TR Forums

Hello TR Forums.

I use a WIFI connection on my PS3. I can't use a direct ethernet setup.
My I have good download and upload speed.
My console is about 15 ft and a floor above the router. My signal strength is 100% mostly.
However my game lags when I play multiplayer. Basically FPS games are unplayable this since by the time I see an opponent I get destroyed by them
(I play COD4).

Is there a way to reduce lag without changing to an ethernet connection?
I thought about putting this in the "networking" section. Would it be better there?

edit:I use a Netgear wireless G router.
Thanks,
Blur99

Moved to Networking.

Bandwidth and latency are different things. Whilst a lower bandwidth gives an inherent higher serialisation latency (i.e. time it takes to send a packet) it is possible to have good bandwidth and poor latency.

Do you have anything else running over your Internet connection whilst you are gaming (e.g. torrents)? If so try stopping those and see if that improves things. If it does then you will need to get QoS setup on your router (not familiar with that model so not sure if it supports QoS or not) to prioritise your gaming traffic over your other traffic.

Does your router support DD-WRT? I had the same issues with a stock firmware'd Linksys WRT400N. Nothing but problems and slowness. Bandwidth was at about 1.5mbit/sec but was so erratic and lost so many packets it was unusable. I flashed my router with DD-WRT and all the problems went away. Look for a firmware update for your router or move to a free/open source firmware and retest.

notfred wrote:

Bandwidth and latency are different things. Whilst a lower bandwidth gives an inherent higher serialisation latency (i.e. time it takes to send a packet) it is possible to have good bandwidth and poor latency.

Do you have anything else running over your Internet connection whilst you are gaming (e.g. torrents)? If so try stopping those and see if that improves things. If it does then you will need to get QoS setup on your router (not familiar with that model so not sure if it supports QoS or not) to prioritise your gaming traffic over your other traffic.

No.
Mostly it is the only device using bandwidth.

Corrado wrote:

Does your router support DD-WRT? I had the same issues with a stock firmware'd Linksys WRT400N. Nothing but problems and slowness. Bandwidth was at about 1.5mbit/sec but was so erratic and lost so many packets it was unusable. I flashed my router with DD-WRT and all the problems went away. Look for a firmware update for your router or move to a free/open source firmware and retest.

I might try installing a newer firmware.
I hope it doesn't brick the router though.

The router is right next to a wireless phone base.
Could that be effecting router signal latency?

That could be causing some interference and retries which would impact the latency although I would expect that to impact the bandwidth as well.

Base on Speedtest.net

my speeds are :

8mbps/.8mbps
and my ping is 120ms

Could the 120ms ping be causing the delay?

Blur99 wrote:

Base on Speedtest.net

my speeds are :

8mbps/.8mbps
and my ping is 120ms

Could the 120ms ping be causing the delay?

Yes. That's a pretty awful ping to your nearest Speedtest server. Approximately how many miles are you from the server location?

SNM wrote:

Blur99 wrote:

Base on Speedtest.net

my speeds are :

8mbps/.8mbps
and my ping is 120ms

Could the 120ms ping be causing the delay?

Yes. That's a pretty awful ping to your nearest Speedtest server. Approximately how many miles are you from the server location?

About 150 miles.

Sometimes the ping is 59 ms.
On speedtest many of the upload tests failed. It says "upload test returned an error while trying to read the upload file."

Yep a ping that varies by 100% will definitely cause issues for you.

This could just be a fact of life based on your physical location in the world, or it could be caused by factors under either your or your internet company's control.
Where's the machine that you're running speedtest on, and how's it connected to the internet? Try going to pingtest.com and running that as well.

SNM wrote:

Yep a ping that varies by 100% will definitely cause issues for you.

This could just be a fact of life based on your physical location in the world, or it could be caused by factors under either your or your internet company's control.
Where's the machine that you're running speedtest on, and how's it connected to the internet? Try going to pingtest.com and running that as well.

I have Time Warner Cable.

Pingtest results:
0% packet loss
ping 58ms
jitter 6ms

grade: B