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| [IOD]SnipsSuper Regular Spaz Sniper P: 02/14/2024 08:03 | I wanted to write a collection of stuff about internet technologies, internet connection options, and different options gamers can use and what's best for online gaming in general. By [IOD]Snips Section One: Types of Home Internet Technologies for online gaming Section Two: Definitions of some of the internet or networking terms Section Three: Methods of connecting your gaming PC to your gateway/modem/router Occasionally check to see if Fiber is available in your area, or the other options comparing speed & prices. Occasionally compare your wired connection speed to your gateway/modem with your internet providers speeds you are paying for to identify if there are issues they can resolve, sometimes due to line noise at the end of your street your ISP tech can easily fix. Finally review the four methods of connecting to your router/modem I've laid out & consider playing online games using a technology other than wifi. |
| [IOD]SnipsSuper Regular Spaz Sniper P: 02/14/2024 08:04 | I wanted to share some knowledge to help gamers improve their internet experience, especially with real-time applications such as low latency programs like online gaming which wants a constant flow of UDP data packets as fast as possible. I'll try to use some analogies to keep things simple too. Even if you choose to use inferior methods of connecting your gaming computer to the internet, recognize you have choices better then wifi for first person shooters. SECTION ONE - Let's start with the types of home internet technologies, from best to worst for gaming: #1 Fiber (called Fiber to the home) Technically slower than cable on paper, but because it's infrastructure is so much newer it typically has drastically lower latency/ping overall as their entire system was laid out more recently than cable. Often less hops to the actual main hubs of the internet as well because it's so much newer. Think of the main internet backbone like the heart of the matrix, with your connection taking few routes to get there. example: It's not uncommon for two neighbors each with fiber to each have 1ms to 5ms in-between each other. #2 Cable (varies between parts of the country however!) The main primary connects are shared throughout a neighborhood so if the entire neighborhood are huge data hogs your connection might suffer. I consistently get 10-20% more bandwidth then I'm supposed to & usually have a very uncongested network overall with my cable internet. Some parts of the country, especially in apartment complexes can get terrible speeds during peak hours where many customers might be using a single apartment line or hub of some sort. example: It's not uncommon for two neighbors each with cable to each have 20ms in-between each other. #3 DSL (digital subscribers line, uses your landline phone cord) This connection is consistent & uses the frequencies the human ear can't hear on your landline phone so that you can still make & receive phone calls while online. example: It's not uncommon for two neighbors each with DSL to each have 40ms in-between each other. If your entire neighborhood was downloading, unlike cable you'd likely get full speeds & consistent ping times. However, cable ping times are usually lower which is better for gaming. #4 Satellite (data somewhere on earth gets sent to satellite in space, then down to you. you make a request, it goes to space, back down to the earth based station) This connection is the worst due to the very long distances involved for ping times. Starlink is better then the much older satellite options, but still significantly worse ping times then DSL. Not everybody can get fiber, not everybody can get cable. If you're even further away from civilization then possibly DSL might not be available either. Prices are massively different from city to city and state to state. Do research for what's available in your specific area starting with Fiber and compare prices. I'll be covering how you can check what speeds your own gateway/modem is delivering deeper below, sometimes it's much lower than what you are paying for due to recent neighborhood technical issues, which your ISP will fix if you complain to them, but that is YOUR responsibility to test for properly and communicate this to them. |
| [IOD]SnipsSuper Regular Spaz Sniper P: 02/14/2024 08:05 | SECTION TWO - Definition of some of the internet or networking terms Let me define a few things! I don't want to assume everyone knows this stuff, I tend to do that sorry! Ping/Latency: you see this on the TFC scoreboard, this is the number of milliseconds (ms) it takes for a data packet to leave your computer, hop to different devices each adding more, arrive at the server destination, and then come back, so the round trip in total is your latency time. 1000ms = 1 second. If your ping is 200ms then you have a 1/5th of a second delay in-game. The lower your latency, the better with less delay. It can also be interesting to do a traceroute to Drippy's to identify how many "hops" it takes to get from your pc to the game server. For me it is nearly 30 hops, so thirty different computers/routers/switches/gateways/servers route my data all the way to Drippy's. I was sort of surprised to realize that a few of those hops on my connection were 400 miles northwest in the wrong direction, however that is a major city so traffic gets rerouted to there. Packet loss: due to interference or damaged equipment or software or some problem, your data packet never arrives or was never sent. So now you have to re-send or request a replacement packet which slows down your latency/ping and also your internet bandwidth. This results in pixelation in video calls, audio glitches in audio chatting, and overall slower downloads as packets need to be resent with TCP packets. In online games like TFC, it uses UDP packets so they are skipped if missed & not resent, so skipping character frames possibly leading to disconnections in online games & other issues occur with packet loss. In TFC to see how many packets you're losing in realtime type into the ~ console: net_graph 3 (to turn the graph off, type: net_graph 0) I believe that metric is specific to either packets not arriving from or sent specific to the game server but am not positive. Anytime I think of packet loss or wifi, I'm imagining a cartoon of a house burning and dozens of people each holding a bucket standing next to each other in a line, pouring a single bucket of water into the next guys bucket all the way down the line to put out the fire, but one person accidentally drops his bucket sometimes. Weak wifi resulting in packets needing to be resent or home appliances introducing interference & in my mind a little bucket of water was just dropped. Gateway/Router/Modem: is the box that your phone/cable/fiber company sold/rented to you providing you with internet. It typically has 1 to 8 ethernet ports for a wired connection and is capable of delivering wifi. Your Internet Service Provider (ISP)'s job is to provide you with a download and upload speed based on the plan you are paying for which arrives at this box. They are not responsible for your wifi speed or your wifi reliability due to how many wireless devices you have broadcasting. The method you choose for getting the data from this box to your device will provide different speeds & reliability however! It's important that you check what speeds your internet box is providing periodically & complain to your ISP if those speeds are nowhere near what you're paying for. Sometimes a filter or splitter somewhere in your neighborhood is responsible for line noise & when the tech comes out he fixes it and suddenly your entire internet is much faster & more consistent! If you don't care, then they don't care is the rule and that works in their companies favor! I have had this issue with DSL and cable internet providers in the past two decades at multiple houses I've lived in (more so with DSL), usually from a different house in the neighborhood's outdoor box misconfigured or misbehaving from a bad tech adding lines in a neighborhood. They fixed it after I complained, but I had to test my speeds first to be aware! |
| [IOD]SnipsSuper Regular Spaz Sniper P: 02/14/2024 08:06 | SECTION THREE - Methods of connecting your gaming computer to your internet in order of best to worst: #1 Ethernet (direct cat5/6/7/8 cable from your gateway/router/modem to your PC) Data flows through the shielded copper wires lightning fast and without packet loss. (adding around 0.0004 ms latency for 200ft of ethernet cable as an example) This is the ultimate method because this connection always provides a faster connection between your computer & the gateway/router/modem then even your internet can provide to you! It's always providing the highest bandwidth and lowest ping/latency and most importantly it is consistent no matter what your neighbors or others in your home are doing with their appliances! Always go this route if possible. Consider if its possible running a very long line through your attic from one part of your house to the other. It's annoying to do the one time, but that speed & reliability for many years later pay off big-time if the other side of your house is so much faster & reliable. Buy a roll of ethernet cord & pay to have it installed or do it yourself wrapping around the outside of your house to your gaming room. Cat7 and below can go upto around 320 feet I believe. I am running 200ft in my attic connecting the two different sides of my home together, and then I ran another 100ft to our tv room to a switch there so there's no wifi needed anywhere in my entire house. #2 Coax ethernet adapter (uses coax cable line if you have such a cord or ports in your home to convert into an ethernet data connection!) So I just learned about this online last week. Some homes used to have or still have either satellite tv or cable tv coax ports in many rooms of their house. Well you can connect an ethernet to coax adapter on different ends and this sends an ethernet data connection over that existing wire that is already there! #3 Powerline ethernet (using your electrical wiring to simulate a corded ethernet connection) The kit comes with two boxes that each plug straight into the wall. You plug one ethernet cord from your gateway/router/modem into the first box, and then the second box has a female ethernet port that you can plug a cord into where the other cord plugs into your gaming computer in a different part of your house. The quality of your electrical wiring will play a role in the speed and also the overall distance, some appliances may introduce interference such as a microwave that is cooking. The digital data is carried over the AC electrical wiring, and not wifi or radio waves. But by far the biggest component in this is the brand of powerline adapter kits you pick, so look at the different products available and read the reviews very carefully avoiding the ones that overheat on Amazon (lots of chinese junk out there), you can always return this if it doesn't perform better then wifi in your particular house. It's worth experimenting if you're on wifi though to try this! Okay so options #2 & #3 above should have little to no interference & thus very little to no extra lag or latency/ping increases added to their connections. Key principle you're looking for is consistent pings & consistent download/upload speeds. Being full duplex too, which is another way of saying sending and receiving data at the same time or simultaneously. Using these three methods are GREAT for connecting your 4k TV to the internet, as many televisions have an Ethernet port on the back! Most TV Ethernet ports have a max of 100Mbps, however this is still way better then using wifi on TV sets for several reasons!! First you consistently get minimal buffering & snappier browsing, and possibly more importantly if you're not using wifi on your TV then your entire whole house isn't being flooded with wifi data in the air. Large amounts of data such as a 4k tv streaming content creates wifi traffic in the airwaves reducing the performance of all your wifi devices in your home. #4 Wifi (uses radio waves to send data wirelessly. Realize your neighbors are also using lots of wifi, there is limited wifi traffic available in the air at any given time) Many people simply default to wifi on everything. But they don't realize a few things, there is limited available channels & frequencies for radio data in the air which means if your devices are all communicating and your streaming 4k shows over wifi, then if you try playing TFC over wifi you may get inconsistent performance with much worse ping/latency and possibly packet loss & choke. I shouldn't forget to mention blenders/hair dryers/microwaves and many other home appliances that introduce radio interferences can further make wifi performance & consistency even worse! Wifi has its place & surfing with your phone/tablet or using wireless doorbells are cool cool over wifi. But playing first person shooter online games where you want packets consistently sending and receiving as fast as possible makes wifi the worst option. I believe wifi is half duplex too, so in other words it can only send or receive data at any given immediate instant and not both simultaneously, I didn't do much research about that aspect as I avoid wifi. I mean wifi can obviously switch between sending & receiving very fast, but can't broadcast & receive at exactly the same time as ethernet can. It takes turns flipping in-between both functions very quickly but data is always flowing only one way at any single point, otherwise known as half-duplex. 4K TV bonus tip#1:so buying an Nvidia Shield Pro is the ultimate little box if you watch streaming shows. It can upscale old 1080p streaming content to 2160p(4k) using the nvidia cuda cores (AI processing), which to me looks closer to 2k, sometimes 3k but absolutely a huge improvement over 1080p without it! Also the Nvidia Shield Pro has a 1000Mbps ethernet port, so if your internet connection is faster than 100Mbps and you connect an ethernet cord to this, it's likely you'll never see a loading bar or buffering ever again. My movies immediately begin in 4K + HDR without loading/buffering/480>720>1080>2160p bullshit! 4K TV bonus tip#2:buy HDMI 2.1 cables online if you are using a 4k television. HDR modes that use dynamic metadata such as Dolby Vision and to a certain extent HDR10+ (not hdr10), require lots of bandwidth that is not available on some HDMI 2.0 cables. I've purchased a few HDMI 2.0 cables online and at least one from the store that didn't deliver the higher bandwidth hdr called "Dolby Vision" properly to my expensive TV, most stuff on Netflix is made with the best which is dolby vision. HDMI 2.1 has a very massive amount of bandwidth 48Gbps so it will always deliver more then any 4K tv requires & your devices will always deliver the best picture possible. I've heard about $2000 tv's that came with HDMI 1.4 cables delivering terrible HDR when connecting to devices, just spend that $5 to $10 on amazon and get real HDMI 2.1 cables even if your tv only does HDMI 2.0b as its backwards compatible. |
| [IOD]SnipsSuper Regular Spaz Sniper P: 02/14/2024 08:10 | Unmanaged Switch (i recommend tp-link brand): Let's say you ran a single ethernet cable (or using powerline or coax to ethernet), you ended up with your single ethernet cable at your far destination. Online you can purchase an unmanaged switch, and what this does is convert a single ethernet connection into many ports! So using an easy to understand analogy, is it's the same thing as if you had a room without power outlets, but it has a single very long power cord inside the room. In this analogy you have several appliances you wished to deliver electricity to, but only the single power cord. So if you bought an electrical power strip or surge protector, that converts one power outlet into many - this is exactly what a switch does, converts one ethernet connection into many. Just keep in mind if your switch is 1Gbps (which means 1000Mbps) and two devices plugged into that request 1000Mbps it's likely they'll each get 500Mbps or one will get 1000Mbps and the other waits for its turn. Having a switch is incredible to have your gaming desktop pc plugged into, along with your 4k TV & other high speed gadgets all from one ethernet cord! I've been using the brand TP-link for many years & my 1Gbps switches have never locked up or overheated, I love them! I'm thinking about buying their 2.5Gbps switch soon, but they're almost $100 still. Remember 1000Mbps is roughly 110-120MB/sec or so, so a corded network is limited to those speeds if using a 1Gbps switch. 2.5Gbps switches are interesting, so I guess they are a crippled version of 10Gbps switch but not backwards compatible all the time, I'm still learning about that more. 10Gbps switches would be nice except they're mega expensive, require a fan and are way too big. I'm getting just over 1.4Gbps down in my home so my 2.5Gbps port is perfect for me so far. USB to ETHERNET adapter: It's preferred to either use a lan port built into your desktop motherboard or buy a pci-express card with an ethernet port instead of a usb adapter. However a USB ethernet lan adapter does have several interesting use cases. Some are driver free, so after you've reinstalled windows 10/11 if you temporarily connect a usb ethernet adapter, "windows update" can install all your drivers including your motherboard's lan ethernet drivers for you making your life easier! Another feature is some USB-c/lightning to Ethernet adapters will work with your phone or tablet! There are iphone or android compatible adapters, making your device significantly faster then using your home wifi and some provide power too so your phone or tablet can browse at lightning fast speeds & also be recharging at the same time plugged into just one cord. Many people are unaware of these available all over on amazon. My Amazon fire hd 10 tablet is so much faster using ethernet on its micro usb port I love it! Once in a while, I highly recommend you carry either your laptop or desktop computer to your Gateway/Router/Modem and connect to it using an ethernet cord to test the speed of your home internet directly. Visit a website such as speedtest.net and check out how fast your download and upload speeds are. Compare these speeds with whatever your ISP provider says you are paying for on your plan to make sure your real speeds actually delivered are close to what is expected. Check during peak hours, the morning and the middle of the night too. Complain to them if the speeds are way slower than what you are paying for while using a corded connection. It's their responsibility to provide you with their advertised speeds, and unknown situations can & will occur in your area preventing speeds over the years. If you cry to your ISP about slow speeds while you are using wifi, they are likely to not take your concerns seriously & rightfully so. Also for latency/ping open up "command prompt" program in windows, and within that type: ping 1.1.1.1 -n 20 This will ping the fastest DNS server, you can change that ip address to Drippy's game server to check your ping time to there too. The 20 specifies twenty pings to that destination, showing you the time it took each time and also if some packets were lost, you can increase that number for longer tests. Beyond doing online speed tests such as speedtest.net, this can be an interesting tool to try for looking at idle latency for a specific destination. If you're using wifi to play 2fort at home, I suggest you be a little adventurous & try some cheap alternatives. Try moving your pc near your router & hooking it up to the ethernet, or buy a powerline adapter online to test if that's better and simply return afterwards if not. Run a speed test website testing for bandwidth (download & upload Mbps speeds), and run a latency test. Now even if you have cutting edge wifi technologies giving quite fast wifi, realize you might be testing at noon where your neighbors are gone at work. In the real world when appliances are running, phones & tv's are streaming & interference is in the airwaves, wifi's performance is often inconsistent. Running the ping tests can help you identify approximate latency improvements you might get, but when testing wifi I highly recommend you test at different times of the day dozens of times to account for environmental variables! There are plenty of online speed tests that test latency under load as well, this is important. On a first person shooter gaming computer, If I had a powerline adapter always delivering 100Mbps with a ping of 20ms to that dns server above ALWAYS, I would much rather that then WIFI delivering 400Mbps with a ping of 30ms. With wifi then occasionally it's 700Mbps or 50Mbps downloads on wifi, high levels of jitter with a different ping times everyday. Single second spikes of triple digit 100ms+ or long durations of higher then yesterday ping while on wifi just makes fast action gaming non-ideal. I feel with TFC so easy to run, getting high frames per second is very easy, but network settings and networks in general are often overlooked by gamers. I have about a dozen various guides I was thinking about writing up for the community someday, from prepping to computer tweaking. I could make more guides like video card settings, network settings for gamers, prepping guide. Wasn't sure if you guys like this sort of stuff. |
| Ignorant_FloristDaycare Manager Pipebomb Monkey P: 02/14/2024 15:35 | The NEXT person that accuses me of writing walls of text is being referred to this thread, then getting smacked upside the head. ;) |
| EmotionallyDisturbedParakeetSuper Regular FatGuy With A LittleGun P: 02/14/2024 16:08 | Iggy your walls of text get written in between bashing your head into drywall and snorting the crumbs. autistic fuckwad. Snips on the other hand is clearly amped up on fucking adderall and energy drinks go full nerd mode. |
| EmotionallyDisturbedParakeetSuper Regular FatGuy With A LittleGun P: 02/14/2024 16:08 | I don't know why I'm being mean to you lately iggy. Hope your legs grow back. |
| EmotionallyDisturbedParakeetSuper Regular FatGuy With A LittleGun P: 02/14/2024 16:11 | I've got Fiber optic with Fidium in Maine. Latency is as low as I've ever seen it, steady between 20-25ms. Rarely see gigabit download speeds on anything. |
| [IOD]SnipsSuper Regular Spaz Sniper P: 02/14/2024 16:52 | lol, I'm not on anything. I did have a 'very large' instead of 'large' coffee but nothing out of the ordinary. I didn't write the entire guide this morning alone, I put some thought into it the last few days. I'm also toning it down a bit, trying to reach the larger audience of gamers in general. I have been self educating going down some pretty deep rabbit holes of tweaking the computer & my network. Identifying driver based system latencies, placing very high polling hz devices onto different USB controllers such as mouse on one & keyboard on the other, setting the audio to 44khz or 48khz only, among other changes. Forcing Windows 10 Pro to have faster system responses & be more efficient has helped, but I want to improve my internet performance further. My gateway/router lacks QoS for proper packet management. I did figure out how to force my TFC's UDP data packets to have a DSCP value of 63, signaling my game traffic has realtime (highest possible) priority but without QoS settings in my gateway/modem, it doesn't directly support QoS and these values might not do anything. My gateway/modem combo is DOCSIS 3.1 so it should have AQM & thus I assume be able to interact with the DSCP value in the packet header in some way. I decided to buy a very cheap router with SQM capable of QoS for testing which should arrive soon. |
| level1nobodySuper Regular Cold Giver P: 02/14/2024 17:04 | Pepperjack is at work right now with his sixth sense going off, wondering why he feels compelled to check the D2F forums. |
| [IOD]SnipsSuper Regular Spaz Sniper P: 02/14/2024 17:30 | Something that I'll share that made a bigger difference then changing out cables, network settings, and other various tweaks so far and that has been in changing out my physical network adapters. Seeing the differences in firing rockets with less delay. I am getting 1400Mbps download and 240Mbps upload at the moment, however only when connected to a 2.5Gbps lan card. Otherwise with my current 1Gbps port I'm just over 900Mbps which is expected given the overhead. I have three different Ethernet cards & I'll share with you my findings: My 2nd fastest tfc gaming experience is this lan card. It is 1Gbps. My motherboard has a built in Killer E2201 Ethernet LAN with a Qualcomm Atheros chipset. I've been a fan of Killer network products even though that's not the typical popular viewpoint, however when configured properly they generally do very well. I was surprised to see the killer software was automatically generating DSCP values of 46 on my gaming packets for me already which is great. I assume it does other advanced gamer specific tweaks as well. My 3rd fastest tfc gaming experience is this lan card, this is the worst! It is a 2.5Gbps. This is a pci express tp-link tx201 ethernet lan card with a Realtek 8125 chipset which is the reason it's junk. It's incredibly tiny with very little circuitry, and sure the speed-tests can go just over 1400Mbps. But inside TFC rockets have extra lag & delay on Drippy's. Perhaps its DPC latency issues relating to the drivers or some other issue related to the chipset in its hardware. I had tweaked every possible driver option without success. My #1 best tfc gaming experience is this lan card, noticeably faster! It is a 1Gbps. This is a pci express Intel Gigabit CT network adapter with an Intel chipset which is incredible! I had forgotten I purchased this about 4 years ago, realized how many more circuits & stuff it has on it and gave it a try. Also realized currently at $60 online it was about 2-3x more then my 2.5Gbps junk card. Rockets seem to fire snappier & performance feels smoother & faster in-game. I still need to tweak more network settings to experiment further but am very happy with this. The only downside is my internet is faster then this card can handle, I really wish this was a 2.5Gbps card. I was surprised at the differences in-between these three ethernet cards in-game during fast action battles. I had heard great things about Intel when it comes to LAN cards & my recent experiences reflect this too. Now I have to figure out if there are much newer & faster options that exist, such as a 2.5Gbps or perhaps even 10Gbps ethernet cards made by Intel with intel chipsets. My current Intel lan card launched in 2008, I refuse to believe this is the best I can do. Newer technologies with lower latencies in mind might benefit gamers on some of the higher ethernet cards is where I'm starting to think. I was shocked at how much pure garbage there is on amazon in the 2.5Gbps card options however, mostly all using cheap RTL8125 chipsets. |
| level1nobodySuper Regular Cold Giver P: 02/14/2024 17:39 E: 02/14/2024 17:40 | RE: 2.5Gb NICs, I bought a couple NUC clones for software firewalls. 4 x 2.5Gb NICs and a low-power Intel N100. Can't wait to start testing it. |
| [IOD]SnipsSuper Regular Spaz Sniper P: 02/14/2024 17:53 | I know I'm going too far when its 2AM & I'm pinging my gateway getting pings in-between 2-4ms while using a 3ft ethernet cable, hoping for 1ms or less to the device. Maybe I need a higher end cat cable! Maybe RJ45 ends that are enterprise grade that have EMF protections! Maybe stranded vs pure copper. Let me get the volt meter out to confirm my ethernet ports are grounded, lol. Did eventually read & realize that consumer products like that have a lower priority to ping requests & that delay may not be accurate under real world conditions. Having fun learning new things & the ways all these hardware parts & software come together. |
| Ignorant_FloristDaycare Manager Pipebomb Monkey P: 02/14/2024 18:22 | EmotionallyDisturbedParakeet wrote: I don't know why I'm being mean to you lately iggy. Hope your legs grow back. That's okay, you limp-dick poser. If you're picking on me, you're leaving a defenseless person alone. |
| Ignorant_FloristDaycare Manager Pipebomb Monkey P: 02/14/2024 18:24 | [IOD]Snips wrote: Something that I'll share that made a bigger difference then changing out cables, network settings, and other various tweaks so far and that has been in changing out my physical network adapters. Seeing the differences in firing rockets with less delay. I am getting 1400Mbps download and 240Mbps upload at the moment, however only when connected to a 2.5Gbps lan card. Otherwise with my current 1Gbps port I'm just over 900Mbps which is expected given the overhead. I have three different Ethernet cards & I'll share with you my findings: My 2nd fastest tfc gaming experience is this lan card. It is 1Gbps. My motherboard has a built in Killer E2201 Ethernet LAN with a Qualcomm Atheros chipset. I've been a fan of Killer network products even though that's not the typical popular viewpoint, however when configured properly they generally do very well. I was surprised to see the killer software was automatically generating DSCP values of 46 on my gaming packets for me already which is great. I assume it does other advanced gamer specific tweaks as well. My 3rd fastest tfc gaming experience is this lan card, this is the worst! It is a 2.5Gbps. This is a pci express tp-link tx201 ethernet lan card with a Realtek 8125 chipset which is the reason it's junk. It's incredibly tiny with very little circuitry, and sure the speed-tests can go just over 1400Mbps. But inside TFC rockets have extra lag & delay on Drippy's. Perhaps its DPC latency issues relating to the drivers or some other issue related to the chipset in its hardware. I had tweaked every possible driver option without success. My #1 best tfc gaming experience is this lan card, noticeably faster! It is a 1Gbps. This is a pci express Intel Gigabit CT network adapter with an Intel chipset which is incredible! I had forgotten I purchased this about 4 years ago, realized how many more circuits & stuff it has on it and gave it a try. Also realized currently at $60 online it was about 2-3x more then my 2.5Gbps junk card. Rockets seem to fire snappier & performance feels smoother & faster in-game. I still need to tweak more network settings to experiment further but am very happy with this. The only downside is my internet is faster then this card can handle, I really wish this was a 2.5Gbps card. I was surprised at the differences in-between these three ethernet cards in-game during fast action battles. I had heard great things about Intel when it comes to LAN cards & my recent experiences reflect this too. Now I have to figure out if there are much newer & faster options that exist, such as a 2.5Gbps or perhaps even 10Gbps ethernet cards made by Intel with intel chipsets. My current Intel lan card launched in 2008, I refuse to believe this is the best I can do. Newer technologies with lower latencies in mind might benefit gamers on some of the higher ethernet cards is where I'm starting to think. I was shocked at how much pure garbage there is on amazon in the 2.5Gbps card options however, mostly all using cheap RTL8125 chipsets. Can you please use a crayon that's less "neon" in colour.... Gaba is having trouble comprehending all that. |
| [IOD]SnipsSuper Regular Spaz Sniper P: 02/15/2024 04:19 E: 02/15/2024 04:26 | If your gaming computer is not in the same room as your modem/gateway/router, consider buying an ethernet cable & paying to have a professional install it outside for you or through your attic & into a specific room. Can be $50 to $300 for a professional with a drill from what I've read online, but unlike hardware upgrades, this cable will benefit you long term if you plan on living there for years - never need to do it again. Or you can simply run it yourself if you know how to get a cable from one end to the other, running under an attic door for instance without drilling. After that you just plug it in & it's easy. It's like $100 for 1000ft of cat6 for cheap bulk cable too. Beyond directly connecting your gaming PC to your internet giving you stable internet for decades to come, this also allows you to run a wifi extender or wifi router from this location further giving fresh wifi signals throughout that part of the house now as well for better coverage. No more low to medium wifi signals anywhere in your home. Buying Ethernet Cable When buying ethernet cable, if it's going outdoors then get cable that is UV resistant & weatherproof. Ethernet cables come in different speeds, each compatible with one another when connecting to lower speeds. The higher the cat number, the more shielding and ultimately more twists per inch reducing crosstalk or the chance of packetloss even further. cat6 = bare minimum. Some will argue that anything above cat6 is a giant waste, however when talking about distances beyond 50ft, I highly disagree after you've cut into an ethernet cable & are aware of the extra shielding in cat7 or cat8. Cat6 is a real standard. cat7 = Significantly better shielding then cat6, however it's not a real standard so there are some counterfeit fake cables out there. cat8 = Highest level of shielding, and is a real standard. There are also plenty of fake cat8 cables on amazon. Avoid flat and/or thin cat cables as they are fake and not true cat8. Look for AWG that is 22 to 24 meaning its thicker gauge wire. Future proofing your network wire is always smart when it has more shielding. While speeds above 10Gbps sound imaginary at the moment, it wasn't too long ago that 1Gbps seemed like an unreachable dream. |
| [IOD]SnipsSuper Regular Spaz Sniper P: 02/15/2024 04:23 | Why pick an ethernet cable instead of using wifi? -Wifi is half-duplex, and ethernet is full-duplex. So again on a wireless connection you cannot send and receive simultaneously. For fast internet gaming you can figure out why this is not ideal. -It's even worse than this, only one person within the range of wifi (and on the same radio channel) can send at the same time. When on ethernet, every device can send & receive without interfering with each other. -Every active wifi device has a small negative impact on all others. Again, if you can remove the heaviest load off wifi which is typically a streaming 4k TV off wifi, by instead using a powerline or ethernet cable, this allows more wifi traffic throughout your home. -Wifi can get random interference from wifi devices(neighbors wifi too), microwave ovens, cordless phones and many more. Whereas Ethernet doesn't suffer such impacts. -Security wise obviously sending sensitive data over the airwaves can make you a target if people are driving through your neighborhood looking at wifi networks for vulnerabilities. -Inherent buffering and delay in bridging your ethernet network to your access points connect to, to wifi devices which will add some latency delays. -Due to buffering traffic, wifi has to wait its turn to speak/receive in time slots negotiated with the access point. A corded ethernet user might experience 0 to 1 packets lost per hour, whereas someone on wireless it might be ten thousand to hundreds of thousands of packets per hour. -Due to the incredible number of variables again, wifi is inconsistent. You could test out everything & get "good enough" results with simple speed tests. For time sensitive online gaming, nothing can compare with a corded ethernet condition regardless of conditions inside & outside your home. |
| Gize_Super Regular Plague Giver P: 02/15/2024 08:16 | An abridged guide about wireless: https://www.wiisfi.com/ |
| mmarino51589Super Regular Soldier Flag Defense P: 02/15/2024 08:37 | [IOD]Snips wrote: If your gaming computer is not in the same room as your modem/gateway/router, consider buying an ethernet cable & paying to have a professional install it outside for you or through your attic & into a specific room. Can be $50 to $300 for a professional with a drill from what I've read online, but unlike hardware upgrades, this cable will benefit you long term if you plan on living there for years - never need to do it again. Or you can simply run it yourself if you know how to get a cable from one end to the other, running under an attic door for instance without drilling. After that you just plug it in & it's easy. It's like $100 for 1000ft of cat6 for cheap bulk cable too. Beyond directly connecting your gaming PC to your internet giving you stable internet for decades to come, this also allows you to run a wifi extender or wifi router from this location further giving fresh wifi signals throughout that part of the house now as well for better coverage. No more low to medium wifi signals anywhere in your home. Buying Ethernet Cable When buying ethernet cable, if it's going outdoors then get cable that is UV resistant & weatherproof. Ethernet cables come in different speeds, each compatible with one another when connecting to lower speeds. The higher the cat number, the more shielding and ultimately more twists per inch reducing crosstalk or the chance of packetloss even further. cat6 = bare minimum. Some will argue that anything above cat6 is a giant waste, however when talking about distances beyond 50ft, I highly disagree after you've cut into an ethernet cable & are aware of the extra shielding in cat7 or cat8. Cat6 is a real standard. cat7 = Significantly better shielding then cat6, however it's not a real standard so there are some counterfeit fake cables out there. cat8 = Highest level of shielding, and is a real standard. There are also plenty of fake cat8 cables on amazon. Avoid flat and/or thin cat cables as they are fake and not true cat8. Look for AWG that is 22 to 24 meaning its thicker gauge wire. Future proofing your network wire is always smart when it has more shielding. While speeds above 10Gbps sound imaginary at the moment, it wasn't too long ago that 1Gbps seemed like an unreachable dream. Going to argue your point about Cat6 being minimum. Cat5e should be the minimum. Cat5e supports 1GB, which for most home setups, will be fine. People talk about how Cat6 is the new standard, yet they still use 1Gb switches. Remember kids, your network can only operate as fast as its slowest component, which is typically the switch (and not to mention the fact that the overwhelming majority of your router/firewall devices only have 1GB LAN ports, too). If you've got a Ferrari but your local roads are loaded with potholes and bottlenecks...welp... |
| [IOD]SnipsSuper Regular Spaz Sniper P: 02/15/2024 09:56 E: 02/15/2024 10:26 | Going to argue your point about Cat6 being minimum. Cat5e should be the minimum. Cat5e supports 1GB, which for most home setups, will be fine. People talk about how Cat6 is the new standard, yet they still use 1Gb switches. Remember kids, your network can only operate as fast as its slowest component, which is typically the switch (and not to mention the fact that the overwhelming majority of your router/firewall devices only have 1GB LAN ports, too). If you've got a Ferrari but your local roads are loaded with potholes and bottlenecks...welp... The speeds are improving across all the devices. Xfinity is prepairing their 10Gbps gateway/modem for this year or the next for home users. 2.5Gbps switches have been falling in price over the past year as well. The reason I suggest current 1080p television owners that need an HDMI cable to plug into their new streaming device that they should get an HDMI 2.1 cable, is that people make poor decisions with cables all the time. They need an ethernet or hdmi cable and reach for whatever they already have and use that. Sure, if they bought an HDMI 1.4 cable instead then their 1080p picture would look the same, but if the prices are nearly the same why assume they'll never get a new tv? It's been my experience that devices get upgraded while sadly old cables remain to be plugged into those upgrades, leading to issues down the road. For shorter cables cat 5e might be acceptable, but the prices are pretty cheap for the significantly higher bandwidth cat8 provides for the future. cat6a/cat7/cat8 can do 10Gbps upto 328ft cat8 can do 25Gbps upto 100ft cat8 can do 40Gbps upto 78ft Generally the additional extra shielding within a low gauge cat8 cable would give me more confidence at sustaining a 10Gbps connection over the longer cable run lengths in the future. Also most people are only going to want to run their cable through or around their house only one time. |
| HelpSuper Regular Soldier Flag Defense P: 02/15/2024 11:14 | EmotionallyDisturbedParakeet wrote: I don't know why I'm being mean to you lately iggy. Hope your legs grow back. Hahaha, dang. You went too low 😜 |
| [IOD]SnipsSuper Regular Spaz Sniper P: 02/15/2024 15:19 | Comcast offered a first look at its XB10 Wi-Fi router, which it said will be the first to be compatible with Wi-Fi 7 and both flavors of DOCSIS 4.0. It uses an artificial intelligence-enabled Broadcom chipset (which was announced in October 2023) and contains three radios, each capable of connecting 100 devices simultaneously with multi-gig speeds. XB10 expected in the 2nd half of this year, interesting! This new DOCSIS 4.0 will be cable trying to better compete with fiber. These news articles came out yesterday online. I'm especially interested in the latency improvements below. I love my XB8 gateway, wonder why they skipped making an XB9 & went straight to the 10. https://www.fiercetelecom.com/broadband/op-ed-what-comcast-r... Then there's a forthcoming 'Ultra Low Lag' tool which will allow customers to choose which devices on their home network to prioritize so that sensitive content - think games and live sports - comes through with the least amount of lag possible. Comcast said it is making this possible by opening its platform to the likes of Apple, Nvidia and others to allow them to flag latency sensitive content. Comcast didn't give a release date for this feature, but said it will be available "soon." |
| [IOD]SnipsSuper Regular Spaz Sniper P: 02/15/2024 15:29 | Comcast/Xfinity last summer started trialing a new low latency DOCSIS for their customers. Working with companies like Nvidia, Apple and Valve. An interesting read, this low latency cable trial started last year. It sounds like DOCSIS 4.0 has several things beyond QoS designed with low latency gaming in mind. https://corporate.comcast.com/stories/comcast-kicks-off-indu... LLD is a CableLabs technology standard that implements the Internet Engineering Task Force’s (IETF) Low Latency Low Loss Scalable Throughput (L4S) open standards. The L4S standards specify how network links, such as in an Internet gateway, can implement a new data packet processing function for latency-sensitive traffic and as a result achieve ultra-low latency. As part of these standards, app developers mark latency-sensitive traffic - such as video conferencing, gaming, and virtual reality - to dramatically improve the latency performance. |
| level1nobodySuper Regular Cold Giver P: 02/15/2024 15:31 | Let me know when Comcast Business rolls out a gateway that can handle static IPv4 and a /56 for IPv6. |
| XenOz3r0xTSuper Regular Shotgun Quick Draw P: 02/15/2024 17:49 | mmarino51589 wrote: [IOD]Snips wrote: If your gaming computer is not in the same room as your modem/gateway/router, consider buying an ethernet cable & paying to have a professional install it outside for you or through your attic & into a specific room. Can be $50 to $300 for a professional with a drill from what I've read online, but unlike hardware upgrades, this cable will benefit you long term if you plan on living there for years - never need to do it again. Or you can simply run it yourself if you know how to get a cable from one end to the other, running under an attic door for instance without drilling. After that you just plug it in & it's easy. It's like $100 for 1000ft of cat6 for cheap bulk cable too. Beyond directly connecting your gaming PC to your internet giving you stable internet for decades to come, this also allows you to run a wifi extender or wifi router from this location further giving fresh wifi signals throughout that part of the house now as well for better coverage. No more low to medium wifi signals anywhere in your home. Buying Ethernet Cable When buying ethernet cable, if it's going outdoors then get cable that is UV resistant & weatherproof. Ethernet cables come in different speeds, each compatible with one another when connecting to lower speeds. The higher the cat number, the more shielding and ultimately more twists per inch reducing crosstalk or the chance of packetloss even further. cat6 = bare minimum. Some will argue that anything above cat6 is a giant waste, however when talking about distances beyond 50ft, I highly disagree after you've cut into an ethernet cable & are aware of the extra shielding in cat7 or cat8. Cat6 is a real standard. cat7 = Significantly better shielding then cat6, however it's not a real standard so there are some counterfeit fake cables out there. cat8 = Highest level of shielding, and is a real standard. There are also plenty of fake cat8 cables on amazon. Avoid flat and/or thin cat cables as they are fake and not true cat8. Look for AWG that is 22 to 24 meaning its thicker gauge wire. Future proofing your network wire is always smart when it has more shielding. While speeds above 10Gbps sound imaginary at the moment, it wasn't too long ago that 1Gbps seemed like an unreachable dream. Going to argue your point about Cat6 being minimum. Cat5e should be the minimum. Cat5e supports 1GB, which for most home setups, will be fine. People talk about how Cat6 is the new standard, yet they still use 1Gb switches. Remember kids, your network can only operate as fast as its slowest component, which is typically the switch (and not to mention the fact that the overwhelming majority of your router/firewall devices only have 1GB LAN ports, too). If you've got a Ferrari but your local roads are loaded with potholes and bottlenecks...welp... Laughs in FIOS 2GB since I don’t have a slowest component. |
| [IOD]SnipsSuper Regular Spaz Sniper P: 02/15/2024 19:09 | Gaba & Xen, what is your ping time to 1.1.1.1? Pepperjack are you on fiber too? What's a common ping time to your local city? I'm ready to get jealous, I wish fiber was available here so badly. |
| Matt_tfcSuper Regular Shotgun Quick Draw P: 02/15/2024 20:14 | I have like 100 ping. Screw you guys (especially gaba) with your nerd talk and low ping. |
| NookieSuper Regular Shotgun Quick Draw P: 02/15/2024 20:38 | Are there cliff notes for this thread? |
| Ignorant_FloristDaycare Manager Pipebomb Monkey P: 02/15/2024 21:19 | [IOD]Snips wrote: The speeds are improving across all the devices. Xfinity is prepairing their 10Gbps gateway/modem for this year or the next for home users. XFinity literally just came through our neighborhood an upgraded their "outdoor" technology this passed Monday. We were offline for about 5 hours, which I expect to be fully compensated for! I mean, I have a rather large iTunes library, and it's a damned good thing I do, because at least I had SOMETHING to watch, even if I've seen it before. I'm pretty sure it was the 10gb stuff they wired us for, as I know from going to "Too Many Games" up in Philidelphia last year, that the tech is already out for public use. It was highly advertised at the venue for anyone connecting to their internet during the event. I'm not TOO worried about my own PC, though... as it's kinda old, so I'm sure it's already at its own limits for data transfer. But I've not noticed any issues with having it run via wifi, even with two other people in the house all using wifi for internet. I mean, TFC isn't very resource heavy, and I've seen zero issues with all three of us streaming at the same time. I'm just hoping that, sometime within the next few years, I'll be able to afford a newer PC. I'm taking care of this one as best I can, and I DO still have the backup unit I was sent... but with the video stuff I'm trying to do, a better PC would be very helpful. |