Wired / wireless connections

by **Jediluke** » Sat Dec 31, 2016 12:11 am

+1 Drakona

by **LotharBot** » Sat Dec 31, 2016 12:24 am

The weakest link in the modern internet is, almost always, from your computer to your router (unless your ISP is run by monkeys, or your packets are crossing multiple oceans.) The modern internet is really, really stable. Drakona and I just looked at a netlog from a game she played with LoNi (in Brazil, not on LAN) and in a little under 23 minutes there were zero packets lost total, and zero packets out of order total. At 30 pps, it only takes a fluctuation of about 33 ms from one packet to the next to cause out-of-order packets. So that means the connection never fluctuated by more than 33 ms packet-to-packet, over the course of 41,000 packets. Compare that to her 15-second, 15-packet sample of pinging the wireless router across the house -- there's a jump of about 80 ms between two consecutive packets.

Literally, a wired connection from here to Brazil is more stable for an entire game than a wireless connection from here to the other side of the house for 15 seconds.

If you play on wireless, you're subjecting yourself and your opponents to random instability -- packets out of order, lag spikes that last for fractions of a second but are going on constantly, the possibility that the connection will suddenly turn horrific because your neighbor is making popcorn, ping fluctuations because your furnace turned on and filled your hallway with dry air when it had been more humid, loss because somebody walked across the living room. It's like playing on a basketball court with wobbly rims. Like, if it's the best you got, I guess it's better than nothing, but it's not really competition-grade. I mean, I'm into winning in whatever circumstances as much as the next guy, but at the same time nobody wants an asterisk on their win or their loss, and "this game was played on a connection that fluctuates more in 15 seconds than my connection to Brazil does in 23 minutes" is a pretty big asterisk.

On amazon, it's $10 for 50 feet of cat6, or $13 for 100 feet. You can get a 6' chunk of that rubber cable protector stuff (to run across doorways or whatever) for 7 bucks. It's 4 bucks for a hundred pack of wall-mount cable clips. Personally, I've drilled holes in 3 closet floors to run cable across my basement, and sanded off the corners of a couple of doors as well. Sure, there are shared-living circumstances where a wired connection is just out of reach, but playing on wireless should be your last resort. If at all possible, please, get a wired connection.

by **Jediluke** » Sat Dec 31, 2016 10:12 am

+1 Lotharbot

by **Vainiac** » Sat Dec 31, 2016 10:55 am

As a counterpoint to what drakona and lothar experience over wireless here is my ping times and loss info to my home router that I just let run over the past 15 minutes or so.

0% loss and only 4 packets taking more than 10 ms to return. This is while my daughter is streaming netflix. Again, not perfect but far better than what people are portraying wireless out to be. So at least on my end the loss doesn't appear to be an issue. I'm sure people will make the argument that any ping fluctuation is unacceptable, but the data here indicates that the connection that wireless is capable of providing is far cry from unplayable.

EDIT: not sure how to make the pic visible in the post but if you click on the link you can see it.

by **Jediluke** » Sat Dec 31, 2016 12:15 pm

Vainiac, your connection is decent for sure. The point of the thread is not invalidated by someone who has a decent wireless connection. The point is for those who CAN be wired.... Should get wired.

by **Morfod** » Sat Dec 31, 2016 2:37 pm

This discussion is why I'm so non-chalant about dropping a game.

by **birdseye** » Sat Dec 31, 2016 3:14 pm

by **LotharBot** » Sat Dec 31, 2016 3:30 pm

by **The@$$Man!** » Sat Dec 31, 2016 4:13 pm

Welcome to online gaming. To keep it simple. Its not a perfect world and if you cant deal with lag do not play any P2P online games (only like 2 games ever have P2P for online gaming

.) /endrage /endthread