How a better connection can be slower-wireless vs ethernet

[D I B E L L O]

Anyone who doesn't want to read through my detailed ramblings, just skip to the last line.

I know the "how can i make my connection better" topic has been discussed a thousand times and beat to death, but I wanted to discuss something i find interesting.

I live in a house with three roommates. I used to live upstairs, with the wireless router directly outside my room. My computer was connected to the internet by a very cheap, shitty wireless n-card. Whenever I would download anything on utorrent, it wasn't slow, but it would max out around 1.2mps download speed. That being said, my connection in game was lightning fast. I was almost always the first to land on a target, even if I fired a homing shot.

However, a few weeks ago, one of my roommates moved out, and I moved downstairs to take his better room. No longer right next to the router, my cheap wireless card could just barely get signal. So instead, I wired a very long ethernet cable all the way from the upstairs, down the office, into the basement, accross the house and into my room. It's probably over 100ft of cable. Now, my download speeds are very fast, always getting over 3mps. However, when I decided to get on tank pit a few days ago, I noticed I was very slow. I'm always one the last to fire on a target. When a target stops firing (because he is mapping) I can only get one shot off before I have to map, as apposed to two before. I haven't even been raided yet since I've moved so we'll see how that goes...

any way, I did get a new computer when I got the new room. But hold on, let me explain why I highly doubt that's the problem. My old computer was an e-machines desktop. 3ghz single core processor, 800mb of ram, loaded with malware.
My new computer (well new for me any way) has a 2.7ghz dual core processor, 6gig ram, and a fresh install of windows 7

So, with all that being said, here is my theory: Although my connection wasn't as strong before, the short distance from me and the router, coupled with the fact that it was wireless, meant there was less delay in the signal. For instance; if i were to download something on my old computer, it would have theoreticly began the download immediately at 1.1mbps. with my new connection it would download at 3mbps, but the download would begin half a second later, due to the delay of sending the signal all the way through the cord.

Although the latter is preferred in 99% of applications, this game is an exception. Since the game isn't exactly demanding in terms of band width, the stronger connection means nothing. The fact that there is a delay, means that my "order" for my move is being put in just a split second after everyone else's, which puts me seconds behind. Admittedly, I could be completely wrong, I really don't know much about signal transfer, but I suspect that this has a lot to do with some players being faster than others.

to sum everything up: I think that the most important factor of speed is how quickly you can get your signal back to the router, as apposed to how "good" your connection is. what do you guys think?

[wardizzle]

tl;dr

What was your old ping and your new ping?

F6 to find out.

[D I B E L L O]

What was your old ping and your new ping?

used to bounce around from 120-150, now it's pretty consistently in the 60's

[VolMan]

Couldn't possibly be related to this "delay" you talk of. Sure, a wireless connection and a directly wired connection are going to have different speeds at which they can interact with the router, but we are talking milliseconds here, something that you would not even notice. The ping is what you should be looking at to the server. From what your saying, I would think you should be getting a better/quicker experience with the wired connection as opposed to the wireless because of the better ping, which is what is confusing me.

[D I B E L L O]

So you're saying the only thing that really matters is ping? Honestly, my fast connection before made completely no sense. how I was so fast with 150ms, I never understood.

[VolMan]

So you're saying the only thing that really matters is ping? Honestly, my fast connection before made completely no sense. how I was so fast with 150ms, I never understood.

Theoretically yes all that should matter is the ping on a game that uses such low bandwidth. Have you tried doing a traceroute to tank pit? I don't know about the server securities so it may not work due to protection from packet attacks but it's worth a shot

[frog]

So you're saying the only thing that really matters is ping? Honestly, my fast connection before made completely no sense. how I was so fast with 150ms, I never understood.

Theoretically yes all that should matter is the ping on a game that uses such low bandwidth. Have you tried doing a traceroute to tank pit? I don't know about the server securities so it may not work due to protection from packet attacks but it's worth a shot

reported

[VolMan]

Lol frog...

[-Kirby-]

2 easy tips that made quite a difference for me, for those looking to decrease ping/lag & increase speed/smoothness:

1. Use Firefox or Chrome. Internet Explorer is hilariously slower than both Firefox and Chrome, even when it comes to TankPit.
2. Make sure the power settings on your computer are set to "high performance" rather than "balanced" or "power saver" or anything like that.

[Tragic]

frog you just wasted your breath considering packet tracing is normal on the internet-its like routing for dummies info


lol

[BenJamin]

Frog tho