Is wifi good to use for gaming on a gaming desktop?

[Jukebox]

So I'm getting fibre built into my house as it has been advertised and pretty much any other wifi either comes through phone lines or a mobile hotspot wifi modem thingy (which suck, especially in evenings as the stations that transmit the the data wireless to these modems).

But the main point is, as the house is I live in is big and there are other people living in here, we can't of course connect with ethernet cables to the modem that receives the fibre data (or of course, if we get a router) as our rooms are in different places across the house and there would be cables running through doors and everywhere.

So the only option as far as I know then is wifi. And (as far as I have heard and had experience) wifi isn't 100% efficient and loses speed much more than a ethernet cable. Also of course, we would have walls in between us and the router. Is it worth it to use wifi cards to connect to it? I already have one, Asus PCE N53, don't know if it's actually good or not, haven't used it much. ¨

Edit: We have planned to get at least like a 100mb/s pack from our ISP.

 

[Snipergod87]

If you are planning to get 100Mbits from your ISP and you want your full download speed you will want 5Ghz 802.11n at minimum, preferably 802.11ac if you want to get your full download speeds. Other big considerations is range and walls in between you and the wireless router which will impact speeds.

 

[SgtScream]

When it comes to online gaming, wifi is a handicap.

 

[Jukebox]

If you are planning to get 100Mbits from your ISP and you want your full download speed you will want 5Ghz 802.11n at minimum, preferably 802.11ac if you want to get your full download speeds. Other big considerations is range and walls in between you and the wireless router which will impact speeds.

Well, for me (probably the biggest internet consumer in the house) the most probable place for the router, unless other plans reveal, the router would be directly below me. Only a floor holding in between

 

[USAFRet]

If you are planning to get 100Mbits from your ISP and you want your full download speed you will want 5Ghz 802.11n at minimum, preferably 802.11ac if you want to get your full download speeds. Other big considerations is range and walls in between you and the wireless router which will impact speeds.

Well, for me (probably the biggest internet consumer in the house) the most probable place for the router, unless other plans reveal, the router would be directly below me. Only a floor holding in between

WiFi should be the absolute last choice in connecting to your router.

Performance and stability, descending:
1. Ethernet direct to the router
2. Powerline or MOCA
Moca if the house is already wired with coax for the TV's
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
3. WiFi
(that large gap is there on purpose)


In my house, if I am upstairs directly above the router (approx 15 feet total distance), WiFi is acceptable.
Just walking 15 feet down the hall upstairs, I see a 25% drop in speed to the router.

YMMV

 

[Jukebox]

If you are planning to get 100Mbits from your ISP and you want your full download speed you will want 5Ghz 802.11n at minimum, preferably 802.11ac if you want to get your full download speeds. Other big considerations is range and walls in between you and the wireless router which will impact speeds.

Well, for me (probably the biggest internet consumer in the house) the most probable place for the router, unless other plans reveal, the router would be directly below me. Only a floor holding in between

WiFi should be the absolute last choice in connecting to your router.

Performance and stability, descending:
1. Ethernet direct to the router
2. Powerline or MOCA
Moca if the house is already wired with coax for the TV's
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
3. WiFi
(that large gap is there on purpose)


In my house, if I am upstairs directly above the router (approx 15 feet total distance), WiFi is acceptable.
Just walking 15 feet down the hall upstairs, I see a 25% drop in speed to the router.

YMMV

Just had a look at the MoCA and it looks solid. I assume it works on any television cables (if there are any others?), cause I do have some kind of a outlet in my room that says "TV" above it and I am 99% sure it is a coaxial cable. The room that we have planned to put the fibre in and connect to the modem and then to the router also has that kind of an outlet.

Do they work great? Do they lose too much speed? I'm really considering to buy those adapters.
Also what do you mean powerline? Can you get some what same kind of an adapter as this MoCA is?

 

[USAFRet]

Just had a look at the MoCA and it looks solid. I assume it works on any television cables (if there are any others?), cause I do have some kind of a outlet in my room that says "TV" above it and I am 99% sure it is a coaxial cable. The room that we have planned to put the fibre in and connect to the modem and then to the router also has that kind of an outlet.

Do they work great? Do they lose too much speed? I'm really considering to buy those adapters.
Also what do you mean powerline? Can you get some what same kind of an adapter as this MoCA is?

MOCA works if all that coax is linked together somewhere, and in reasonably good condition.
It works by taking the signal from the RJ-45 jack, into that adapter, and then pushing it through the house coax.
At the other end, a similar device takes the signal from the coax, and outputs to a regular RJ-45 jack ethernet signal that you PC can use.

Powerline works the same way, except through the house electrical wiring instead of the coax.
Assuming the house wiring is in good condition.

Performane? Not as fast as ethernet. Maybe not as fast as a perfect WiFi signal. But far more stable that the WiFi.

But you can't really know for your house until you try it. Buy from somewhere with a good return policy, just in case it doesn't meet your expectations.

 

[bill001g]

One key thing to remember when you are talking games is the speed does not really matter. Almost all games use very little since they are designed so people with very tiny DSL connection can also play the game. 500kbps up and down is what is commonly used as a number but many games take much less than that.

So a connection that only has 1mbps up and 1mbps down with no variations in the packet delivery times (ie jitter) and no packet loss will perform much better than a internet connection that has 1gbit ip and 1gbit down but has even 1% packet loss.

When you are only asking about games you only need to worry about the quality of the signal. Ethernet is king here because it is almost immune to things that will cause data issue. Moca and powerline are good because they too use physical media, unfortunately this media is shared with other devices...like the vacuum cleaner... that can cause packet loss. Wireless by its design will delay data to try to prevent loss. This is the worst possible option to run a games on when you consider the game is using the delays between packets to function.