Quote Originally Posted by Valamar View Post
WIFI connectivity can be deadly to gaming. WIFI connections are subject to interference which can dramatically impact the throughput or your connection.
But those problems "come and go" causing "lag-like effects."

This is especially true in the City or an apartment building. "Channel" Interference from other WIFI hubs nearby impacts far more folks than they realize.
It's usually not enough to "stop" things cold, but it can slow things down significantly by requiring constant "retransmissions" between the WIFI Hub and your computer. If you can see more than your own WIFI connection, they you are a candidate for interference. ... long before you worry about cordless phones, microwaves, baby-monitors, etc. all of which can slow down your WiFi connection.

Modern Operating Systems (in both the PC and the Hub) tend to do a reasonably good job of picking a optimal channel... but not really. This is partially because the problem is dynamic. What was a clear channel at 7AM can be crowded at 7PM. But your "system" is locked into the situation it chose when it was powered up. You can help things somewhat by "sniffing" and picking a channel with few or no others using it.... but that "sniff" can change as your neighbor (spouse, partner) fire up their laptops...
All great reasons not to play multiplayer pc games over wifi. I can't agree with you enough in terms of the need to reduce interference. Let me add two more big reasons why wifi is deadly to multiplayer pc games:

1) The wireless data units that are being sent over the air have a gigantic overhead when compared to wired data units. A big part of this overhead is the encryption, which every single wireless data unit has! Over a wired network, there is not this extra overhead.


2) All wireless networks are half-duplex -- that is only one device can communicate at a time in one direction. Most modern wired networks are full duplex, capable of simultaneous information exchanges in both directions between two devices. So once again, wired tech, from a multiplayer pc gamer perspective, is far superior.


There is no real solution to these two above problems in regards to a wireless gaming environment. I have a new, state-of-the-art wireless router that supports the latest wifi AC standard, and it will still suffer from the two problems above.