Ok, I haven't tried really but wondered if ping time could be effected by the means of how your connected within your network? I would figure you would lose some speed on a wireless laptop, but is it enough to notice?

I haven't seen a substantial ping effect, but have noticed that wireless connections aren't usually as stable as wired... they tend to bounce a lot.

A lot depends on your surroundings. I live in the country so I am connected to internet via WIFI connection (7 Miles from my house to Antenna). Plus I use laptop on WIFI in house to router. I have compared my ping and lag on both wired and wireless in my house with no noticeable difference.....
I normally play on Ice 9 and my pings average 170 / 190. I then went a to friends house down the road about 10 miles and they are on cable and his is direct connect to cable modem via wired and get 150 / 170, for WIFI versus cable I don't think there is enough difference to worry about. But again depending on your neighborhood and other routers surrounding your house you may get interference. If you notice any differences in lag / ping try using a non standard channel on the router and laptop that may help.

One thing I have noticed is get your router off the frequency of you wireless telephones or when you get a call it can get intermittent causing issues.

I know 1 sysop that runs his server on WIFI and for the most part it is stable.....except around Christmas time for some reason....

I always run on a wireless 802.11N that hooks up at 300 Mbps and I don't see much difference between that, 802.11G, and ethernet. I think my local network is a lot faster than my DSL bandwidth can push and that is probably true for most everyone.

The problems with wireless can be with interference and sometimes the hardware itself (I tossed a Netgear 11N AP that performed like crap, but have heard of others that are happy with the same unit). You will lose speed on the wireless the farther you get from the AP, but it is worth it to sit out in the back yard with the fire pit, jack-n-coke, and cigar as you pod someone.

               / Promethius / Enigma / Wolfen /

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

Ok so when are you inviting me over...Ill bring the jack, you provide the cigs..

Just frustrating when you just don't see the ping you would like, out of your control for the most part but one person has 170avg and another on same game will have 250avg. Ive tested it a few times and there was no noticeable avg change as far as speed from one wired to wireless pc.

Certainly not on dialup, not that its a bad thing (eh Zark?..he he)

My pings went downhill when I was on Cox cable. Long story short, they said it was my hardware and not their service. I did everything they said and it cost about $300 for the new hardware - same problem. I switched to DSL and I am very happy. The advertised bandwidth isn't as great as cable, but the pings are faster. The issues with Cox were out of my control when their techs said it wasn't their problem so I took a chance with DSL.

[Edit] And if I run into an issue with DSL to a specific server, I know of a wireless that runs on Cox and is within range and open.[/Edit]

               / Promethius / Enigma / Wolfen /

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

You shouldn't see a noticeable difference between wired and wireless as the thru put affects speeds of data transmission on the same network. So if you were to transfer movies and large files amongst the same network (ie 2 computers connected to your router) you would see a noticeable difference.

Remember your download speed is probably about 5Mbps, where a G router will move data at 54Mbps.

Now if you have a lot of people doing heavy downloading and file sharing, then you will notice a speed diff but that has to do with the bandwidth of your connection.

Pings usually depend on where the person lives and how their connection is to the final destination. I know guys who ping @ 125 on UTW because they live in CA near the server.