best / strongest wireless solution?

[nageov3t]

just looking for some input.

I'm going to be staying with a friend for a couple months, as my job is transfering me to a new city on April 1st and it's going to take awhile to find a new apartment (the new office is in a college town... as such, it's super hard to find an apartment until all the students who live off campus graduate). I'm going to be crashing in their basement, but my friend's home office (and dsl connection) is on the third floor. I'm looking for what I need to do/buy to make the wireless connection from my computer in the basement up to the third floor as wired-like as possible. I play mmorpg's and fps's online, so I really need as little lag as possible.

running cables through the walls isn't an option, since my friend and his wife aren't the owners of the house (they rent).

 

[jlazzaro]

you're never going to get wire-like performance from wireless...but your best bet is probobly the high-powered buffalo.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16833162134

 

[BoboKatt]

Thus far honestly I played EQ and EQ2 for ever on my older Dlink Xtreme G router with my older Xtreme G desktop card and never had issues.

I recently upgraded the router to the Dlink N based one with 2 antennas and now I have very good to excellent connection. My router is one floor up in a very large home and before I always had low to very low.

Let me say something about wireless and MMORPG games -- honestly most people will never notice the speed or reliability difference between wired or wireless or even different speeds of wireless with everyday use. My dad never has an idea what he is using -- just as long as he can read his email and surf the net when he needs it. If you play games that require a constant connection and temporary disconnects are going to kill your character (LD) and make you scream for 2 minutes, it's a huge issue.

Personally I would say with any good wireless set up you can get away with it. My pings in EQ are never higher than 130 or so. Again that never bothers me -- what does is the constant Link deaths I would have in a night as even a slight drop in connection gets noticed when playing games like that if my wireless network was not set up properly or if it was a piece of junk. I would totally recommend NOT GETTING any USB based network cards. I have as of yet to figure out why 3 of the ones I've used over the years drop their connection so often. Again you wont notice this if you don't use a CONSTANT connection that even a small bleep in the line causes you to crash. Make sure you get a PCI based wireless card.

PS if you don't want wireless there are options to go through your electrical outlet. In fact Dlink has one of those... you plug one gizmo into the electrical outlet next to the router, one next to your computer? plug your network cable from comp to one and the cable from one of the ports on your router to the other and presto done. Not sure on the speed or delay but something to consider.

 

[jlazzaro]

that may be true for MMORPGs...but I would never use wireless for a FPS. a split second can be life or death

 

[holden j caufield]

Originally posted by: jlazzaro
that may be true for MMORPGs...but I would never use wireless for a FPS. a split second can be life or death

I've noticed no difference in ping from a wireless and wired on my laptop. I"m only about 20 feet from the router but I'm also not a top notch player. Is it commonly agreed that wired is better for FPS?

 

[jlazzaro]

its just less to go wrong. a wired connection isnt susceptible to interference or any of the other wireless variables. i know for a fact my wired connection will have 0 issues, and when money is on the line, thats what matters.

 

[xSauronx]

Originally posted by: jlazzaro
its just less to go wrong. a wired connection isnt susceptible to interference or any of the other wireless variables. i know for a fact my wired connection will have 0 issues, and when money is on the line, thats what matters.

qft. my brother stopped playing shooters soon after our parents moved and his pc only had a wireless connection.

 

[spidey07]

For gaming it probably isn't going to happen.

You could try a somewhat directional antenna and lock the datarates (speed) at 5.5 or 11 Mbs and see what happens. If there is anyway you can get the floors out of the way, like just putting the antennas outside the window it may be doable.

But wireless blows for gaming.