Online games have become more popular during the last decade. This is due to the fact that the enemy in these games is not artificial intelligence but real people. If you can setup a local network at home or office, you can play a variety of computer games, supporting multi-player option, with a lot of competitors around.
Progress in wireless technologies allows you to transfer information over long distances and you create a local network between computers by using a cable connection or through setting up a wireless network Wifi. Both methods have their own pros and cons. To create a wireless network, you need a Wi-Fi router the router.
Latency refers to the amount of time it takes for data to make the round-trip from your PC, through your network and to its goal, and then back to your PC. Ping is how latency is measured, usually in milliseconds for example, The lower the ping, the lower the latency.
Lower ping is better; less than ms is ideal. You can measure your ping with services like this one. Lag is the result of high latency, and can be one of the most challenging issues when gaming online. If a player is sending or receiving information to a game server slower than another player in the same match, it can result in game-breaking connection issues such as input delay or connection errors.
Lag can be a crippling hindrance in a fast-paced competitive game, and should be avoided whenever possible. Choosing a Router Choosing the right router can impact on your gaming experience, whether you choose a wired or wireless network. Some examples of features you should consider are: Quality of service tools allow a router to prioritize specific traffic, such as traffic normally associated with gaming, over other types of traffic.
Ethernet connections fast enough to supply your network with the speed it needs are important. Wired vs Wireless Connections Most modern desktops and laptops allow for both options, but understanding the strengths of each can help you determine the right connection for your setup.
Wired Connections. Here are the specifications of the most relevant:. View all Show less. Wireless Connections. Bandwidth and Connection Speed Playing games online uses a relatively small amount of data when compared to other activities like streaming video, but having a fast internet speed with a high bandwidth is always a plus, and will likely make your experience online all around better. Bandwidth is an important consideration if you have multiple people using one network.
Too many devices using data at once can slow things down if bandwidth is limited. Download Speed will impact the speed at which you can download games, as well as updates like patches and post-release content.
As games continue to increase in size, this will only become more important. Upload Speed will impact how quickly you can upload files, and can impact the quality of your stream if you choose to livestream gameplay. Latency and Stability Having low latency and low ping should be one of the most important priorities for a solid gaming network as it has a direct impact on your experience. How to Reduce Latency. A Network Built for Gaming Whether you choose to go with Wi-Fi or a wired connection, prioritize low latency and a stable connection alongside fast upload and download speeds.
Remember to consider every aspect of your network for the best experience: Find a good ISP that can provide a stable connection with sufficiently high bandwidth and transfer speeds, and a modem that supports those speeds. Choose a router that can create a network that supports the speed of your connection, and any additional technologies you want to use. Choose the wired or wireless connection from your PC to your router that supports how you plan to use your network.
That 6GHz connection is also not so common yet, so you won't run into the same kind of interference from all of your neighbors' routers that you will on 2. This router has eight antennas to deliver a powerful signal, and its use of beamforming can go even further in ensuring a strong connection between your wireless devices and the router. You also get some blistering speeds from wired connections, as the router supports 2. While you're shopping for a gaming router, you should be on the lookout for which version of Wi-Fi it supports.
The main two you'll want to look out for are Wi-Fi 6 During your search for a gaming router, you'll undoubtedly come across units designed for Wi-Fi 4 Wi-Fi 4 is an outdated standard that provides fairly slow speeds compared to its two more modern renditions. You'll also want to find a gaming router that is at least dual-band.
Single-band routers only support the 2. You'll also find Tri-Band routers—and we've featured a number of them above as well—that feature an additional 5GHz band you can completely dedicate to gaming. Be aware, just having a gaming router doesn't mean you're going to automatically get the best home network instantly. You still should follow a number of best practices for optimizing your home network. Don't try tucking your router out of the way in a closet at the bottom of a shelf, as that's the quickest way to ensure you won't get the full performance out of it.
Your router should be placed somewhere central in your living space, ideally high up, and it shouldn't have many obstacles in the way i. Everything in the path from your router to your connected devices will impact the signal and thus the quality of your connection. You can also help out your wireless devices by using a wired Ethernet connection wherever possible.
Limiting the number of devices connected to your Wi-Fi at a time can help ensure each device gets better performance.
Securing your wireless router is also important not just for security but also for your performance. Sure you don't want potentially malicious users accessing your home network, but you also don't want your neighbors piggybacking onto your network, as they'll eat into your bandwidth and potentially drag down your network performance. Use a strong password and consider disabling any guest networks.
You might even consider not broadcasting your network ID, which makes it far less likely someone will access your network with the tradeoff that setting up new devices can be a little more time-consuming. The laptop was connected to the router over a wireless 5 GHz connection. The game was a first person shooter, the classic Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault that was played at x with Hardware Texture 2. Gamers care much more about frames per second than about theoretical network benchmarks, so we're using FRAPS 3.
This gives us a good idea of standard performance for a gaming notebook, and we found it was capable of playing the game at a healthy average A recent speed upgrade from our ISP to 60 Mbps proved a challenge for the test as we now needed to congest the network to compromise the game.
We decided to do this with background streaming video from YouTube, and it took five streams of 4K video and an additional p video for good measure, which was about 60 Mbps. This saturated our download bandwidth, essentially leaving the game with 5 to 8 Mbps of over-provisioning from the cable connection.
With six background videos playing at once, Medal of Honor dragged to a lousy average of The game also stuttered and hiccuped to near unplayable levels. With the average frame rate down 67 percent from the baseline, and we could now see what router QoS and Killer NIC could do to help the situation. Dynamic QoS was turned on with default settings, which considers online gaming tier two of the four.
When the test was run with dynamic QoS, it disappointingly had a virtually negligible effect with the average frame rate at a still too low For the next test, we switched to manual QoS and changed the online gaming category from high to highest, putting it into the top tier.
With this done, the frame rate went up to Even with the reduced frame rate, the test proved QoS could prioritize traffic and help with gaming. It also shows that the default settings of dynamic QoS may not be ideal for gamers. We next wanted to see what the Killer NIC could do.
When the game was played, the frame rate went to
0コメント