wireless connection

[Elated]

okay guys i have a problem...

I had one of my friends setting up wireless connection to my laptop so my daughter dont play with the cords all the time.. so here is my problem;

I think there might be something wrong with the setup of the router, because eversince i got it up and running ive had these game crashes every hour or so clockwise.. is there a setting in the router which stalls for like 10 secs every hour that makes me crash ? (hope the question makes sense)

it also happens in other online games so it is not the game itself that is bugged

hope for some help from you friendly ppl

elated/roofio of Axe bite Pass

 

[Cadelin]

I am not sure if you make clear the problem. Are you playing (WAR?) on the laptop wirelessly or are you playing on a desktop with a wired connection and ever since you set up the wireless you have run into problems? Try and explain the problem as clearly as possible so it helps other figure out the problem.

Wireless connections are not really designed for online gaming.

Does the game crash exactly after exactly the same amount of time online or is it just on average its about 1 hour? If there is a pattern to when you crash it could be some anti-virus or other program that tries to automatically connect to the internet and in so doing so screws up your connection. We would need more details though.

 

[Elated]

hey cadelin..

Yeah i play War on the laptop wirelessly and its after i put up the wireless connection the problem has occured.. my girlfriend says it happens about every 30 minz.. my mistake with the 1h thing.. but this never happend before when i used the cord instead of wirelessly.. so doubt it to be antirvira that screws up the gaming, it also happens in counterstrike ive noticed.. the game stalls 10-15 secs

 

[Cadelin]

As I said before wireless connections are not designed to play online games. (High ping and unreliable connection)

You can get some purpose built wireless adapters for online gaming but they are expensive. Wireless connections have trouble suddendly handling large amounts of data, say when the computer needs to load lots of new people on the screen.

I would suggest going back to a wired connection. You can get some special gaming wireless usb devices but they are expensive (~£50).

 

[Kryten]

Being perfectly honest there's absolutely no reason why a properly working wireless setup shouldn't handle it - any crashes such as this issue would be caused only by bad drivers or "iffy" communications between the client and access point/router. It's often best to try as hard as possible to match the manufacturer hardware, i.e. a netgear wireless adapter with a netgear router, or even matching the chipsets involved, but this is often expensive and time consuming.
I've no idea how much data WAR shifts but there's plenty of games that I'll guarantee shift far more data over the internet without causing such crashes.
Otherwise, I'd not be running 2 systems both on wireless and both often simultaneously running online games without slowdown or crashes. (Red Alert 2&3, Quake 3-4, Grand Prix 4, rFactor etc)

I'm not undermining Cadelins advice by any means - wired connections will always be better than wireless for low ping environments, but if there's a solution that can be found without having to part with money it'd obviously save you time & money in the long run

Which router is it, specifically? Could certainly be worth a shot at upgrading the firmware, resetting it to defaults or even tweaking the settings to suit gaming a little better. Even then, it worries me that it's causing crashes on your system which keeps making me think the drivers aren't up to scratch. It's not a motherboard's onboard WiFi perchance is it?

 

[Cadelin]

Its still not clear if the problem is just general lag or if the problem is caused by something else.

I've no idea how much data WAR shifts but there's plenty of games that I'll guarantee shift far more data over the internet without causing such crashes.
Otherwise, I'd not be running 2 systems both on wireless and both often simultaneously running online games without slowdown or crashes. (Red Alert 2&3, Quake 3-4, Grand Prix 4, rFactor etc)

The trouble with games like WAR is that the game doesn't load players in until they are within a certain range. Given that people often travel in large groups (sometimes around 100), you will often get sudden huge lag spikes. (Which is commonly refered to as "inc lag" and if you are good you can normally tell how many people it is!) Now given that WAR may not be coded optimally yet, some wireless connections may simply not be able to handle these spikes. The game however will perform fine once the players are loaded.

 

[Dark Orb Choir]

its the router most likely overheating when it gets a load of packets sent to it at the same time

It overheats and then drops the connection to the internet. I've seen it before with cheap small wireless routers with inadequate ventilation holes


hope that helps

 

[SheepCow]

The actual amount of data transferred by these types of games is almost nothing, any visual "stalling" is more than likely to be the computer loading the models etc. for the people rather than the network hiccuping due to data.

Dark Orb's suggestion is possible, as even though it's small amount of data, it's still data being transmitted. The transmitter (if it's cheap / crap) may get hot and die, but that'd either take out the router (if it's the router with the problem) or take out the laptop (which it sounds like it does).

Could be a combination, i.e. heat makes wifi send errors, drivers can't cope and implode.

Is there an error message when it crashes (BSOD or otherwise)? Try looking in the event viewer (control panel -> admin tools -> event viewer) for info around the time of the crash. Oh, and does it happen if you're just browsing the web / not doing anything, or is it only when playing games / copying data etc (as that'd hint at a load/heat problem)?