[MLB-WIRELESS] Fw: setting up wireless for gaming

[Jamie Lovick]

Hi,

On Wed, 5 Feb 2003, Steven Haigh wrote:
>
> Can some people try and point this guy in the right direction?
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Brett white" <bwhite at gbf.com.au>
> To: "Steven Haigh" <netwiz at wireless.org.au>
> Sent: Wednesday, February 05, 2003 1:30 AM
> Subject: setting up wireless for gaming
> 
> 
> > is it possible to cater for about ten people wireless maintaining
> > low ping so as it is unoticeable whilst gaming ?

Compared to the ping times you might expereince over the Internet,
wirless is quite good, generally 10 Miliseconds or less.

> > What sort of $$$$$ oney are we looking at?

This depends on a number of factors.

If you're looking to do it in one location, such as a home or a lan,
it's fairly easy. For indoor use, an 802.11a access point would be a
good choice, but a little more expensive than the 2.4 GHz 802.11b
equipment.

An example of an 802.11a access point would be the D-Link DWL-6000AP:

http://www.ht.com.au/scripts/xworks.exe?PART:G3809

These are $649, and the cards are about $310 for a PCI.

802.11a will do up to 54 Mbit over a short distance, and is only able to
be used indoors due to it's use of the 5.2 GHz band.

For outdoor use, You have a number of options. Using 2.4 GHz equipment.
Using a 2.4 GHz client card or an AP in client mode, you can connect a
reasonable distance providing you have line of sight, typically around 3
to 8 Km's, depending on conditions, equipment, and antenna used.

Typically Lucent or Cisco based AP's perform well over a longer distance
and handle the load quite well. Some other cheaper AP's will work, but
you may find performance issues at longer distances. There is not really
one right answer, you can sometimes have cheaper equipment work quite
well, and sometimes not.

2.4 GHz's AP's range in price from as low as $150, up to $1400 or more
for high end Cisco AP's and more professional AP's.

Client Cards range in price from as low as $50 up to $400 or so.

It's best to get AP's or cards that already have an external antenna
socket, so make adding an antenna easy.

An external antenna can cost anything from around $10 (for a home made
cantenna, good for about 8Km's or so point-to-point), up to over $1000
for high end manafactured antenna.

To hook up an antenna, you will need something called a Pigtail, which
is an adaptor cable between your wireless card or AP and a standard
antenna connector such as an N-type, you may also need a lengh of
Low-Loss cable to go between the tail and the antenna, depending on how
close you can get your AP or client PC to the antenna, and of course a
suitable antenna.

Depending on the distribution of you and your fellow gamers, one of you
may want to act as a centre point with an AP setup, with others
connecting, or you may need to look at having a couple of AP's and a
link inbetween them. AdHoc Networking may be an option if you're all
fairly close, but there may be performance issues.

Other factors that will effect performance are:
- Distance between each location.
- Line of site (you need to be able to see end to end, expecially as the
  distance increases).
- Equipment used.

> > Can you put me onto the right product

It comes down to how much you want to
spend. Lucent/Orinoco/Avaya/Agree/Enterasys/Cabletron cards and AP's all
essentially use the same chipset and all inter-operate quite well
together, but you don't need to stick to the same brand. D-Link also
have a good range, but over a longer distance their AP/Bridge
performance seems to vary. Cisco is pretty well the rolls royce, but you
need a bit of knowledge to set them up.

If you have a good AP, most client cards will perform quite well.

If you can provide more details on your setup, we have a better chance
of giving you the best answer.

Regards

Jamie

--
Jamie Lovick    <->  IT Consultant    <-> +614 1479 1681
Hobby     : Doof.org                   -> jalovick at doof.org
Director  : Drastic Solutions Pty Ltd  -> jalovick at drasticsolutions.com.au
----- Public Relations Officer - the Australian Wireless Association -----


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