Is it possible to get good performance over Wireless?

[CaptainPurge]

I played wireless last night (due to a situation out of my control) and my connection seemed OK for the most part, until I tanked Horoth in ToD and it became worse than a slide show, it was like 1 frame every 2 seconds or worse it would just kind of freeze a few seconds. I was still communicating with the group over voice chat and was still-autoattacking, they said. I died, I think I was cursed and wouldn't have known it, but anyway....

does anyone have suggestions, settings perhaps, to maintain an acceptable wireless data rate without sick high latency spikes which is what I was experiencing? Running wireless-G over WPA, with really no other network interference. 15 Mbit download / 1 up.

[Kaldahr]

I run wireless all the time and haven't experienced issues that I'd attribute to the wireless signal. Disclaimer: I've not run the big key raids but I've been through Subterrane in a raid party and never had any problems. Most of the stuff that I see is server side.

I've also switched back and forth between wired / wireless as I'm in different locations (friend's house) from time to time and not noticed any real difference. That said, we did manage to overload his Uverse router by running 4 clients at once - at least, the problems stopped after we put in a wired switch.

Currenlty, I can game without issue talking on the phone, another computer is constantly connected and downloading over VPN for work, and kids are watching netflix... all wirelessly (well, ok, phone isn't technically wireless from the box).

Uverse 25 down / 2 up (I think) but it maxes at about 18(ish) down. Using AT&T provided router built into Uverse box. Wireless-G, WPA2.

I seem to recall (but can't find it ATM) that DDO does something a little different with the way they pass data that might give some routers problems. I could just be making that part up, though.

[Entimix]

I'm certainly managing pretty good performance over wireless, even on an old B link. (No wires in my building and I can't get reliable signal off the nearest G point. Sadface.)

15 up / 1 down on a G link does sound like your connection is having issues, though - a decent, stable link should be seeing at least 18 or 24 (ideal conditions being 56 both ways - lower rates mean your wifi interface / access point is scaling the link speed back because it's having trouble talking.)

[learst]

I play DDO from my laptop, which is constantly on wireless. In school, I use the campus network. At home, I use the local wireless network which I've set up on the broadband modem in the hall so I can play in my room without hassle.

So far I don't really have much problems. Sometimes there are some latency issues, but I can't really attribute it solely on the wireless factor and not on the network itself. Since I don't use a wired line, I can't really say how much better/worse it is compared to wireless. But so far I've been quite satisfied playing DDO on wireless.

[CaptainPurge]

15 up / 1 down on a G link does sound like your connection is having issues, though - a decent, stable link should be seeing at least 18 or 24 (ideal conditions being 56 both ways - lower rates mean your wifi interface / access point is scaling the link speed back because it's having trouble talking.)

Yeah I messed that up, meant to say 15 megabit download, 1-2 upload rates using popular internet speed tests. anyway, maybe the router was just getting too much data to deal with, in that you know, the healing spams, damage all aroud, etc. during a mega boss battle is just kind of funking out my router or reception end. I always thought wireless would mainly affect the first-person shooters due to latency gaps but I'm seeing this now with DDO.

[FlyingTurtle]

I had the same problem: smooth as silk everywhere and then slideshow in raids. I messed with a bunch of settings on the game and the router and fixed it.

Check your network options in the DDO client and set your speed to auto. For some reason mine was set on high.

I also had to set my router to G-only mode, it doesn't seem to like 802.11B or N or auto.

A good way is to go to the prompt (run>cmd) and hit

ping -n 1000 ddo.com

And watch for packet drops. I had regular packet drops until I fixed my router.

FWIW DDO is not an FPS and can handle extremely high latency (>200ms ping) that would kill a twitch multiplayer game. You should not be having any problems, raid, mabar dragon, or otherwise.

[TheRealest]

I play with a wireless connection on my for using my alienware sometimes, dont really get too much lag. Hittin The Shroud is rough at times, but it generally doesn't get much lag.

[Der_Incubo]

Are you running vista?

I travel alot for work, and my old laptop had vista, and vista has some issues handling tcp stacks on wireless. I used to use a program called "Vista Anti Lag" and it greatly improved my gaming experience.

My new laptop has 7, and doesnt have the lag issues the old one had.

[pal_sch]

It entirely depends on your location and the network setup.

A g band router has 54Mb/s bandwidth to play with. For a household that's going to be better than most internet connections (compare to your 16Mb/s total up+down connection), so the bottleneck bandwidth wise will be on your ISPs side of things, not the wifi. Same with latency; the delays introduced by wifi are probably dwarfed by any delays between your wall socket and the servers.

Thing is, wifi bandwidth has to be fought for. Adding more people using wifi in the same area, even on different networks, will quickly strangle the bandwidth. While different routers won't interfere with each other, they will compete for the bandwidth avaliable. The more networks you have the tighter things get.

And then there are other sources that actually do interfere with wifi. Most microwave sources can, from phones to florescent lights, faulty wiring to... well, microwaves. I've seen places where the signal basically vanishes moving from one side of a room to the other.

If you are having problems with a wifi connection you don't notice playing wired through the same router there are plenty of tricks you can try. I picked up a cheap external USB wifi adaptor with an extension cable rather than an internal card for my old desktop. Lets you move the pickup's location and even add on some sort of extra antenna if you are feeling like tinkering.

[CaptainPurge]

yeah what it *feels* like is the inherent additional latency of wireless hitting, and sometimes, sticking perhaps due to a burst that it fails on what to do with. If gaming was just a stream of steady-state data this wouldn't be a problem for wired or wireless, but when spikes hit and the wireless software/firmware has to deal with it, is my issue I suppose.

[cru121]

I am using a wireless and a laptop, and there's indeed a drop in performance in major fights, when there's lot of spells blasting all around. However, at least in my case, this lag is (as far as I can tell) caused by lack of graphics performance of my laptop, not network.

[Illiain]

I play through a wireless connection on a laptop. I've noticed if I relog to alts a couple times, I get horrible lag and it gets worse in the normally bad places, such as Shroud and Sub.

The only thing I've seen that fixes it is to quit and restart the client.

[Jaguras]

I also dont have any Problems with my Wireless Connection and DDO, havent done any Raids though.

[Bengalih]

I play on wireless about 100% of the time.

Whenever I experience lag in Raid runs everyone else generally comments that they also just had a spike. So I don't think I'm experiencing anything different then everyone else playing.

Additionally, bandwidth and latency on the WAN are almost always considerably worse then on a local network, wireless or not. Even with the latest FIOS type home connections you are still getting bandwidth that is generally less then G-grade wireless.

You may have wireless issues in your network in general, but a properly operating wireless network should not produce any issues that would interfere with gameplay.

For example, I have recently started noticing that when I am streaming movies to either my xbox or wii over wireless that if I turn my microwave on it can interfere with the signal. These types of interference are generally not in the forefront when just doing standard internet browsing/e-mail activities, but when real time becomes a factor you have to ensure that your wireless signal is better isolated.

If you are having issues, look to your wireless configuration and not the fact that it is wireless in and of itself.

[donfilibuster]

I travel alot for work, and my old laptop had vista, and vista has some issues handling tcp stacks on wireless. I used to use a program called "Vista Anti Lag" and it greatly improved my gaming experience.

Tried vista anti lag and it seemingly took room on the cpu as background programs do.
I got a noticeably slowdown that went away when i stopped it.

I play through a wireless connection on a laptop. I've noticed if I relog to alts a couple times, I get horrible lag and it gets worse in the normally bad places, such as Shroud and Sub.

The slower load on relogs is a different problem but surely gets worse in wifi.
With this issue it is recommended to reinstall ddo if you have four or more updates or patches in your install.

[~jradnut]

Then again, you mentioned last night. I didnt look at the date on your OP so just going to assume today .

I played most of the night until morning U.S. time and there were periods of horrendous lag that caused immediate wipe in eADQ when she was down to about 1/3 health. Also had lag issues thoughout most of the day as well on Orien.

Wireless lappy user and rarely have lag issues even when others are so last nite was ...something else.

[Narmolanya]

I play wireless all the time and have no problems. I am using Uverse and very happy with it. Prior to Uverse I had Comcast and that was trash as I would only get 10-20% of the speed I was paying for. Often times there will be two or three pcs running the ddo client wireless in my home and I have had no problems.

On my laptop I often play at Starbucks and have no problems most of the time there as well.

In short, yes it is possible to get good performance over wireless.

[Rigsta]

I played wireless last night (due to a situation out of my control) and my connection seemed OK for the most part, until I tanked Horoth in ToD and it became worse than a slide show, it was like 1 frame every 2 seconds or worse it would just kind of freeze a few seconds. I was still communicating with the group over voice chat and was still-autoattacking, they said. I died, I think I was cursed and wouldn't have known it, but anyway....

does anyone have suggestions, settings perhaps, to maintain an acceptable wireless data rate without sick high latency spikes which is what I was experiencing? Running wireless-G over WPA, with really no other network interference. 15 Mbit download / 1 up.

Are you describing your screen freezing when you say frames per second, or are you referring to DDO's trick of rooting you and/or everyone else in place when it experiences a connection problem?


Wifi is prone to disconnection when used for extended periods of time, even if the actual amount of data being transmitted is small - like an online game. Problems usually occur on the wifi router and rebooting it resolves them until the next "crash."

I'm using wifi now out of necessity and it is getting annoying. Random packet loss at times, or total disconnections. Doesn't happen every day, but boy it's annoying when it starts going wrong. I've tried 2 different wifi adapters, 3 different routers, and even switched the wifi mode from G to 5GHz N. That boosted the signal a great deal but the issues remain.

Bottom line : Wifi can do the job with good-quality equipment, especially 802.11N gear running in 5GHz mode, but nothing beats a good old ethernet cable for reliability.