NIC cards.

[nestlewater]

So I just saw the news about yet another NIC card that promise to improve gaming performance. I didn't bite the first time. But RECENTLY, I just got the 50/20 connection, and have been hitting torrents pretty hard, And I noticed my ping would be much higher while playing games. Would a NIC card help me? I DO NOT plan to spend over 50 dollars, so no Xeno/Killer NIC.

 

[n0cmonkey]

What are you using currently? Gigabit might help if you aren't using a gigabit interface, but it really depends on where the bottleneck really is.

 

[drebo]

It's unlikely the NIC is going to be your bottleneck. You'd probably notice much more of a benefit upgrading to a more powerful (i.e. non-SOHO) router.

 

[bobdole369]

drebo speaks the truth. 50/20 is still less than half of what a 100mbit NIC can handle. I doubt your totally saturating 5 megabytes a second downlink, more likely to saturate your uplink with the torrents. Are you keeping the total upload speed to 80% of your guaranteed uplink? (2000 k/sec)

 

[nestlewater]

Yes, My upload is usually capped at 1500. But it doesn't make a diff what I set it to, 'cept under 100', so I'm assuming it's my mobo.

Mobo has gb ethernet, 2 of um, but it's an old mobo. DFI nf4 sli-dr.

i keep reading about something something tcp offloading that the NIC cards do. So i'm wondering if that would help my case. "Avid Uploader here. haha. so the rest of you could stand to benefit... HELPPP MEEEE...

Are there non-soho routers for under 60-70 ?

 

[Modelworks]

Nic really haven't changed a lot in years other than gigabit support. I have a 3com 3c905tx nic that is now 12 years old and it performs just as well as something from 2008.

 

[drebo]

Originally posted by: nestlewater
Are there non-soho routers for under 60-70 ?

Nope. You could try something that can be flashed to DDWRT, such as the Asus WL-520gU or the WL-500g Premium.

Slowdowns from bit torrents happen because your router does not have the capacity/speed to handle the vast number of TCP connections required to run those protocols. They are incredibly high-overhead. The only way to fix this is getting a better router. DDWRT may have more efficient handling than your current router, so it may help.

Speeds that high are pointless in the consumer and small business space, and you'll need a much more powerful router to take full advantage of them.

 

[nestlewater]

Originally posted by: drebo

Originally posted by: nestlewater
Are there non-soho routers for under 60-70 ?

Nope. You could try something that can be flashed to DDWRT, such as the Asus WL-520gU or the WL-500g Premium.

Slowdowns from bit torrents happen because your router does not have the capacity/speed to handle the vast number of TCP connections required to run those protocols. They are incredibly high-overhead. The only way to fix this is getting a better router. DDWRT may have more efficient handling than your current router, so it may help.

Speeds that high are pointless in the consumer and small business space, and you'll need a much more powerful router to take full advantage of them.

hm.... now I gotta go check if my company's computer department has storage that I can borrow.