Is Ethernet significantly better than Wifi?

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Re: Is Ethernet significantly better than Wifi?

Post by aaryngend »

Dolan wrote:@aaryngend

Where did I say that there's no difference (for gaming) between an Ethernet and wifi connection? You're addressing an argument I never made.

And you're bringing arguments I never disputed. You're talking about the limits of materials in transmitting data. Where the heck did I ever talk about or imply that Wifi could carry the same amount of data/information as a wired connection? This is just your strawman.
You sure as hell made it sound like that :P
Why do you come up with 15kb/s now ? That would be even slow for 56k modem days ^_^ Fact is, the bandwidth you use per second in online gaming is so little it isn't worth mentioning at all. Hence the argument that bandwidth (almost) doesn't matter. What matters most is how well the packets travel. Plenty of peeps with 50mbit but still having trouble in online gaming. A bad line for me is a line where you almost or never get your subscribed internet speed.
Jerom wrote:Yes I study physics, which is why I for one dont claim that wifi has much to do with electricity like you do. And besides, my points about travel time are exactly consistent with measurements and based on facts.

The fact of the matter is that its perfectly possible to have a stable wifi connection.
You misunderstood me then. I didn't say wifi is using electricity, i was talking about the line from your ISP to your home.
Read up on it, a true fiber connection doesn't let electricity travel through its pipelines. I read it on the german wiki: "Außerdem ist das übertragene Signal unempfindlich gegenüber elektrischen und magnetischen Störfeldern und bietet eine ziemlich hohe Abhörsicherheit."
What you consider stable is everyone's own definition. For someone who used to lag like hell all day, even a mediocre wifi gaming environment is like a godsend to them. For someone with ethernet, the lag spikes which happen due to the wifi are a no-go.
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Re: Is Ethernet significantly better than Wifi?

Post by evilcheadar »

Speaking of data packets, it it possible for packets to be torn apart? There's a guy by the name of chris the hacker who famously claimed to be able to "manipulate data" and "tear packets apart"
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Re: Is Ethernet significantly better than Wifi?

Post by fightinfrenchman »

evilcheadar wrote:Speaking of data packets, it it possible for packets to be torn apart? There's a guy by the name of chris the hacker who famously claimed to be able to "manipulate data" and "tear packets apart"


I don't think the packets can actually be broken down in transit, I think the issue with disconnections is that the flow of the packets themselves gets disrupted
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Re: Is Ethernet significantly better than Wifi?

Post by JakeyBoyTH »

evilcheadar wrote:Speaking of data packets, it it possible for packets to be torn apart? There's a guy by the name of chris the hacker who famously claimed to be able to "manipulate data" and "tear packets apart"


Packets that are degraded are illegible and so must be resent. No such thing.
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Re: Is Ethernet significantly better than Wifi?

Post by evilcheadar »

JakeyBoyTH wrote:
evilcheadar wrote:Speaking of data packets, it it possible for packets to be torn apart? There's a guy by the name of chris the hacker who famously claimed to be able to "manipulate data" and "tear packets apart"


Packets that are degraded are illegible and so must be resent. No such thing.

Interesting, so they're not like packets of paper that you could pull the staple out of and tear up the individual sheets?
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Re: Is Ethernet significantly better than Wifi?

Post by fightinfrenchman »

evilcheadar wrote:
JakeyBoyTH wrote:
evilcheadar wrote:Speaking of data packets, it it possible for packets to be torn apart? There's a guy by the name of chris the hacker who famously claimed to be able to "manipulate data" and "tear packets apart"


Packets that are degraded are illegible and so must be resent. No such thing.

Interesting, so they're not like packets of paper that you could pull the staple out of and tear up the individual sheets?


No they are more like photons (packets of light)
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Re: Is Ethernet significantly better than Wifi?

Post by momuuu »

aaryngend wrote:
Dolan wrote:@aaryngend

Where did I say that there's no difference (for gaming) between an Ethernet and wifi connection? You're addressing an argument I never made.

And you're bringing arguments I never disputed. You're talking about the limits of materials in transmitting data. Where the heck did I ever talk about or imply that Wifi could carry the same amount of data/information as a wired connection? This is just your strawman.
You sure as hell made it sound like that :P
Why do you come up with 15kb/s now ? That would be even slow for 56k modem days ^_^ Fact is, the bandwidth you use per second in online gaming is so little it isn't worth mentioning at all. Hence the argument that bandwidth (almost) doesn't matter. What matters most is how well the packets travel. Plenty of peeps with 50mbit but still having trouble in online gaming. A bad line for me is a line where you almost or never get your subscribed internet speed.
Jerom wrote:Yes I study physics, which is why I for one dont claim that wifi has much to do with electricity like you do. And besides, my points about travel time are exactly consistent with measurements and based on facts.

The fact of the matter is that its perfectly possible to have a stable wifi connection.
You misunderstood me then. I didn't say wifi is using electricity, i was talking about the line from your ISP to your home.
Read up on it, a true fiber connection doesn't let electricity travel through its pipelines. I read it on the german wiki: "Außerdem ist das übertragene Signal unempfindlich gegenüber elektrischen und magnetischen Störfeldern und bietet eine ziemlich hohe Abhörsicherheit."
What you consider stable is everyone's own definition. For someone who used to lag like hell all day, even a mediocre wifi gaming environment is like a godsend to them. For someone with ethernet, the lag spikes which happen due to the wifi are a no-go.

Except wifi can have zero lagspikes.
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Re: Is Ethernet significantly better than Wifi?

Post by Dolan »

Yep, Wifi can have virtually no significant lag spikes. Not absolutely 0, but close.

OK, so for those who doubted that a Wifi connection can be stable for over more than a few seconds (which is what most online testers test), here are some tests of latency over 10 minutes.
Both tests checked connection latency/packet loss between my IP and my server in Paris (France), which is roughly 2500 kilometres away from me.

As expected, the ping with France (50ms) is higher than my ping with servers from my country (4ms). As I will show you in another batch of tests, it's a lot lower than my ping with USA servers.

The polling rate for both tests is 500 milliseconds per ping.

FIRST TEST - Desktop Ethernet connection (short coaxial cable, under 1 metre):

Image

SECOND TEST - Desktop WiFi connection - for this test I made sure all other wifi connections in the house were disabled in the router, so there was only one client doing the test. The desktop connected by Wifi was right next to the router, to minimise any interference.

Image

Conclusion:
So what can you notice by comparing the results from the wired Ethernet connection to the WiFi connection? There is virtually no difference in latency (on average) or signal stability. Any spikes you can observe are so small and short-lived (only 3 spikes of over 10ms), that they wouldn't have any noticeable effect.

Other tests performed over more than an hour with 3 different USA servers:

California:
Image

Michigan:
Image

Kansas:
Image

The polling rate is a lot bigger for the tests with the USA, thuogh, so you can't see if there are any short-lived variations.

But overall this proves that:
- if you have a good internet provider, your signal will be stable
- if your router is good, your ping will be stable
- if you minimise interference from the environment, there won't be any difference in connection stability between wired and wireless connection

Those who have lag spikes due to ping oscillation probably have bad ISP signal (their ISP sucks), not so great router or, most likely, are using a device which is far from the router's wifi, so a lot of stuff is interfering with their connection (including other connections crowding the router).
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Re: Is Ethernet significantly better than Wifi?

Post by momuuu »

I think your ISP has some stability issues. May I suggest running similair tests but simply pingtesting your own router? That's what got my a rather accurate diagnosis on the instability of my wifi connection.
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Re: Is Ethernet significantly better than Wifi?

Post by momuuu »

Gear_Head wrote:Just a small tidbit of information to add for you guys:

I measured the bandwidth of a 1hr 15min treaty game using Tripmode. The total usage was 34 MB.

Conclusion: you can probably play this game on a really slow connection so long as the connection is reliable.

If I go to task manager during playing and look at the data when every other internet application is turned off, it seems to be about 16 kbps up and download speed, sometimes its like 48 though. Maybe its 16 per player other than you in the game?
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Re: Is Ethernet significantly better than Wifi?

Post by Dolan »

Jerom wrote:I think your ISP has some stability issues. May I suggest running similair tests but simply pingtesting your own router? That's what got my a rather accurate diagnosis on the instability of my wifi connection.

That wouldn't be a realistic test case, though.

Three 10ms variations over 10 min is not by any means unstable. On average there is less than 5ms jitter.
Considering the long-distance over which I tested, it's as stable as you can get.
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Re: Is Ethernet significantly better than Wifi?

Post by momuuu »

Dolan wrote:
Jerom wrote:I think your ISP has some stability issues. May I suggest running similair tests but simply pingtesting your own router? That's what got my a rather accurate diagnosis on the instability of my wifi connection.

That wouldn't be a realistic test case, though.

Three 10ms variations over 10 min is not by any means unstable. On average there is less than 5ms jitter.
Considering the long-distance over which I tested, it's as stable as you can get.

Sorry I misread the graph, thought it spiked by 70 ms. Regardless though, I think the optimal scenario for testing the effect on ping by router/cable is a pingtest towards the router. I also think cable should give zero fluctuations then.
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Re: Is Ethernet significantly better than Wifi?

Post by Gear_Head »

Jerom wrote:
Gear_Head wrote:Just a small tidbit of information to add for you guys:

I measured the bandwidth of a 1hr 15min treaty game using Tripmode. The total usage was 34 MB.

Conclusion: you can probably play this game on a really slow connection so long as the connection is reliable.

If I go to task manager during playing and look at the data when every other internet application is turned off, it seems to be about 16 kbps up and download speed, sometimes its like 48 though. Maybe its 16 per player other than you in the game?


That's definitely plausible. iirc, it was a 2 vs 2. Either way, that is quite low. :biggrin:
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Re: Is Ethernet significantly better than Wifi?

Post by Dolan »

Jerom wrote: I think the optimal scenario for testing the effect on ping by router/cable is a pingtest towards the router. I also think cable should give zero fluctuations then.

Here you go:

Image

A test with my own IP. Fluctuations are under 1ms. This is not fiber though, at least it's not 100% fiber. Just checked: my ISP infrastructure is fiber (FTTH), but they bring the signal in the home using coaxial cable. So, maybe under 1ms jitter can be attributed to cable limitations.

That's it for now. Not gonna spend Sunday doing connection tests. :P
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Re: Is Ethernet significantly better than Wifi?

Post by JakeyBoyTH »

evilcheadar wrote:
JakeyBoyTH wrote:
evilcheadar wrote:Speaking of data packets, it it possible for packets to be torn apart? There's a guy by the name of chris the hacker who famously claimed to be able to "manipulate data" and "tear packets apart"


Packets that are degraded are illegible and so must be resent. No such thing.

Interesting, so they're not like packets of paper that you could pull the staple out of and tear up the individual sheets?


Well it really depends on the type of network that you are using and the protocol but generally packets are made not to be tampered with or they are just rejected from the system.
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Re: Is Ethernet significantly better than Wifi?

Post by aaryngend »

Dolan wrote:A test with my own IP. Fluctuations are under 1ms. This is not fiber though, at least it's not 100% fiber. Just checked: my ISP infrastructure is fiber (FTTH), but they bring the signal in the home using coaxial cable.
Your line is not an FTTH line, FTTH means fiber to the home, since you got a coaxial cable in your home it is therefore not a complete fiber line. It irks me to see how ISPs market their mostly fiber, but not complete lines as just fiber. Typical marketing lies.
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Re: Is Ethernet significantly better than Wifi?

Post by Dolan »

@aaryngend

I have Cat5e cable in the home which can support up to 1Gbps.
And for 3 extra bucks I can get a 1Gpbs connection here (with 500Mbps upload, though). So the line is clearly fiber. How else would you even connect to a router if not with a coaxial over an Ethernet port?

Coaxial Cat7, Cat6 and Cat5e can very well support 1Gbps.
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Re: Is Ethernet significantly better than Wifi?

Post by aaryngend »

Dolan wrote:@aaryngend

I have Cat5e cable in the home which can support up to 1Gbps.
And for 3 extra bucks I can get a 1Gpbs connection here (with 500Mbps upload, though). So the line is clearly fiber. How else would you even connect to a router if not with a coaxial over an Ethernet port?

Coaxial Cat7, Cat6 and Cat5e can very well support 1Gbps.
I'm not talking about the cable you use in your home, I am talking about the line itself. The line from your ISP to your home. You can't change that, you have what you have.
Using a Cat7 Cable doesn't make a 10mbps line suddenly a 1gbit/s line.
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Re: Is Ethernet significantly better than Wifi?

Post by momuuu »

you can pingtest the router though to answer the question of this topic.
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Re: Is Ethernet significantly better than Wifi?

Post by aaryngend »

Jerom wrote:you can pingtest the router though to answer the question of this topic.
I actually branched the argument to another discussion, I think that's where the misunderstandings come from.
1.) Wifi vs Ethernet
2.) FTTH vs any other form of internet

Why don't you just read RIot Games blog that I linked? They tested it very well. They got tons of network engineers who are realizing their Riot Direct project. They get soo much data from all over the world, their servers are under huge stress and have the game with the largest player base. The technical implications of Wifi create the spikes. Don't forget Wifi has to be encrypted and decrypted, you don't have this step with an ethernet cable :P
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Re: Is Ethernet significantly better than Wifi?

Post by Dolan »

aaryngend wrote:I'm not talking about the cable you use in your home, I am talking about the line itself. The line from your ISP to your home. You can't change that, you have what you have.
Using a Cat7 Cable doesn't make a 10mbps line suddenly a 1gbit/s line.

The line is fiber, I checked. It says in the contract too.

Why do you think my ISP has a 1Gbps plan? Do you think they will come again to change all the cabling to your house/block just because you changed your plan/contract? That's not how it works.. They first build the fiber infrastructure, then limit your speed (or not) according to your plan.

The technical implications of Wifi create the spikes.

Did you check out the tests I posted above? I had no significant spikes on wifi while close to the router. Unless you want to call 0.5ms variations in signal spikes.

Riot may know a lot about games played on servers, but AoE3 is completely different from LoL. It's not server-based and the game synch is very differently implemented. In LoL if you disconnect or lag, you might see the game jumping from one scene to another. Another method Riot uses to re-synch your game scene is to send your champ back to the spawn point until you re-connect. Very different from AoE. Just not the same story.
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Re: Is Ethernet significantly better than Wifi?

Post by momuuu »

I just dont agree with the sentiment that wifi has to be unstable. Ive had many years of perfectly stable gaming using wifi.
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Re: Is Ethernet significantly better than Wifi?

Post by JakeyBoyTH »

Jerom wrote:you can pingtest the router though to answer the question of this topic.


Its more conshishtency rather than latency.

Ethernet will always be more stable, but lately of you dont have a poo router you should be ok.
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Re: Is Ethernet significantly better than Wifi?

Post by Dolan »

Li-Fi Has Just Been Tested in the Real World, and It's 100 Times Faster Than Wi-Fi
https://www.sciencealert.com/li-fi-teste ... than-wi-fi

Expect to hear a whole lot more about Li-Fi - a wireless technology that transmits high-speed data using visible light communication (VLC) - in the coming months. With scientists achieving speeds of 224 gigabits per second in the lab using Li-Fi earlier this year, the potential for this technology to change everything about the way we use the Internet is huge.

And now, scientists have taken Li-Fi out of the lab for the first time, trialling it in offices and industrial environments in Tallinn, Estonia, reporting that they can achieve data transmission at 1 GB per second - that's 100 times faster than current average Wi-Fi speeds.


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Re: Is Ethernet significantly better than Wifi?

Post by kami_ryu »

That sounds cool and smart. unless you're outside I guess?

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