Is getting a ethernet cable worth it?

[Glass of Lime Soda]

Whenever I play multiplayer games, I usually get high ping or a delayed response time even though my ping is decent by my own standards(<200). I'm connected to my modem by Wi-fi. The modem itself is in another room, right next to the one the PC is in.

[Baosas]

Yes. One should always have one nearby on principle, in case of Wi-Fi failing for some reason.

[vadim]

Try to ping your router/access point. If you always has low ping time, there are no reasons to change WiFi to Ethernet.

[vadim]

Origineel geplaatst door Sir:

A simple ping can't determine long term problems. It's always best to use a wired connection, if possible.

You just don't like WiFi for some unknown reasons. In most cases it's not worse than wired connection. Even better - you will not have bunch of cables scattered in all rooms.

[vadim]

Origineel geplaatst door Sir:

Need low latency? Ethernet > wi-fi

BS. There is nearly no difference in latency. Fractions of a millisecond.

[vadim]

Origineel geplaatst door Sir:

Sorry to be rude but you don't know what you are talking about.

You can tell it to yourself. Either test latency yourself or learn theory a bit. Is your mouse wired or wireless? Have I understood you right that wireless mouse cannot be used with shooters? Only with phone? Don't forget, mouse uses Blootoot, not WiFi. WiFi has ten or hundredfold higher clock rates (not radio freq - it is the same) and hence lower latencies.

As a rule of a thumb, unless your environment is not too contaminated with other radio networks, there is no visible difference neither in latency, nor in throughput between wired and wireless solutions. You need to use one of modern standard, ofc. 802.11n or 802.11ac.

[vadim]

Hard to believe.
You write nonsense and does not constitute any proof.
Maybe you think that the electrical signal in the wires is spreading faster than radio waves? In fact, waves are 50% faster. But this does not affect latency in any way.

[vadim]

I do not need to give proffs that you're wrong.
You were the first to make a statement. Everyone himself proves what he claims. You can not say anything and wait for others to present evidence to the contrary.
Wifi itself is equally fast as Ethernet, they have the same link-layer protocol. I hope you know the OSI model. WiFi has some overhead for avoiding collisions, etc. (Ethernet has no collision avoidance at all - it uses collision detection instead), but they are insignificant. The only contribution to delay is the interfacing of the wired and wireless segments. Exactly the same as any other network bridge. In the amount of time to transfer the header of the Ethernet frame.

It's another matter if the packet has to be transmitted again because of the radio noise. Therefore, I suggest that the author himself perform the ping of the router. Best for this is a Unix-like utility such as MTR or its Windows analog.

Do you understand what I wrote to you?

[CursedPanther]

When it comes to quality of wifi, it's best to analyze the situation on a case-by-case basis. A majority of the research data collected by scientific parties and hardware manufacturers are from experiments conducted under heavily controlled environments, which will most likely not translate correctly to a real world situation.

Indeed a simple ping won't be able to paint the whole picture here. So if you're dead serious about the quality of data packets being transmitted through your wifi connection, then you'll need professional network monitoring software like Wireshark and perform a detailed analysis. Naturally it won't be something the general populace bothers with.

[Arya]

I agree with Vadim. I'm using a Netgear Nighthawk as my home router - my DL speeds are outstanding and my pings are very low. I've tried running ethernet cables, and there's precious little difference to be had. Not enough difference to justify dangling cables all over the house where people can trip over them.

[vadim]

Origineel geplaatst door CursedPanther:

Indeed a simple ping won't be able to paint the whole picture here. So if you're dead serious about the quality of data packets being transmitted through your wifi connection, then you'll need professional network monitoring software like Wireshark

Wireshark completely useless here. It not intended to be used for line quality analysis and has no useful for this purpose features. Continuous ping is all what OP needs.

[Glass of Lime Soda]

So I should buy a router?

[CursedPanther]

Origineel geplaatst door vadim:

Origineel geplaatst door CursedPanther:

Indeed a simple ping won't be able to paint the whole picture here. So if you're dead serious about the quality of data packets being transmitted through your wifi connection, then you'll need professional network monitoring software like Wireshark

Wireshark completely useless here. It not intended to be used for line quality analysis and has no useful for this purpose features. Continuous ping is all what OP needs.

Like I've said, ping is one important aspect but doesn't tell the whole story.

[Glass of Lime Soda]

Origineel geplaatst door CursedPanther:

Origineel geplaatst door vadim:

Wireshark completely useless here. It not intended to be used for line quality analysis and has no useful for this purpose features. Continuous ping is all what OP needs.

Like I've said, ping is one important aspect but doesn't tell the whole story.

If it helps, my internet provider is verizon. That doesn't seem to be changing anytime soon, I'm not in charge of the household. The modem probably has some kind of router built into it because there are two antennas on it. All electronic devices that we own that can connect to the internet are connected here.

[CursedPanther]

Origineel geplaatst door Glass Cherry:

Origineel geplaatst door CursedPanther:

Like I've said, ping is one important aspect but doesn't tell the whole story.

If it helps, my internet provider is verizon. That doesn't seem to be changing anytime soon, I'm not in charge of the household. The modem probably has some kind of router built into it because there are two antennas on it. All electronic devices that we own that can connect to the internet are connected here.

I get ya. Often modem/router all-in-one provided by the ISP aren't of the highest quality, especially if you're counting on a good wifi connection. Getting another router will help, and maybe have it placed closer to where your actual PC is and run a cable to your modem. But that is up to you to decide.

[Supafly]

Wifi has come a long way but it is still subject to interference.

Open command prompt and type
ping xxx.xxx.x.xx -t
replacing x's with ip of your router/modem. Let it run for a while ideally 5 minutes then press Crtl+C

You'll see how consistent your connection is any ping spikes or packet loss. If all seems ok repeat this at different times throughout the day particularly around the times you would be playing to identify if it degrades at some point. If it does and you don't want to have a long cable between rooms you could purcahse a pair of powerline adaptors.

You plug one Powerline Adaptor into a wall socket and connect it to the modem/router and the other to your PC. The Powerline Adaptors will use you homes electrical cabling to transmit data without a long cable ad is not susceptable to wifi interference. Depending on your homes cabling distance between devices and adaptor specs will effect what speeds you can get.

I have four, 1 is a wifi booster too, and I cap at 82mbps at the furthest point from my modem/router out of the 100mbps I get from my ISP. I'm quite happy with that as I no longer get ping spikes and wifi drop outs while gaming.