Fallout Studios Forums

would unplugging your internet connection (to say an xbox or ps3) from a router and plugging it directly into the modem increase your connection speed by a substantial amount and decrease lag in a game if you have a cable connection?

im convinced that there is no lag on my connection, but someone is telling me that it is necessary to even play games xbox and ps3.

Yeah, wireless internet can really mess up online play.
But it really depends on outside interference, how far away you are from the router, how thick the walls are etc.
But if you're convinced you're getting no lag then dont fix what isnt broken

its not a wireless connection. they are both wired. he wants to unplug the router that connects the rest of the game systems and the computers to the internet so that he can plug his system directly into the modem

It will make practically zero difference (even with wireless the difference will be pretty marginal).

thats what i thought, but its so frustrating to try and prove otherwise because he is so adamant. He tried a speed test and saw that it was better when plugged directly into the modem, and wont play games anymore unless he has his xbox plugged in directly, cutting the rest of the house off from the internet

Its the ping that matters for gaming. And the change through the router probably won't be close to human reaction time (roughly 0.3 secs). A change in ping of 0.004 secs (4ms) won't save him from being fragged.

hmm.. ill have to try the speed test for myself and see what the change in ping is, thanks for the help

i tried a speed test, and the largest difference in ping was roughly 20ms. sometimes, the direct connection to the modem was even slower than through the router, so if you just take into consideration any small variations in the connection speed, im guessing its safe to assume it makes no difference?

If it fluctuates then you've got all the info you need to point out that its all internals and also the load usage from your neighbourhood main connection.

As Dauth said ping is far more dependant on the current usage of bandwidth than the available throughput. Gaming relies on latency and latency relies on quick delivery of packets. The more packets that need to be processed, the higher the ping (which is the reason why you get crazy pings when downloading). The only potential benefit I can see of plugging it directly into the internet is the fact that it denies the rest of the house to the internet which, in some cases, may lead to a slightly lower ping since it would be impossible for anyone else in your house to be using the internet.

The difference between wired and wireless is mainly in the throughput rather than the actual ping. Usually when using wireless the difference between a wired connection may functionally be a couple of milliseconds at most, the main advantage of a cabled connection is a larger amount of bandwidth available (which for gaming is pretty useless, as it relies for more on latency than throughput).

tl;dr: cabled connections are faster for large amounts of data transfer, however a wireless connection is pretty much equal on almost every front (not many internet connections can outrun standard wireless at 100mbps) so unless you're transfering gigabytes of data over LAN there's no reason to use wired over wireless.
Edited by Alias, 02 May 2011 - 08:54.

its not about wired over wireless, its about whether being plugged directly into a modem is faster than plugging it in to a router (and by now im assuming its not)

Most of the point was the fact that if you're usually going through a router it's usually wireless these days.

If you're talking about wired through router than that's even less of a bloody difference.

ok good, i knew it was a stupid idea.

IIRC the extra time it takes to go through a router, rather than the immediate modem, averages out to about 2ms. For a human being, that's not measurable, and makes not the blind bit of difference when playing online. So I wouldn't worry about it much

dont worry, im not freaking out about it, im just trying to convince someone it doesnt work