Network over mains

[Omega]

Having moved into my new house it becomes apparant that the PC will not be living in a place that I can plug into the router using RJ45. The obvious answer is a Wirless card for the desktop but since I play a bit of online gaming I've had a couple of people mention that wireless can result in packet loss and high overheads. I'm therefore considering the much more costly option of something like http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?...48539&T=Module but I don't know if I want to shell out nearly 3 times as much on a solution i've not used before.

anyone used these bad boys before instead of wireless? Does it give any appreciable difference in packet loss/speed?

[etz]

Originally Posted by Omega Having moved into my new house it becomes apparant that the PC will not be living in a place that I can plug into the router using RJ45. The obvious answer is a Wirless card for the desktop but since I play a bit of online gaming I've had a couple of people mention that wireless can result in packet loss and high overheads. I'm therefore considering the much more costly option of something like http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?...48539&T=Module but I don't know if I want to shell out nearly 3 times as much on a solution i've not used before. anyone used these bad boys before instead of wireless? Does it give any appreciable difference in packet loss/speed?

Don't bother, imo. It's not really a quality issue, more a cost thing. A better alternative is to just buy a long RJ45 cable and tack it to the skirting board.

Or, just get a wireless N router and card, and it should be fine. That kit is designed to actively stream media, including fast forwarding, so latency and packet loss shouldn't be an issue.

One thing they don't tell you, but which is bloody obvious to anyone who has a slight clue about mains electricity is that both ends have to be on the same mains ring.

[Omega]

I'm not tacking R45 round my house, looks crap and isn't possible from where the router is. Buying a new router and card will come to the same price as the plug network dongles so is a bit pointless. I'm going to try a wireless card and see what the performance is like first. There is a chance I may be able to pull the rj11 from the main socket point through a wall that isn't unsightly but basically I don;t want to be drilling holes through my new house yet!

[etz]

You can get a Wireless N router and card for £45, which is just over half the cost of the EoP kit.

[Omega]

look, without trying to be too arsey I don't really need your advice. I know the solutions I'm going to try and just asked if anyone had tried EoP before. Sorry if that makes me sound like I'm being a dick but I'm not clueless as to the options available to me.

[WAYNE]

BT Vision uses something like whats in the picture and that worked well.

Here is the link to it.

http://www.shop.bt.com/products/bt-c...tml?q=wireless

Sorry if that don't help you Megz.

[etz]

Straight dope, you'll get about 75% throughput compared to 100Mbps ethernet from the EoP kit, at least on the kit I've used over a short (15m) range, which isn't bad considering it's only 85Mbps. Not sure on latency/ packet drop rate, because the place we were using it didn't care, they just wanted the mobile classroom to have an RJ45 socket for the internet...

I would say that I highly doubt these kits were designed with the low latency requirements of gaming in mind, which is why I recommended wireless N, apart from the price difference. Having said that, is it really likely to be any more laggy than your internet connection.. unless you have a really good connection (like, 50m from the exchange type good), probably not. Acceptable latency really depend on what kind of games you're playing. If it's an RPG, 300ms is probably acceptable, but if it's a FPS, you probably want more like 20-30ms. Pretty sure that's outside what that kit is likely to deliver.

My last comment was in response to your claim a new N router costs the same as the EoP kit. Last time I checked, £45 != £79.99... but whatever.

If you really know what you're doing, depending on the buildings construction, run an rj45 cable behind the false wall, or bury a channel in the wall if it's solid, that's the best option. RJ45 beats every media besides fibre optic hands down in terms of latency. But then, you already knew that.

[Omega]

Lol, not really. I think my parents may have got those exact ones but reports have them as being a bit cheap but I was going to try and borrow them to see how they faired. I may got EOP at some point for our outside office anyway.

oh and if Etz can you link me to a wireles N router and n PCI card for 45 quid then I'll be happy to consider it. Most decent n routers are around the 45 mark on their own add the 20 quid for a proper card (no mickey mouse own brand cards) and you can see why I'm off the opinion that just adding in EOP is of a similar amount of cash and requires less changes!

End of the day for what I want a PCI card is the most cost effective way and the probably overheads and packet loss on G is probably not the end of my world. I just like to explore the options. I've tacked and buried rj45 before and for the distances involved it's more hassle than it's worth.

[etz]

Originally Posted by Omega Lol, not really. I think my parents may have got those exact ones but reports have them as being a bit cheap but I was going to try and borrow them to see how they faired. I may got EOP at some point for our outside office anyway. oh and if Etz can you link me to a wireles N router and n PCI card for 45 quid then I'll be happy to consider it. Most decent n routers are around the 45 mark on their own add the 20 quid for a proper card (no mickey mouse own brand cards) and you can see why I'm off the opinion that just adding in EOP is of a similar amount of cash and requires less changes! End of the day for what I want a PCI card is the most cost effective way and the probably overheads and packet loss on G is probably not the end of my world. I just like to explore the options. I've tacked and buried rj45 before and for the distances involved it's more hassle than it's worth.

Fair enough. Also, you'd have to get the router from a computer fair, not an online store (unless you don't mind *shudder* DLink), but I have seen brand new factory sealed Linksys N routers with USB cards going for about £30 at fairs. I almost bought a load, but I can't turn them around fast enough, end users are not my market, really.

I was just looking over that EoP kit, and it supports IP-TV streaming. That would seem to indicate relatively low latency.

[Omega]

It was suggested to me by someone for that very reason as they use it to stream real time but the cost is prohibitive for me simply because the need probably isn't really justified. I was hoping that someone would say "yes, they are great! much better than wifi" or "don't bother, there isn't much difference" from their own experience.