obviously) convinced myself that ping round-trip speed was sufficient test but perhaps not. I'm linux savvy so if there's a tool there that'd be helpful too.
As an aside, are powerline-to-ethernet adapters better than wireless?
Thanks a bunch!

[LCAMerciful]

Scuzzy,
Is there a good way to get some kind of apples to apples comparison between wired and wireless connection? It'd be non-trivial for me to (neatly) run cat 5 to my AHing computer. If I were to temporarily string a wire what could I do/test to see how bad the wireless is relative to the wired? I had (obviously) convinced myself that ping round-trip speed was sufficient test but perhaps not. I'm linux savvy so if there's a tool there that'd be helpful too.
As an aside, are powerline-to-ethernet adapters better than wireless?
Thanks a bunch!

Because of the dynamic nature of a wireless connection it's really difficult to compare the two.  In a perfect world a wireless network should perform (almost) just as good as a wired connection but unfortunately there are so many intermittent variables involved that affect wireless connections more so than a wired connection.

For example, at 2am you might fire the computer up and be able to play AH flawlessly on a wireless connection.  You can test the two connections and see no dropped packets, etc and all is good.  Then at 7pm the next evening you try again and constantly get disconnected from the AH servers.  Why?  Who knows.  Maybe your neighbor is playing around with a ham radio.  Or maybe your wife decided to nuke a pop tart.  Or maybe the clouds are aligned in such a manner to reflect some radio waves down towards the vicinity of your network.  Who knows.

Yes for email, browsing and even some less intensive gaming wireless networking should work just fine - but for a real-time game such as AH where packet timing is critical why take that chance?  Generally speaking wired is better than wireless - so if it's no big deal to run a wire then just run a wire!

At my old house I played AH for years on a wireless connection and almost never ran into a problem - even being on a different floor and about 50 feet from the router.  At my new house (in a much more densely populated neighborhood) it was hit or miss.  Some nights no problem.  Other nights I would constantly lose vox or get disconnected altogether.  I relocated the cable modem and my router to my desk and have it connected via cat5 now.  No problems.  And I still have a wireless connection for my and my g/f's cell phones, Wii, Bluray and her computer.

[Bizman]

As Merciful says, there are multiple variables affecting a wireless connection. Yes for email? Mostly yes, my wife can do all her computing wirelessly in our neighbourhood with about half a dozen visible networks. OTOH I've witnessed wifi being totally unusable in a similar situation.

We have a cheap retro kitchen radio, with a telescopic antenna. It has worked quite well until the recent solar storm - which also gave us some magnificent Northern Lights to admire. At times the one step trip from the table to the coffee maker would cause the radio to totally lose the signal.

I just recently read that  solar storming can even harm hard disks! One would think they are double shielded, the disk being inside a metal frame which is situated in a grounded metal case.

The more I think about these examples, the more I wonder how wireless networks and other radio frequence relied systems can work at all  Must be some kind of magic! 

[Randy1]

Time as not permitted the new phone line installation but in my junk box I found a long ethernet cable from a long ago project.  I ran it across the kitchen floor to do a temporary hook up for session on AH.  It is hard to be sure but I think my hit percentage went up.

[blkblade]

 
Maybe that's it!
Perhaps I dont stink! Naw...
Ok, I'm convinced enough to string some cable.

 

[The Fugitive]

Maybe that's it!
Perhaps I dont stink! Naw...
Ok, I'm convinced enough to string some cable.

 

No, I checked, you DO stink!     j/k