I'm getting bad lag...

I got a new Broadband connection the other day, its a 2MB wireless connection. So a little black box sits on my window and it receives a signal from masts around the area. I have full signal and when i run speed tests from here http://www.ookla.com/speedtest/ i'm getting DL speeds of ~1500kbps and upload of ~200kbps.

Now i've played on 2MB landline broadband with the same speeds and i haven't had any lag at all in LFS.

Would the wireless receiver type broadband have connection inconsistancy or something? Is there anything i could do to improve it?

Any help is much appreiciated, thanks

A friend of mine has run his own wireless internet business for several years now, and I know from experience that if it is all properly setup, it can be just the same as a landline. There are people that live way high up in some of the mountains here that can get a signal and the speeds just as fast as yours. If you have the proper hardware (antennas and such) it shouldn't be a problem. You basically just have to have line-of-site. But, if you are using an antenna that picks up signals from all over the place, that might not be as good. Usually they use some kind of directional antennas that point ONLY at one source (or several to 'bounce' the connection and get proper line of site)... and that is the best way to do it. However those antennas are not cheap, but they are worth it as they have superior signal for wireless. His company uses "Trango" antennas: http://www.trangobroadband.com/products/

If your speed tests are consistent, then that is strange you'd have some lag (in LFS?). You should try and do a ping test to a nearby server if you know of any. In the command prompt just type ping google.com -t for example. If you get a consistent ping, that is good, but if you have some timeouts or fluctuations in the ping here and there, the connection may not be very stable (press CTRL C top stop it). That last thing you want to deal with for a wireless connection is some packet loss. Could also try some traceroute tests, to see how many hops you have to a particular server.

I could ask my friend what could be the symptoms of having lag in some games, but I am not sure if it could help, because usually these kinds of problems are dealt with onsite.

There are 2 kinds of speed that we consider important, on the internet. One is the speed of a download (225kb/s) etc, otherwise and more correctly known as bandwidth. The other being "ping" or "latency". This is the time taken to perform a round trip from point to point. Gamers don't depend so much on the bandwidth as they do the latency of their connection. I suspect this is your problem.. a high ping.

Go to Start > Run.. type CMD.

In that box, type PING liveforspeed.net

When I do that, I get an average round-trip of about 22ms. That's pretty good. See what you get when you try. If you're in Italy, you're unlikely to get as good a response as me, but if it's way up in the hundreds, it's likely to be the problem. Not exclusively an LFS problem, but a latency problem in general.

EDIT: Damn I should learn to type faster.. and read a flag. I read yours colour-blindly! Sorry!

Niki's wireless is a lot different than a typical home network kind. Unless of course they gave you some cheapo 2.4 ghz antennas, then that could be a problem. Even 2.4ghz cordless home phones could interfere with that.

these are the results of my ping test, is this classes as consistant?

Looks just fine :up:

dunno if this sheds any light my modem is called Expedience by this company http://www.nextnetwireless.com/products_CPE.asp

How is it plugged in? (Actually how is your network setup) Does the antenna go straight to a modem and then to your PC? Is there any 'network' hardware that you are using that is plugged into your computer via USB or whatnot. Because as you play LFS, usage for the modem (if plugged into your computer) could affect the game, and possibly create some lag. Some antennas are powered completely through USB, and that is not always the best. Convenient, but not the best.

Quote from Tweaker :

How is it plugged in? (Actually how is your network setup) Does the antenna go straight to a modem and then to your PC? Is there any 'network' hardware that you are using that is plugged into your computer via USB or whatnot. Because as you play LFS, usage for the modem (if plugged into your computer) could affect the game, and possibly create some lag. Some antennas are powered completely through USB, and that is not always the best. Convenient, but not the best.

I have an Ethernet cable straight from the modem to the computer.
Its a "non line of sight" modem...

Do a tracert test also... it may be a change in your routing (isp end) causing a problem.

Or pathping - it's a mix of tracert and ping. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pathping)