Wireless network, broadband speed and online gaming

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How much does broadband speed affect online xbox gaming, once you're past the 8Meg mark?

Is a wireless network connection good enough for online gaming assuming i'm only a few metres from the router?

What's a better setup:

a) router connected to BT master socket, xbox connected via wireless adapter

b) router connected to a rather dodgy telephone extension, xbox connected with cat5 cable

I've got the latter set up at the minute, but my O2 router stats are listing a few errors so am thinking of changing to the former.

Thanks in advance for input.
 
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Ideally you'll just want to get your ping as low as possible to reduce the lag.

Speed isn't really that important these days since just about any Broadband package should be fine when it comes to gaming, although you will want a decent upload speed if you're planning on hosting games with a lot of players.

A wired connection is always better then a wireless when it comes to gaming, but how much of a noticeable difference it will make I've no idea. Also I wouldn't worry about the errors unless they are making your connection unstable (e.g. by disconnecting frequently).
 
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Also I wouldn't worry about the errors unless they are making your connection unstable (e.g. by disconnecting frequently).

cheers.
I sometimes get crazy lag on MW2 but that is usually followed by 'finding a new host' so I assume that is a problem with the host and not my connection. I rarely lose a connection to a game but it has happened once or twice.

I'd just hate to think my connection was getting me killed!
 
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It couldn't hurt to check your ping which is easily done by opening a CMD window and typing "ping www.bbc.co.uk" (without the quotations marks)

If you are with O2 you should be getting similar pings to me, since Be* and O2 use the same network. If they are higher then mine by quite a bit you might be able to get O2 to optimize your connection for gaming, which is what I did with Be* and my pings to the BBC website went from 35-40ms down to 15-18ms depending on the time of day. When I made the change I noticed the difference instantly because I was actually being chosen as the host for a change :p

I'm not saying this is true for you, but it's worth a check just to see what kind of pings you're getting and to see whether anything can be done about it if they are quite high.
 
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If you are with 02 or *Be you can opt for the gamer settings, which uses a Fastpath connection. This will reduce your ping, but will also reduce the level of error correction on the line. I had Fastpath on, but due to being over 2km from the exchange I was getting too many errored packets, so have switched back to normal and tbh I havent seen any difference. I am with *Be on their Pro service. With Tiscalli I was getting 2.5mb max and less than 1mb at peak times. With *Be I get a solid 7mb anytime.

Why is the phone extension dodgy ? is it the cable or the box ? Personally I'd try and go wired all the way for gaming, rather than wireless. You would be better off using

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=NW-103-BE&groupid=46&catid=1604&subcat=

If your phone extension is really dodgy. Plug your router in to your master socket, plug one of thes into your router and the other into your xbox, that should provide you with rock staedy gaming.
 
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Assuming you have 8Mb ADSL then why (or even how) could 54Mb wireless be a bottleneck? (assuming both connections deliver consistent performance)

/pointless observation
 
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Bear in mind most wireless routers support 54mb traffic, on an 8mb broadband connection it can handle it fine...

I was thinking less about the speed and more about whether i'm going to get random disconnects from a wireless connection

SimonR said:
Why is the phone extension dodgy ? is it the cable or the box ? Personally I'd try and go wired all the way for gaming, rather than wireless. You would be better off using

well.... i wired it all up in conduit in the plaster, through the cellar etc so you wouldn't see it and then when I came to make the connection, realised I used crappy stranded wire! The master socket uses IPC connections which don't wrok that great with stranded wires.
 
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