does wifi work for gaming?
 

so I'm getting a new gaming computer and am going to put in my room. The computer I'm on right now is the one hooked up to the cable modem, my computer would be up a floor and about 10-15 feet away total. My brother has his own lap top which is upstairs in his room (a little further away probably 15-20ft) which is already connected to a wireless router. He doesn't game however and doesn't need a great connection. The router we have already is a linksys wireless-b 2.4ghz. Someone told me if wifi has a chance to work for gaming I need wireless-g.

So what I want to know is 3 part.
1. From your experience or what you've heard can wifi run games quickly enough?
2. If the answer is yes to 1 then what equipment would you use to set up a wifi network?
3. would this new equipment screw up my brothers current wifi set up?

Yes. I had no problems with an 802.11b setup.
Wireless router, wifi card for your computer. You already have the router.
Not if you do it right. All you have to do is connect to your brother's router.

So slav you would just use the router we have now? or would you switch to a wireless-g one and go from there?

wireless b would run at 11mbits/second, wireless g 54mbits/second. if you have a standard cable internet connection it usually ranges from 1 to 8mbits/second. so even though you can get through your network at 11 ~ 54mbits your max speed is still limited by your modem. most cable modems downstream is around 45mbits anyway. i would go with wireless G just because its the same price anyway, and it is backward compatible with B. if there is already a wireless network you just need a card.

Wait so ols are you saying that even though we have a wirelessb router that I can get a wireless g card for my computer and it will work as well as wireless g?

I never had a problem playing games online with my b router, and that was with a card that liked to pretend it was getting next to no signal. Unless you're going to be playing a game that really hammers your network connection, you'll be fine with an 802.11b network.

Ols was saying a couple of things. First, your cable modem might be slower than a b router. Two, a g card can be used with a b or g network. So if you decide to upgrade your network to 802.11g, you would only have to buy a router.

Oh I think I understand you. So if I buy a G wireless card it will work with a b router?

Thanks for the help guys

Never had a problem with it. Like was said, remember, the wireless connection still runs faster than the modem. Go for it.

The only caveat is if your router is also handling (simultaneously) many other tasks - such as big file downloads. If you've got it to yourself, you're ok. I can't play BF2 and do Bittorrent at the same time effectively. Your ping might also be a notch higher with wireless, considering the invisible waves that have to be translated back and forth.

The amount of data up/down-loaded to and from your pc is fairly minimal compared to the rendering and physics done on station. I was worried about wireless gaming, too, but I think it's just fine. Now, if I could just improve my aim...

Wifi will rarly run more the half the rated speed... with 802.11b you will not get more then 5.5 to 6.0 Mbps

Very true--but that's still faster than most people's internet connections.

You're more likely to run into a problem with dropped packets, but I've never noticed any issues with actual pings.

As sailor said, the problem is not throughput but reliability. There's a lot of things that can cause packet loss in wireless connections (microwaves, phones, etc.) and so while the actual throughput of the connection works well enough - you may experience some problems with gaming due to that.

Now, I'm not saying "wireless = crap for gaming", but your mileage may vary.

I was using a wireless router and trying to get reliable signal 15 feet away from the router for gaming. After about 2 weeks of frustration, I bought a nice long length of cat-5 and strung it across the ceiling. Problem solved.

So what I'm gathering is it could go either way. Luckily we are probably the only house in this country without a microwave or any cell phones. We do have a cordless phone however.

Exactly, The_wall. You may have no trouble, or you may have lots of trouble. The cordless phone stands a chance of causing interference - but you won't know how much interference until you actually try.

That said, I'm running my Mac about 4m away from the router, through a wall, cordless phone and microwave all intervening ;) I've never had any major problems, really. Nor any minor problems that weren't Telstra's fault. There's a computer upstairs that does occasionally have some probs with the network, but it's at the limits of the range, anyway. Online gaming, on Australian servers, is still very good but aussie broadband sucks for anything internation. Rocks for PSP/DS handheld online, though, whoo!

you may have problems initially, and you usually have to screw around with your network software to get it to do what you want. i have d-link 524 and havent had any problems with it