Streaming Media = High Gaming Ping

[icu222much]

When my family is streaming media (480 quality) of Funshion.com (asian movie website) and I am gaming at the same time, my ping jumps from ~50 to ~300. I am wondering if there is anyway for me to reduce the ping while streaming media. Are there some settings in my router? I am using a Linksys WRT54G with dd-wrt firmware.

Speedtest says I have a 16.8Mbps download and 0.42Mps upload. Streaming a 480 quality video takes no more then 2Mbps according to the network widget. Gaming does not require very much bandwidth either.

[JoeMcJoe]

Perform a longer speed test, http://speedtest.comcast.net/

[bballkenn]

It could actually be the router. You might have a fast internet connection, but your router might be hindering it. Your router says it can transfer 11Mbps, but those are not real world numbers.

[Nothinman]

Latency is the problem, not bandwidth, and this is what QoS was designed to deal with. But for QoS to work properly it has to be supported end to end at each device at each hop. DD-WRT supports QoS, so you could still give it a try but there's no guarantees it'll work consistently or at all.

SOHO routers are usually pretty crap, so it's possible that your router just can't handle it at all but that's really difficult to prove without having a spare, known good router to test.

[spidey07]

If it's wireless then that's just the nature of wireless. It's slow and half duplex.

[ScottMac]

Latency is most often a function of available bandwidth.

In a wide open pipe, the latency is a function of serialization (converting data into bits) and processing to put it "on the wire," then distance ... with TCP-type connections showing more latency (because transmissions must be acknowledged (ACK'd)) than UDP-type connections.

Congestion causes the data to be buffered beyond normal processing times.
There is NO QOS through the Internet. Any QOS offered by a SOHO system is for internal traffic, and (at best) "who gets out first" at the WAN port. Once it hits the ISP, all bets are off.

[piasabird]

I would like to add something about latency and streaming. I watch a lot of streaming video on Hulu and other video related sites. Typically in a lot of households they may have a wireless router. Even though I used a wired connection, I noticed I was getting some dropped connections do to a poor or malfunctioning wireless router. You would think the wireless and the wired parts of the router would function separately, but when the wireless portion of the router had issues it also affected the connections on the 4 port switch.

I was using a router from AT&T and when they upgraded my DSL to what they call a Universe DSL Internet connection they did increase the speed along with delivering a new wireless router. Since then we have not had trouble with the wireless or the wired access through the router. I think it was just faulty equipment.

Often Myself, My wife and my Daughter are all doing things like watching streaming video X2 and skype chat X 1.

I dont think streaming takes as much bandwidth as you think. If you do a speed test, is that test smart enough to tell you where the problem is? In many locations there is network congestion due to high usage in an overpopulated area. Some networks just dont have enough bandwidth so they slow everyone down. This includes cable TV Networks and backbones, and Phone Networks.