HELLO & WELCOME

[kylerlittle]

I can't even imagine those longer games when you lose the connection due to a wifi issue, that has to be totally annoying. Either cases, if we can't have cable wireless has to be fine.

Of course, it is fine with me eventhough it kind of lags a lot sometimes.

[John Donovan]

Just about any decent router works for gaming. You just don't need to get cheap when buying it, because that might mean that you will encounter a lot of problems in the future with it. Learn from my mistake: I bought a cheap "Serioux" router, and now I can't port forward at all on it because of the poor and confusing user interface it has.

[kylerlittle]

There are cheap great ones though like TP-Link or D-Link, there are loads that are cheap and provide the fastest speed with good interface.

[sbatz1972]

I think this is a long time to be playing video games. People accuse me of doing nothing but being on my computer all day. I think if I was to purchase a router, especially for no interruptions during gaming, I would purchase a Belkin or Netgear. I think these and Cisco might be the best on the market.

[WelshPaul]

I do a lot of videogaming in my spare time and was wondering for what is the appropriate router for heavy-duty gaming.

I play videogames from 4 to anywhere until 16 hours of the day if given the chance. When buying a router what should I look out for? Also, do all ISP's allow the use of your own router? Or are there providers known to not allow using your own router?

I am another keen PC gamer, have hundreds of games on steam. (addicted to BO2 Zombies) :laugh:

Never ever use Wifi to play games, ever, always connect via Ethernet. Lag, high pings and latency will be a major headache for you and everyone else if you game over Wifi.

I have an ASUS AC68U router, seems to perform well with gaming, VoIP and media streaming.

[Sunflogun]

That just confirms what I thought, gaming demands a lot and a wifi connection simply doesn't provide for it. Like you say, lag can really destroy a game.

[pwarbi]

I've always used a WiFi connection on my consoles and up to now I can't think of anytime when I've had problems due to a loss of connection.

While having it wired is the preferred option, a lot of the time that's not possible due to where the console is, and if your WiFi isn't good enough to handle gaming, I think it's your actual service you need to look at rather than the hardware your using.

[nytegeek]

That just confirms what I thought, gaming demands a lot and a wifi connection simply doesn't provide for it. Like you say, lag can really destroy a game.

WiFi won't cause lag in a game unless there is something wrong with the connection to begin with. If your ping is low you wont have any connection induced lag. If you have a low ping and experience lag it is most likely other hardware in your machine messing things up. Rushing out to get the highest mps WiFi router for gaming is silly and if your WiFi works you wont get any advantage by running Ethernet cable.

[Kessen]

The best thing for gaming is going to be a wired connection. Wireless is slower and more unreliable, the last thing you want is for your router to cycle onto a different wifi channel and have it cause problems mid-game. I have seen routers promoted as being "gaming" routers, but I think the most important thing is just going to be a nice cat5 cable.

[nytegeek]

The best thing for gaming is going to be a wired connection. Wireless is slower and more unreliable, the last thing you want is for your router to cycle onto a different wifi channel and have it cause problems mid-game. I have seen routers promoted as being "gaming" routers, but I think the most important thing is just going to be a nice cat5 cable.

A properly set up wireless connection will not have a distinguishable performance difference in a game from an Ethernet connection. Claiming otherwise just shows a lack of understanding on how to configure a wireless network properly and a lack of understanding of what speeds a game or most computer software can even utilize. As for category 5 cable, if one is paranoid enough to think you must use Ethernet cable to play a game why would you choose it over cat6 or cat7?

[henrykalila]

A very good topic.