Netgear Orbi for gaming

[BoutTime]

Morning all,

Is anyone using or has anyone used a Netgear Orbi (Router and Satellite) for gaming?

We are moving house and the new house is not networked with Ethernet LAN cables. It's a fair size and I don't think a normal router will have the range or throughput for gaming without excessive ping/latency.

My plan is to connect the Orbi Router to the modem in the hallway and then position the Orbi Satelite in the Study directly above upstairs. The Router and Satelite will connect using the higher 5Ghz 1733Mbps dedicated backhaul. I will connect my PC and Laptop to the satelite via ethernet. So although I will be wired the connection speed will be limited by the real world backhaul speed between the Router and the Satelite. A number of users have reported that they get a real world backhaul speed of 575Mbps. So it should be fast enough, it's just the latency/ping which concerns me.

My sons' XBoxes will connect via wifi but I'm not concerned as they already use wifi and the Orbi will be better then the BT SmartHub we currently have.

Many thanks in advance.

 

[bill001g]

The only problem with all these fancy wireless solution you see claiming they can cover large houses is they ignore the actual reason coverage is poor now days.

Before it was purely the signal levels and the walls and stuff absorbing the signals. Most times even a fairly weak signal was ok because it was clean.

The problem now days is not so much the signal strength it is that you need enough signal strength to overpower all the interfering signals you are getting from everyone else around you. The more radio units you put in the more points you have to get interference. Of course your neighbor is also doing this so he too is creating more and more interference.

Unless you are cabling the units together with ethernet and using them as AP you are just making it worse adding repeaters.

Wireless in things like high density apartment buildings is almost to the point of unusable because everyone is putting in tri-band routers where a single user will attempt to use all the available wireless bandwidth.

Will this work in your house...you will only know if you try it. Some people it works fine for and others it does not.

When you look at gaming I would look at powerline units. You then only have to deal with stuff inside your house and not neighbors. They tend to be much more consistent than wireless in their performance. Unfortunately there are the rare houses they do not work in, you want to look at the newer av2 models that generally say they run at 1200. These units tend to work better in more houses.

 

[BoutTime]

The only problem with all these fancy wireless solution you see claiming they can cover large houses is they ignore the actual reason coverage is poor now days.

Before it was purely the signal levels and the walls and stuff absorbing the signals. Most times even a fairly weak signal was ok because it was clean.

The problem now days is not so much the signal strength it is that you need enough signal strength to overpower all the interfering signals you are getting from everyone else around you. The more radio units you put in the more points you have to get interference. Of course your neighbor is also doing this so he too is creating more and more interference.

Unless you are cabling the units together with ethernet and using them as AP you are just making it worse adding repeaters.

Wireless in things like high density apartment buildings is almost to the point of unusable because everyone is putting in tri-band routers where a single user will attempt to use all the available wireless bandwidth.

Will this work in your house...you will only know if you try it. Some people it works fine for and others it does not.

When you look at gaming I would look at powerline units. You then only have to deal with stuff inside your house and not neighbors. They tend to be much more consistent than wireless in their performance. Unfortunately there are the rare houses they do not work in, you want to look at the newer av2 models that generally say they run at 1200. These units tend to work better in more houses.

The thing is these Orbi units connect to each other at over 500 Mbps real world which as far as I'm aware is way faster than any powerline kits can manage. My PC and laptop will be connected via gigabit Ethernet. It's the latency I'm wondering about.

 

[bill001g]

That almost has to be a massive lie. If you look at the testing sites using the very fastest 802.11ac routers they get about 300m. This is not some new technology it is still wireless. It is no different than testing with only a single machine connected. There is no way they get 500m

The latency almost has to be higher. You are encoding the data 2 time one time between the end station and a second time between the 2 router devices.

Even if you believe them they are using 80mhz of bandwidth to talk to between the 2 devices and another 80mhz of bandwidth to talk to the end station. There is only 170mhz total for use in the 5g band. This means if even 1 neighbor tries to use any 802.11ac you get interference for sure.

If you are like most people on this forum and use your machine to play games the powerline will be better since games use no bandwidth really and only care about consistent latency.

 

[BoutTime]

That almost has to be a massive lie. If you look at the testing sites using the very fastest 802.11ac routers they get about 300m. This is not some new technology it is still wireless. It is no different than testing with only a single machine connected. There is no way they get 500m

The latency almost has to be higher. You are encoding the data 2 time one time between the end station and a second time between the 2 router devices.

Even if you believe them they are using 80mhz of bandwidth to talk to between the 2 devices and another 80mhz of bandwidth to talk to the end station. There is only 170mhz total for use in the 5g band. This means if even 1 neighbor tries to use any 802.11ac you get interference for sure.

If you are like most people on this forum and use your machine to play games the powerline will be better since games use no bandwidth really and only care about consistent latency.

From the Orbi review on wegotserved.com......

"I was interested to see how the wireless backhaul performed so we tested it using a wired connection to the satellite unit. This gave a great performance of 465.1 Mbps which you can access through the four Gigabit Ethernet ports on the satellite. This goes to show that the Orbi satellite has ample bandwidth to serve both wired and wireless clients simultaneously. While it isn’t the same as a full Gigabit wired connection, it is enough to keep most users happy and outperforms any of the powerline adapters we have seen."

 

[BoutTime]

From the Netgear orbi Forum.......

"In my experience, the satellite backhaul adds roughly 2-3ms of latency."

Job done, I'me going to pull the trigger on an Orbi.

Thanks for your help fellas.

 

[Slosh1014]

Well, I guess you have had your Orbi for close to a year. How is it handling the gaming and is it giving you the performance that you thought it would? I am looking at one and wondering how it will perform. My two main issues are gaming and my current router currently dropping my network several times a day.

 

[BoutTime]

Well, I guess you have had your Orbi for close to a year. How is it handling the gaming and is it giving you the performance that you thought it would? I am looking at one and wondering how it will perform. My two main issues are gaming and my current router currently dropping my network several times a day.

It's fantastic. I've recommended it to a few friends and colleagues and they are impressed too. My ping does increase if my sons are downloading but generally we can all game at the same time, with me connected to the Router, and my sons connected to the satellite. And the WiFi range is phenomenal. Without the neighbour friendly mode selected I can connect down the street. Overkill for our house really which is around 2000sq ft.