I say this as a person that has a paycheck that is dependant upon on our wifi sales, ALWAYS cable your stuff if you can.
Wifi is for convenience and not reliability and stability.
Wifi is good enough until its not
Network technologies for gaming - Wifi versus Ethernet *spawn
- Thread starter JPT
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I say this as a person that has a paycheck that is dependant upon on our wifi sales, ALWAYS cable your stuff if you can.
Wifi is for convenience and not reliability and stability.
Wifi is good enough until its not
D
Deleted member 11852
Guest
I've not had reliability or stability issues with wifi for a decade, since moving from 2.4Ghz networking. Three repeaters across a mesh blanket the house.I say this as a person that has a paycheck that is dependant upon on our wifi sales, ALWAYS cable your stuff if you can.
Wifi is for convenience and not reliability and stability. Wifi is good enough until its not
As I said it works until it does not
But seriously, yes wifi is great it works well enough in most situations and scenarios.But if you capture the wifi traffic on the channel(s) your wifi network uses, you will see that you have loss of data and retransmission that affects your stream of data. Now usually the wifi layer is able to recover and retransmit without higer layers like TCP noticing it. But its work that needs to be done, there will be delays that affects real-time transmissions and of course any other latency sensitive transmissions. If you have access to your AP through cli or a linux shell you can also query the driver directly and get the stats.
Most home wifi solutions in the market today, if you do a continues ping just to your local gateway, you will see the response time, it fluctuates. This is usually combination of data being delayed due to being stuffed into aggregation frames and then lost frames that needs to be retransmitted.
I love mesh networks, it has payed for my house
But its first job is to extend coverage and with better coverage (shorter distances for the signal to travel) you get higher speeds as well. I know you know this signal stuff, but its good to keep repeating it.
Sure, but no..... the router with ap builtin converts between 802.3 and 802.11 frames........
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Deleted member 11852
Guest
Everything works until it doesn't. Basic routers go bad, basic routers drop packets, full copper cat 6 cable is typically rated to be effective for ten years, but like everything - including wifi - the quality of your network will very much depend on your equipment and how it's configured.As I said it works until it does not
I know you know this signal stuff, but its good to keep repeating it.
As I posted before, I used to manage a server farm so I do know a bit about networking. Maybe even as much as you.
I am sure you know more about Data center networking than I do, but I will stand on the barricades for last-mile and in home networking
Liberty Leading the People - Wikipedia
Yes, you are right everything is prone to deterioration. And configuration is of course very important, but not the point I was trying to get across
Wifi is prone by the medium it self to have more errors. And since wifi uses unlicensed spectrums you are can not in control of your radio environment like you can be with a cabled network. Wifi does a tremendous job in correcting lots of errors. But it does it at the expense of added data redundancy and latency. A typical scenario if you live in an apartment building, your neighbour does a speed test on his network and if he uses the same channel as you, then that will effect your experience. Or if you use 2.4Ghz even adjacent channels will bleed into yours.
Which will affect the QoE/QoS that you as a player are looking for. Its not unplayable, but its not "stable" if your ping fluctuates from sub 10ms to 100ms. If you are the type that cable your controller to your PC/Console to get an edge, you should also cable your PC/Console to your network.
That was a bunch of more words to say, just cable (with a proper quality cable) your pc/console if you want to gain an additional edge.
Happy New Year!
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Deleted member 11852
Guest
Dude, I don't really don't know how to communicate with you. I'm telling you that for our networking needs, we've had no networking problems with wireless for ten years. Perhaps consider that what we're doing doesn't need either massive bandwidth or that latency fluctuations of tens of miliseconds make no difference, making switching to a wired network pointless.
Can we leave it there, this is asinine.
Can we leave it there, this is asinine.
JPT's point isn't aimed at you and your experiences, but general insight for anyone network gaming that wifi isn't as good as Ethernet even if you aren't noticing any problems. It could and should have been left there without your response.
On a general discussion note, for it's impact on game streaming, would wifi connection see maybe moments of video degradation or subtle lag spikes for a lot of users? And is the Ethernet requirement confirmed?
On a general discussion note, for it's impact on game streaming, would wifi connection see maybe moments of video degradation or subtle lag spikes for a lot of users? And is the Ethernet requirement confirmed?
Ethernet is not required, but if you want to make sure you have the best experience you will have that over a cable and not a radio link.
All else equal you should see better ping times when cabled and also less jitter. Which will impact the data stream.
Game streaming tries to do its magic, but if it gets severe enough you will have issues like the ones you mentioned.
Here is bunch of presentations on latency (some wifi related), even one by nvidia about how it impact game streaming. It got nothing directly to do with wifi, if I remember correctly, but latency is latency.
'Latency in Cloud Streaming: Selected Topics' is the one by nvidia. It answers your questions better than I can
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Deleted member 11852
Guest
As a general point, it's unhelpful without knowing what you're comparing with what.
I.e. what wifi router? Which devices? What ethernet? What router? Wifi6 launched in 2020 and was widely adopted quickly, offering a full duplex 1.2Gbps connection. If you're comparing that to a good Cat 6 router and good Cat 6 and devices with gigabit NICs then ethernet should have lower latency and greater bandwidth.
If individual devices don't have gigabit ethernet NICs then you're probably still looking lower latency (unless bad cable/cabling and/or bad router) but lower bandwidth. Gigabit NICs in devices still aren't standard even with devices with ethernet connectors. What about people using laptops using ethernet adaptors? How's your cat6 network cabled around your house? Because the 90 degree bend radius of most cat 6e cables is a whole damn inch.
The correct answer on what is the better network technology is whatever works best for the individual. Unless you're gaming competitively online, the latency comparison is moot. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
A lot of online gamers are gaming competitively! They're playing Fortnite et al. And the vast majority of folk, myself included, don't have the background in networking to use anything other than rule-of-thumb advice. Here JPT's point is that Wifi is inherently unstable versus cabling, even if you aren't seeing that instability because the network is dealing with it for you, and so it's a good idea wherever possibly to cable up. Anyone with advanced knowledge and hardware to create their own wifi solution that's comparable to cabling is of course exempt from such advice, just as any car mechanic doesn't need to read "10 tips to prepare your car for Winter" from a Compare the Market newsletter.
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Deleted member 11852
Guest
The thing with networking, is that the rule of thumb advice (cable > wireless) carries so many caveats that it's worthless because it is complicated and does depend on so many factors. You might as well ask is linux better than Windows because you'll get the same type of meaningless advice/opinon. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
If you're using the term "unstable" to imply that packet loss doesn't happen on ethernet then you'd be wrong, because it happens a lot and just like wifi, the router will re-request missing packets from the device if it doesn't arrive in a timely fashion. Where wifi has gotten smarter than ethernet is predictive retransmission, which is where the device pair adapt to changing to wireless conditions and the sending device begins to send more redundant packets to keep latency low - because the latency spike is the (send) (wait) (fail) (re-request) (re-send) (receive) event chain. WiFI QoS has iterated massively in the last decade because it's had to.
Humans have been transmitting information wirelessly a lot longer than they have been trying to send data over copper or fibre optic cables.
And people with no knowledge will create a poor wired network because they they believe wire > wireless, and that's my point. Oh cables are better? Well I don't have an ethernet connector but I can buy this USB ethernet adapters. Sure you can, but the USB-ethernet over-protocol is ~10ms for just plugging it in.
JPT was talking about pings of 10-100ms between device and the local router and I don't even know what kind of equipment or environment would result in such a poor performance, maybe during an EMP burst? Or if your router has no antenna? Or is twenty years old? My router is an ASUS DSL-AC68U which I bought in 2015. This isn't even a WiFi6 device, this is an old 802.11ac model and my pings via a bridge (because the router is a good way away) are:
Pinging away.. said:
Modern WiFi6 routers can be a lot better. WiFi7 will be better still. But the router is critical in any network. Using a cheap router is where people go wrong, the ASUS was not cheap in 2015, and ASUS still keeps deploying firmware updates for it! A cheap wifi router is definitely worse than a cheap ethernet router.
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Silent_Buddha
Legend
In general what JPT said is true, of course, there are always exceptions. If you live somewhere where wireless traffic is low then wireless can provide a good steady connection. If you live somewhere with even a fair bit of wireless traffic among lots of devices that rapidly breaks down.
At our farmhouse wireless is nearly as good as wired as the nearest house is over half a mile away. There's pretty much zero congestion there.
At a relative's condo OTOH, wireless is almost completely unusable for gaming as ping constantly jump between 10 and 100 ms and sometimes even higher. And that isn't with a cheap router.
At an apartment I was renting for a while, again, wireless was completely useless for gaming there as there was so much wireless congestion from competing routers that outside of gaming from 1 am - 4 am, there was no way to get a steady connection. Usual caveat is that some people might be fine with pings bouncing between single, double and triple digit pings, but for me, that is not something I'd consider playable.
I imagine that a hypothetical apartment complex where each apartment is separated from the next by what would be essentially a faraday cage like wall, perhaps that wouldn't be an issue, but I've never lived in an apartment, condo or house where the walls are constructed like that. That hypothetical wall, of course, could pose problems for cellular traffic making life difficult for cell phone users.
Regards,
SB
arandomguy
Veteran
There's a lot of environmental factors for wifi basically. Even the construction of the building matters such as the wall construction and material. Homes aren't really typically built with wifi performance considerations in mind, this random post for instance shows an interesting case that a decision that would more typically matter for home builders has unintended negative effects for wifi -
There's a subjective usability factor here as well much like what is a playable FPS and stutter perception just for offline gaming.
A a brief spike up to 100ms (or more) every few minutes (or even longer) might be considered usable for some people but for others, say people playing competitively, that is a no go. For that group if that spike just happens once every few hours or even something like single drop (from a game) every few days it might as well be completely unusable in their eyes. But if you're just primarily offline gaming you wouldn't even notice something like that just due to probability.
There's a subjective usability factor here as well much like what is a playable FPS and stutter perception just for offline gaming.
A a brief spike up to 100ms (or more) every few minutes (or even longer) might be considered usable for some people but for others, say people playing competitively, that is a no go. For that group if that spike just happens once every few hours or even something like single drop (from a game) every few days it might as well be completely unusable in their eyes. But if you're just primarily offline gaming you wouldn't even notice something like that just due to probability.
I think you will find the telegraph was invented before radio, unless your referring to talking
arandomguy
Veteran
I don't think it's really relevant in terms of the overall conversation but would optical communication be classified as a wireless communication/data transmission? If so that would predate the electrical telegraph by quite a number of centuries if not millennia depending on the classification of what would constitute wireless data transmission.
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Deleted member 11852
Guest
In general what JPT said became irelevant for most people with good WiFi5 routers/devices and almost obsolete with WiFI6 which released in 2020 which virtually eliminated wireless congestion by having 2,000 subcarrier channels. We've come a long way from 802.11b where different people competed for 5-11 channels.
WiFI7 further improves on this, whilst also aiming to hit 3-5ms latency for most traffic. Of course, building construction and layout is important, multiple walls of concrete, brick, or any construction with rebar is kryptonite to wifi and that's why bridges and mesh networks exist.
That sounds like an example of a bad router/device pairing, poor placement and/or insufficient coverage. I recognise all of this from 10-15 years ago when I first began to consider switching from wired to wireless but personally have not experienced bad wifi like this for that long.
in the case of PS Portal, isnt its much better to directly wireless 5ghz to the PS5 in hotspot mode?
or PS5 is still missing remoteplay hotspot mode?
long ago, in... uh.. PS VITA era, PS3/PS4 (cant remember which one, or both) able to create a hotspot to be used by PS VITA. so it wirelessly directly connect to the home console. Basically like Wii U and its tablet.
EDIT:
btw those that got 5ghz wifi stuttering / unstable latency. try to put it in the lowest bandwidth (uh... i think it 40?) instead of the usual 40/80/whatever mode.
people on oculus quest has been researching this for years, and found out that the lowest bandwidth mode is the most stable.
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Deleted member 11852
Guest
This is a symptom of cheap wifi routers which have dual band transceiver sharing a single antenna array. A modern poor design equivalent to when when running 802.11a and 802.11b networks on one router gave compromised performance in both. Cheap routers mean compromised hardware choices.
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