Wireless Vs. Wired Internet For Gaming

[hsn_]

yo guys what is better to get, a usb wifi adapter or a pci wifi adapater? and can anyone recommend me good products to check out.

Thanks,

Hassan.

[kalniel]

PCI. Any - the cheap ones all use the same RaLink chips and work great.

[robbieuk]

Personally I use wifi (pci card), however if my router was close enough to my pc to run wires (without routing them all around the house!) I would! Then I would know I had the best connection possible. Wifi works great tho most of the time for me

[SiM]

When playing wirelessly?

Yes. Reduces wireless latencies too. Due to the aura the card generates within your PC

[Pob255]

My experiences of wifi, it can be a bit random.
I got cheap belkin pci wifi card to get a pc at work onto the network, first card worked fine (was a v5.0) so I got a couple more, which turned out to be v5.2 and flatly refuse to connect.
Ended up getting a netgear USB stick which worked without hassle.

[Plantus]

Just a note on something I found when I played online wirelessly - if using the XP Wireless Configuration to connect to the router the I would get periodic stuttering. After searching some forums I found out that XP was searching every minute or so for stronger connections and this was affecting the connection currently in use. Annoyingly there was no simple work-around in XP itself but the software that was bundled with the card works fine (although it would have been nice not to have to install another yet another application).

I am unsure whether the Wireless app built into Vista has the same problem though...

[kalniel]

I don't get any stuttering using the windows tool on xp, nor do our other computers.

[Plantus]

Well it was happening to me and after seeing advice similar to that on the below link I installed the Linksys software (I happen to have a Linksys card anyway) and have not had a problem since...

http://techrepublic.com.com/5208-734...sageID=2519822

"Stuttering is caused by the very thing that allows you to easily connect to hotspots, XP's Windows Zero Configuration (WZC) applet, which runs automatically on startup. When running, WZC looks for a new network connection every three minutes, and if, at the point it's looking for a connection, your current connection fades out, it will search for a new one, and then automatically connect to it. The result is stuttering, jumping, and general uselessness."

Preston Gralla, Windows XP Hacks (O'Reilly, 2005), Hack #71 (pp. 324-25)

[GeorgeStorm]

Wired is generally better, but something like the Killer NIC does have an affect, and can be massive, means you can still be downloading stuff, and your ping wont be affected, now, that to me, sounds brilliant, the fact that it costs too much is neither here nor there......