Wireless card for gaming desktop a floor above router

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alexcc

154 posts

Master Geek

#94887 21-Dec-2011 00:21

I'm building a gaming desktop for a friend but because of the modem being down stairs while the room he's going to be keeping the desktop in will be up stairs, I'm going to have to buy a wireless card.

Now this is where it gets tricky. Because the router is a floor above the desktop the wireless card will have to have a pretty decent range, the problem is the router is a wireless G type so the range will be limited. And on top of that because the desktop will be used for gaming, the card will have to have a pretty solid connection.

I've been looking around and wanted to get some peoples opinions on what card they think would work. I'm hoping to keep the price down as much as possible but don't want his online gaming to be disrupted by low signal/frequent drop outs. I'm looking at the TP-Link TL-WN951N card right now but the reviews are pretty mixed, and I'm not sure whether the range will reach.

Links to product: Newegg /Pricespy

I went for a N card as I thought if he did end up upgrading his modem in the future, the range increase of a N card would really benefit him.

There wouldn't really be any Benefit to a wireless N card/Modem in New Zealand apart from the increased range and I guess Lan transferring, right? Am I correct in thinking that with ADSL/ADSL2 the speeds don't get high enough to benefit from the speed increase of N cards?

Any help would be appreciated

Thanks

Alex

kyhwana2

2566 posts

Uber Geek

#560121 21-Dec-2011 00:42

Nope. For gaming stuff, drill a hole and run some Cat5/6. Any kind of wifi is going to suck.

*Your friend is a snip0rz, oh snap .5 second lag suddenly. Now he's dead. *rage**.

Oldhat

180 posts

Master Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#560122 21-Dec-2011 00:45

If you have a strong signal a g card can "connect" at 54mbps. Even with the connect rate at this level the throughput can often be substantially lower i.e. 20mbps.

The main problem with using wireless for gaming is that you can get interference that can increase the latency.

I would suggest that you check the signal strength with a laptop first, just to see if wireless of any sort is really going to be viable. Sometimes it can be better to look at setting up WDS with a couple of compatible routers for a better solution and often not a great deal more money.

P1n3apqlExpr3ss

853 posts

Ultimate Geek

#560123 21-Dec-2011 00:47

Why are we always bashing wireless?? Do any kind of tracert under CMD and ping to router should be 1-2ms...

I personally have a Netcomm PCI card which I got over a year ago from playtech, and seems to be the same one you linked

Installed drivers and it was good to go, has worked fine for me through a storey (modem up, PC down) and still got at least 3 bars. Still was with me being about 5m away from the router, just down a storey

Real question is how far off the router is he going to be? Is he right above it, 5m off? a couple rooms?

edit: To add to that, I play a lot of BF3 and have done with BC2/Blops in the past and have never had any problems when I could blame the wireless card

webwat

2036 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#560328 21-Dec-2011 16:04

P1n3apqlExpr3ss: Why are we always bashing wireless?? Do any kind of tracert under CMD and ping to router should be 1-2ms...

I personally have a Netcomm PCI card which I got over a year ago from playtech, and seems to be the same one you linked

Installed drivers and it was good to go, has worked fine for me through a storey (modem up, PC down) and still got at least 3 bars. Still was with me being about 5m away from the router, just down a storey

Real question is how far off the router is he going to be? Is he right above it, 5m off? a couple rooms?

edit: To add to that, I play a lot of BF3 and have done with BC2/Blops in the past and have never had any problems when I could blame the wireless card

Because wifi is a shared spectrum technology thats not designed for stable throughput; means its susceptible to congestion and interference from outside radio signals and other wifi networks. Performance of a wifi network just isn't that predictable because so many outside factors can't be fully controlled. If you do find the connection not good enough for gaming or the desktop is too far away, then switch to channel 1 and directional antennas might help.

Time to find a new industry!

alexcc

154 posts

Master Geek

#560350 21-Dec-2011 17:25

Thanks for the responses

kyhwana2: Nope. For gaming stuff, drill a hole and run some Cat5/6. Any kind of wifi is going to suck.

*Your friend is a snip0rz, oh snap .5 second lag suddenly. Now he's dead. *rage**.

That doesn't sound very hopeful haha hopefully the wireless wont drop out so much... I think we'll first try wireless and then if that doesn't work out well we'll look into cables, not sure whether they'd want to drill a cable through their house though.

Oldhat: If you have a strong signal a g card can "connect" at 54mbps. Even with the connect rate at this level the throughput can often be substantially lower i.e. 20mbps.

The main problem with using wireless for gaming is that you can get interference that can increase the latency.

I would suggest that you check the signal strength with a laptop first, just to see if wireless of any sort is really going to be viable. Sometimes it can be better to look at setting up WDS with a couple of compatible routers for a better solution and often not a great deal more money.

His laptop in the same room where the desktop will be gets full bars with his door shut. This WDS sounds interesting, I'll see if he has any extra modems.

P1n3apqlExpr3ss: Why are we always bashing wireless?? Do any kind of tracert under CMD and ping to router should be 1-2ms...

I personally have a Netcomm PCI card which I got over a year ago from playtech, and seems to be the same one you linked

Installed drivers and it was good to go, has worked fine for me through a storey (modem up, PC down) and still got at least 3 bars. Still was with me being about 5m away from the router, just down a storey

Real question is how far off the router is he going to be? Is he right above it, 5m off? a couple rooms?

edit: To add to that, I play a lot of BF3 and have done with BC2/Blops in the past and have never had any problems when I could blame the wireless card

I've just talked to the guy and he says the modem is attached to the wall about 1.2 Meters away from the ceiling and the room where the computer will be is about 4.5 Meters to the left of directly above the modem. Theres one small room in between. On his laptop he gets full bars in the same room with his door shut.
Do you think the card would be good at that range?

webwat: Because wifi is a shared spectrum technology thats not designed for stable throughput; means its susceptible to congestion and interference from outside radio signals and other wifi networks. Performance of a wifi network just isn't that predictable because so many outside factors can't be fully controlled. If you do find the connection not good enough for gaming or the desktop is too far away, then switch to channel 1 and directional antennas might help.

His laptop picks up 4 other wireless networks and doesn't drop out very often when on steam. Thanks, I'll try that if the signal isn't very good.

alexcc

154 posts

Master Geek

#560420 21-Dec-2011 20:33

P1n3apqlExpr3ss: I personally have a Netcomm PCI card which I got over a year ago from playtech, and seems to be the same one you linked

Also, just realized the PCI card I linked to was TP-Link not netcomm, do you have this TP-Link card or did you mistake the card I posted?

P1n3apqlExpr3ss

853 posts

Ultimate Geek

#560430 21-Dec-2011 20:56

Error on my part, my modem/router is netcomm (dont buy netcomm, theyre not the best) while the wireless card is indeed TP-Link. I am 98% sure that my one and the one you linked to are the same

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nakedmolerat

4629 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#560431 21-Dec-2011 20:57

my desktop connected wirelessly to my router. i stream HD videos and online gaming with no problem/lag

usb wnda3100 on my desktop, connected to my router DGND3700 using 5ghz band (i turned off 2.4ghz band on the usb). everything else in the house use 2.4ghz band

alexcc

154 posts

Master Geek

#560528 22-Dec-2011 02:13

P1n3apqlExpr3ss: Error on my part, my modem/router is netcomm (dont buy netcomm, theyre not the best) while the wireless card is indeed TP-Link. I am 98% sure that my one and the one you linked to are the same

Okay thanks, I went with that wireless card so hopefully everything will be all right. If it doesn't work then we'll probably look into the cable option.

nakedmolerat: my desktop connected wirelessly to my router. i stream HD videos and online gaming with no problem/lag

usb wnda3100 on my desktop, connected to my router DGND3700 using 5ghz band (i turned off 2.4ghz band on the usb). everything else in the house use 2.4ghz band

Thanks I hope the card I chose will work as well as your Usb one. I've been put off by Usb wireless connectors, everyone I know who has owned one had it break on them a couple of months into use. XD They were probably all crappy cheap ones though.

Again thank you all for your input, much appreciated. We went with the wireless card in my first post, It's almost Christmas so It probably wont be here for a while haha.

Ragnor

8223 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#560579 22-Dec-2011 09:19

While a cable is better, wireless for gaming isn't the end of the world.

If you find you get periodic latency spikes on wireless it's likely to do with windows doing a background scan for wireless networks in range.

There's this great app for dealing with that
http://www.martin-majowski.de/wlanoptimizer/

alexcc

154 posts

Master Geek

#560764 22-Dec-2011 17:27

Ragnor: While a cable is better, wireless for gaming isn't the end of the world.

If you find you get periodic latency spikes on wireless it's likely to do with windows doing a background scan for wireless networks in range.

There's this great app for dealing with that
http://www.martin-majowski.de/wlanoptimizer/

Thanks, that app sounds interesting, I'll have a look at it when I get the wireless card installed.