Helix's post in another thread had me thinking about playing on a wif-fi connection.

How many of you trust your wi-fi connection enough that you can play the game without worry of a dropped packet on the wi-fi connection?

My home wi-fi connection is not stable enough for me to play over it. I have to play over my hardwire connection to my router. The wi-fi is good enough for web surfing but not for large downloads and game playing such as TW or online poker. That's what I get for buying a cheap router on sale. The hardwire connection is great, just the wi-fi is not. Eventually I'll upgrade to a better router.

I took my laptop to my local bowling alley one day and it had a great connection. I was able to run a few turns with no problems though it did drop connection a couple times, though thankfully that happened when I was just sitting in my home sector chatting on fed.

How about the rest of you?

S: ping : 329  ms
S: ping : 438  ms
S: ping : 438  ms
S: ping : 438  ms
S: ping : 438  ms
S: ping : 438  ms
S: ping : 438  ms
S: ping : 469  ms
S: ping : 422  ms
S: ping : 438  ms
S: ----------------
S: Min: 329  Max: 469  Average: 428 -- What the Hell am I doing here?
S: High/Low  Removed   Average: 436
S: Min:Max Split: 140  Mild Intermittent Lag Detected
S:

any questions? That was on the beta server, game a (which hasnt been rebanged, BTW)

All I use is wireless to play from laptop and I average 130/180's on most servers. I rarely if ever get dropped. Placement of the router in your house makes a difference as you could be getting interference from other devices.... ie cordless phones or microwaves in close proximity. I currently use a Linksys WRT54G2 and have no issues with it. I can play from outside in the backyard while having evening cookouts at about 80~100 feet through 3 interior walls and 1 brick with no issues.

Could be the internal antenna or the wifi card in the laptop your using? I do have an external USB NIC that has an antenna that is directional that I have used when traveling though to increase range and stability.

The beta server is in Dallas, not sure if that makes any difference but I get pings of 140 from Oklahoma.

I have been on a home wireless for a very long time. I get drops every once in a while and the relog script kicks in. My ping times are usually pretty good. I am running through AT&T's U-verse router which is a 2Wire G wireless. I am using a D-Link B/G/N capable card on my laptop.

               / Promethius / Enigma / Wolfen /

"A man who has no skills can be taught, a man who has no honor has nothing."

I am on AT&T 3G wireless through my phone.

I play off my wireless router, although it acts as a WAP for my wired network. I get on average from 230-280 and although some would consider that unplayable, we are use to it. Of course it has to do with the area we live in and our ISP, plus we host a business account with various services running in the background.

I want to thank y'all for your responses. Much appreciated.

Currently my router is next to the tower of one of my computers (I have like a computer lab with 2 desktops and a third to be added later as a dedicated TWGS). So it's possible there is some interference from the tower. I don't have a long enough ethernet cable to move it at the moment. I believe my router is a Linksys Ws110 or something similar to that name.

Again, thanks. Now I know it's possible to play online games on wifi. Someday I also want to able to wirelessly stream Netflix movies to my TV, but my wi-fi is not stable enough for that either.

i have only used wifi for years, i tried plugging my laptop directly into router and the ping only changed about 10ms.. also tested both ways downloading a torrent, speed didnt change at all.. im on some shitty country road DSL, but when i went to a friends house with cable and was downloading torrents there on his wireless, 900k/s-1.1mb/s.. so you should not have any problem streaming netflix or doing ANYTHING on wireless.

Not so much wifi but am using Alltel/Verizon mobile internet (not 3G that I know of) for the past year and a half. Occasional drops but what I find the most disturbing is my latency.

I would love to get a 200ms ping... hell I might like a 400ms ping.

Have used a Pantech UM175 "air-card" with Linux, XP, Vista and Windows 7 and the latency is all about the same.

Downloading speed is acceptable but ping times that average 600-800 at best and 1200-2000 at worst make me a fearful player.

My corpies can attest to the latency... Hell I couldn't be sst'd in BG2010 because the controlling script would time out.

There's a big difference between WiFi (802.11b/g/n) and WISP (Sprint, Verizon, whatever,
air cards and tethering).

WISP goes thru the cell towers, has names like "Edge" and "CMDA" and "3g" and "4g."
These services usually have decent enough bandwidth, but they tend to drop connections,
have spotty coverage, may be unreliable and tend to have latency measured in seconds.
Someday they may be improved, there's a lot of promises out there... but so far, most
focus is on bandwidth so the mass markets can stream video over smart phones. Most
do not address the issue of latency at all.

WiFi is a different animal. WiFi connects to a wireless router, then routes out via whatever
ISP you're using. WiFi itself is not inherently laggy, maybe a few MS extra, but if your
area is noisy, or the wireless router sucks, it may periodically reset it's connection. For
web browsing that doesn't matter, but for a game that requires a constant socket... it can.
The question with WiFi isn't latency, because that's mostly determined by your ISP, but
rather how stable the connection is.

This discussion is talking about both. It may be good to clarify.

i have never had problems with stability, other than when my laptop overheats and my card decides to stop working. as long as air is getting under it, no drops

Yeh, but you live in the middle of nowhere, so you've got no RF interference in
the area. Not true of most. Add in other 2.4ghz devices and you're going to get
kicked if the channel clogs up. Even if the router is smart enough to switch
channels, it still means a socket reset.

ohh i didnt realize other stuff could mess with signal.. this is way baby jesus hates cities

i didnt have any trouble with my wifi 802.11g in columbus- and there are over a million peeps there if you count the suburbs...

Not to mention the fact you probably have several wi-fi signals to deal with, Booger.

I live in a suburban neighborhood. My laptop can only pick up just one other wifi connection near me and it's secured.

I would go to my mom's apartment, which is in the city, and was able to pick up several wifi signals with one or two unsecured. Some people are idiots.

Then there was another time I went into a busy downtown area at a restaurant and fired up the laptop and i'll be damned - it picked up like 10-15 signals including a few from the restaurant itself. I had to ask the waitress to tell me which one to use.

Anyways...I'll let you guys know how my home wifi goes. I need a longer ethernet cable to be able to move my wifi router to another location. I believe my two computers near it are interfering with it. I'll let y'all know.