Wireless for gaming?

[MrKeeno]

Hi all

Im dreading the thought of having to lift floor boards if I want to properly wire up my house. I need a port for my pc and xbox, they are both in serparate rooms at opposite sides of the house.

Ive considered using a wireless router but im worried about the speed difference? Im really into my online gaming and any drop in speed or an unsteady connection would be unacceptable.

Its probably been asked before but what do you guys think? Start lifting the floor boards?

 

[errata]

Wires the most reliable and can be neatly run along the top of skirting boards if your lucky to blend with the mouldings (white cable is available).

Wireless can work very well but is a real pain when it goes wrong.

If wiring or reliablility is an issue would reccomend you consider powerline or homeplug network adapters.

At the simplest level you plug 1 of these into the mains near your router and 1 near your ethernet capable device, link each device to the adapter with a short ethernet patch cable and then stand back and watch as the mains wiring acts as your main route between pc, xbox, router etc.

No configuration needed unless you want to change security settings and very reliable for basic networking. You need at least 2 adapters then add one adapter for every new device you want to add.

 

[Avalon]

Options in the order that i'd consider them ... YMMV

i) Lift boards and drill joinsts taking care when crossing electrical cables (the angle is important, google it). Plan your route to minimise the number of boards you have to lift.

ii) Run flat cat6 on top of the existing floor boards and then carpet over it. The last lot of Cat6 i ran was only 1mm thick and could easily be laid under carpet without any bump to speak of, you could run this all over with minimal time/effort or cost (don't let anyone tell you cat6 is expensive, last time I placed an order online it was the same price for the flat cat6 as it was for round cat5e).

iii) WiFi ... Additional cost, reduced speed and reliability, also you aren't going to get gigabit out of wireless as an upgrade path for the same money as you can with wired for a long time.

Forgot to add, it also depends on how crowded your locality is with other wifi networks.

 

[tolien]

It's extremely unlikely you'd notice any difference in speed between wireless or wired.

Whether you'd see an unstable connection or variations in latency depends on where you'd be using it - walls (and what's in them) make a difference, and so does anything that'll generate interference (some cordless phones, microwaves et al).

 

[MrKeeno]

Thanks for the replies guys.

I think im gonna stick with wires for now, I know i'll go absolutely mental if i take the easy option (wireless), and it doesnt work out.

Gonna have to plan this one carefully though