Best Wireless adapter for Gaming

[SPARTAN11810]

Hi I am looking for the best PCI or USB wifi adapter for gaming. My current routers are a AirPort Extreme and AirPort express. The extreme is my living room and my express is in my office by my computer. The express has cap of 1.1ms through the ethernet port. And 1.1ms is too slow for steam.

 

[turkey3_scratch]

1) How far are you from the router
2) what are your Internet speeds provided by your ISP?

 

[SPARTAN11810]

1) How far are you from the router
2) what are your Internet speeds provided by your ISP?

The router is on the first floor my computer which is plugged into the Aiport express is on the second floor. 16mbps

 

[bill001g]

So I assume you are using the airport express in client mode....ie you are using it like a wireless nic card for your pc.

I am not sure why you would find a limitation even the original 802.11b models can run 11m. If your signal is so poor that the airport express is only able to negotiate a 1m signal then you may have issues with any wireless nic you buy.

Still the key to gaming is not normally the amount of bandwidth but the quality of the bandwidth. If you had no packet loss at all most games will run fine with only 1m of bandwidth. Most are well under 500kbps. Most wireless gaming issues are related to retransmission of packets which is caused by interference.

 

[abailey]

I was trying to use the Airport Express as a client bridge in my house and was having a terrible time with it getting a good signal. I was using the 5Ghz band but it was literaly 30 feet away (through one wall, but a doorway very close) from the AP. I was getting about a -80db signal. I ended up getting a Ubiquiti Nanostation Loco M5 as my client bridge. It shows a signal of -57db and connects at 300Mb/s link rate. Can't be happier. Check the signal on your Airport Express to see what it says it is getting from your Extreme. Also are you using the 2.4Ghz or 5Ghz band to attach your Airport Express?

 

[SPARTAN11810]

I was trying to use the Airport Express as a client bridge in my house and was having a terrible time with it getting a good signal. I was using the 5Ghz band but it was literaly 30 feet away (through one wall, but a doorway very close) from the AP. I was getting about a -80db signal. I ended up getting a Ubiquiti Nanostation Loco M5 as my client bridge. It shows a signal of -57db and connects at 300Mb/s link rate. Can't be happier. Check the signal on your Airport Express to see what it says it is getting from your Extreme. Also are you using the 2.4Ghz or 5Ghz band to attach your Airport Express?

2.4ghz band

 

[SPARTAN11810]

So I assume you are using the airport express in client mode....ie you are using it like a wireless nic card for your pc.

I am not sure why you would find a limitation even the original 802.11b models can run 11m. If your signal is so poor that the airport express is only able to negotiate a 1m signal then you may have issues with any wireless nic you buy.

Still the key to gaming is not normally the amount of bandwidth but the quality of the bandwidth. If you had no packet loss at all most games will run fine with only 1m of bandwidth. Most are well under 500kbps. Most wireless gaming issues are related to retransmission of packets which is caused by interference.

When I run test I get 4-7mbps down. It's only when I try downloading from steam

 

[bill001g]

When you have trouble with only a single site that makes it a huge pain because it is application software related. Network equipment has no clue what is passing though it, garbage in garbage out as far as it is concerned.

Airport express unfortantly covers many models. The later ones should have pretty good speed and if they don't then you have a signal level problem or wireless interference. If you are running old 802.11b/g models then you could be getting all you are going to get.

It is really hard to suggest what to use. No wireless is really good at vertical transmission. Although there are small difference between nic cards these are far over shadowed by difference in houses. Generally your best options is going to be a PCI card with a external antenna that are connected via a short cable. These also tend to be the most expensive. The key is to get the antenna away from the computer. A USB has that advantage but finding one that has good antenna...especially one that has 3 is a tough thing.

Then again you can use a directional bridge like abailey pointed out and point it at the floor I suppose. Unfortunately even that is no guarantee in some houses.

 

[abailey]

In your Airport Utility go into the configuration for your Airport Express. Click on Advanced, Logging and Statistics, Logs and Statistics, Wireless Clients and see what the signal level is from your Airport Extreme.

 

[SPARTAN11810]

In your Airport Utility go into the configuration for your Airport Express. Click on Advanced, Logging and Statistics, Logs and Statistics, Wireless Clients and see what the signal level is from your Airport Extreme.

It's a distance issue. thanks