Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by phinnaeus 2123 days ago
Fighting games, too. Most gamers know to avoid wifi, much less a wireless ISP.
2 comments
ricardobeat 2123 days ago
I don't think that's still true with 802.11ac. My Wi-Fi adds only 1 or 2 ms latency. There is way more jitter, but it doesn't really matter if the total is always under 10ms.
link
gameswithgo 2123 days ago
wifi doesn't add any latency, inhernetly. nor in practice with actual equipment
link
andruby 2123 days ago
The shared medium (frequency spectrum) is what can add latency. If a device wants to talk over Wifi but another device is transmitting it has to wait. This introduces (variable) latency, aka jitter.

Here's an anecdotal example for you, in practice with actual equipment:

1) Mac pro via ethernet to router:

    # ping -c 5 -S 192.168.1.88 192.168.1.1
    PING 192.168.1.1 (192.168.1.1) from 192.168.1.88: 56 data bytes
    64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=0.413 ms
    64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.396 ms
    64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.417 ms
    64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=0.553 ms
    64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=4 ttl=64 time=0.514 ms

    5 packets transmitted, 5 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
    round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 0.396/0.459/0.553/0.063 ms
2) Same machine via wifi over Unify AP to router:

    # ping -c 5 -S 192.168.1.72 192.168.1.1
    PING 192.168.1.1 (192.168.1.1) from 192.168.1.72: 56 data bytes
    64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=2.992 ms
    64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=4.136 ms
    64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=1.873 ms
    64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=2.293 ms
    64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=4 ttl=64 time=2.552 ms

    5 packets transmitted, 5 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
    round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 1.873/2.769/4.136/0.774 ms
That's an average of 2.3ms extra latency, or 6x higher.
link