Really looking for some advice on my home network setup, make sure I'm getting the most out of it.
I currently have 76mb broadband and given the fact I'm right next to the cabinet, I pretty much get this speed. So no issues here. I currently have 2 gaming PC's setup upstairs, with the router downstairs. The wifi was proving to be inconsistent when we were gaming on both PC's. So I bought a longer CAT 6 network cable and plugged it directly in to the router. This runs to a gigabit network switch near my PC, which then feeds both of the computers. This seems to solve any latency and ping when we're both gaming (around 20-30ms), though there can be the odd occasion it drops. I've then found when a third PC is connected to the network, whether it is to the router or gigabit switch, the lag is more noticeable, with the ping nearly tripling at around 100ms with the rtt also increasing, making gaming online difficult.
Is this an issue with my setup? There aren't too many devices using the wifi at the same time, a couple of mobiles, which I imagine won't be using much of the bandwidth. Is there anything I can do to improve this, or is it a case of three or more PC's gaming at the same time is just too much for my network to handle?
Another question I have, would a faster/better router help? With our PC's being hard wired would it actually make a difference, or would it purely just improve the wireless network. Given that my current ISP router has gigabit ports, I doubt a better router would make a huge difference, but I may be wrong.
So in short, download speeds are excellent, but with gaming online with 3 or more PC's, latency tends to suffer. Is there anything I can do to improve this. I do realise that with with more computers connected to the network, it will inevitably slow down.
I currently have 76mb broadband and given the fact I'm right next to the cabinet, I pretty much get this speed. So no issues here. I currently have 2 gaming PC's setup upstairs, with the router downstairs. The wifi was proving to be inconsistent when we were gaming on both PC's. So I bought a longer CAT 6 network cable and plugged it directly in to the router. This runs to a gigabit network switch near my PC, which then feeds both of the computers. This seems to solve any latency and ping when we're both gaming (around 20-30ms), though there can be the odd occasion it drops. I've then found when a third PC is connected to the network, whether it is to the router or gigabit switch, the lag is more noticeable, with the ping nearly tripling at around 100ms with the rtt also increasing, making gaming online difficult.
Is this an issue with my setup? There aren't too many devices using the wifi at the same time, a couple of mobiles, which I imagine won't be using much of the bandwidth. Is there anything I can do to improve this, or is it a case of three or more PC's gaming at the same time is just too much for my network to handle?
Another question I have, would a faster/better router help? With our PC's being hard wired would it actually make a difference, or would it purely just improve the wireless network. Given that my current ISP router has gigabit ports, I doubt a better router would make a huge difference, but I may be wrong.
So in short, download speeds are excellent, but with gaming online with 3 or more PC's, latency tends to suffer. Is there anything I can do to improve this. I do realise that with with more computers connected to the network, it will inevitably slow down.