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Wireless tech has improved greatly over the last 20 years. Speed, latency, bandwidth, stability…all generally excellent. 15 years ago I wouldn’t have wanted to use a wireless mouse or LAN connection. Now? NBD. They just work. Still have issues with poor signal in some areas, but mesh range boosters take care of that pretty easily.
Wireless peripheral devices, sure, but if I'm streaming 4K with HD sound then I still want copper.
Even shitty wireless will let you stream 4k. It only takes 50mbps. 802.11g came out in 2003 and can do 54mbps.
50mbps is a fuckterrible bitrate for 4k HDR video content.
You should be playing physical media anyway, though.
Shitty wireless lets you stream shitty 4K. Yay? Copper is still king for anything that's not a goddamn webrip.
Wtf dude, that was the example you provided, and then you mocked it. Make up your mind.
If it was a shitty example, why did you use it?
What would be a good example of things people commonly want and have access to but that wireless cant do?
They're saying 50Mbps 4k is shitty, not that 4k is a bad example. Modern Wi-Fi can definitely handle high-bitrate video 99% of the time, but that 1% where someone turns on a microwave can cause hella buffering. If you have the ability to run ethernet there's no benefit to using Wi-Fi.
Seriously, I was going to add my WiFi6e is theoretically way overkill for my limited usage and that’s supported by speed tests, yet I do notice its limitations while gaming. It’s got the bandwidth, it’s even got the low latency, but it also has the glitches. Until that speed is reliable enough to never impact my games, it’s not worth being my first choice
Even then, wired is better where appropriate because it just works. The more devices I can put on Ethernet, the fewer require the extra setup of wifi, the extra risks to eavesdropping and single points of failure, and yes the fewer where I ever have the frustration of glitches
Nah, wifi is pretty good today. I just dont like the consumer devices like the router shown here. Recently redid my wireless and went with a non wifi router, a poe switch and a few access points, connected through ethernet. I wouldnt dream of going back to the conventional one wifi router. Still use wired for stationary devices I can reach with a cable though.. TV, AV, consoles, PC are all wired.
To be honest, I think a lot of Lemmy users are old and yearn for the older technologies simply because they have been more familiar with them than newer ones. They would have used the first gen of a technology, which may not be efficient, and dismiss it altogether, without realising that subsequent generations of that technology improves over time.
I have had that realisation of cognitive bias when I had Bluetooth headphones back in early 2010s. The wireless connection isn't great and gets cut off every now and then. I dismissed the technology as less efficient than wired earphones. It was over the years with the popularity of airpods that I gave wireless earphones another chance. And honestly, the Bluetooth connectivity vastly improved than I expected and I would not go back to using wired earphones again on regular basis because I don't have to deal with the wires getting tangled or yanked. I only use wired ones as backup if my wireless earphones went missing or broke.
Sorry to say this to OP, but it seems that you're being an old man yelling at the clouds. Look, I'm also old and I admit I have had that moment of yelling at the clouds too. We will have that more moments as we age.
I have a similar setup to @PieMePlenty@lemmy.world in regards to my home network and I wouldn't dream of removing my wifi network. I still consider wired to be superior though it rarely matters at those latencies.
My Windows laptop on wifi:
My Fedora on wired network:
Until the clip breaks off...
You could have 30 clips break and it would still be cheaper.
Wifi 7 is insanely fast to the point where it can easily be just as good as wired ethernet and can even beat a lot of the wired standards except the few latest ones. It's a good choice for devices where running a cable wouldn't be very practical, but you need wired level speed and reliability.
wired level speed and ~~reliability.~~
While WiFi is a lot better nowadays I've never seen it reach the reliability of wired networks.
wired will always be better, faster, more reliable, and cheaper
I remember watching a video from Linus demonstrating a WiFi router. I don't remember if it was WiFi 6 or 7, but any obstacle could cause connection drops.
I don't know if things have improved since then, but I usually bond WiFi and PowerLine for rooms that Ethernet cannot reach.
I set up a mesh router pair a while back - super easy setup, and the speed is good enough to have multiple TVs streaming at once, and without needing to run cables between rooms... Worth it.
The problem with wireless isn't speed anymore, its stability. For a lot of applications that's fine since buffering and whatnot hides any hiccups. but gaming for example is a nightmare on wireless still.
I've been playing FPS exclusively on wireless for almost 15 years (802.11n 5ghz) and stability has been fine unless you set up your access point far away from your gaming PC for some reason.
Back then you had to get a pretty nice wireless router to do it, but it still worked fine.
Now days even relatively cheap routers will let you game just fine unless you set up far away from the AP and you're in a pro tournament.
If you arent sensitive to jitter, packet loss, etc., and the various ways games react to it, then im happy for you.
Personally, i and many others hate it. It only takes 1 rubber band moment in a shooter to ruin a round, it only takes 1 round to lose a match. Even if you aren't playing super sweaty, its not fun. Even my wife who only games casually noticed the difference between wireless vs wired in a few different shooters after i ran a wire to her new desk. And we do have a good setup overall.
Dude, what you're describing is not a "good setup overall".
I know I'm not sweaty, but what you're talking about goes beyond being "sensitive" or not. Wtf is wrong with your wifi that you're getting any packet loss.
I just ran a speed test multiple times from my phone in another room, and got jitter under 20ms, and packet loss between 0% and 0.1%
My gaming PC with external antenna in the same room as my wireless AP is going to get even better results.
edit:
for kicks i tested my wireless gaming PC too:
ping: 2ms
jitter: 0ms
packet loss: 0%
So I'm curious what kind of performance you're expecting to be noticeable to a casual or even sweaty non-pro player.
Testing on my phone with a few different services: 0.0 to 0.2% packet loss. 9 to 12 ms jitter. Ping 5 to 25. (Edit: also this is same room but with 4k tv wireless streaming going on)
I'm not claiming to be a network expert on why wireless is noticably worse in practice, i picked out packet loss, jitter, etc randomly, i assumed that's how it manifests. but i'd suspect these tests aren't indicative of actual game netcode. They are short too. The whole point is the stability. If i play for 15 minutes no issue but suddenly have a single rubberband, thats an issue which may not show up in 100 tests.
On wireless i can feel that pretty much every session. Everything fine for a while, then not for a moment, then fine, etc.
On wired i only have an issue if the server itself or my isp itself is having an issue.
Are you connected over 5ghz or 2.4?
2.4ghz overlaps with other consumer devices that cause interference, like microwaves, drones, and cordless (landline) phones. If one of those devices turns on nearby, it could cause that until your router hops bands.
I haven't had this problem with 5ghz (so for over a decade, on my gaming PC).
Yeah ive had 5ghz for ages as well. Use a channel scan to try and avoid my couple neighbors, Pretty decent hardware (not isp junk). House is small so max distance is only 1 wall and ~15ft.
Honestly id just guess you arent as sensitive to it. Are you the type who doesn't notice other types of screen related feeling stuff too? Like 60fps vs 120+, input lag, or screen tearing, micro stutter, macro blocking, soap opera effect, etc.?
I've known plenty of people who are more or less sensitive to all the various ways things fuck up.
If you are sensitive to the other things, then who the hell knows lol.
I don't imagine I'm especially sensitive to those kinds of things, but I don't expect I'm especially insensitive to them either.
I personally feel like it's hard to get gamers to honestly self report these things, since being able to notice them is caught up on a lot of macho gamer ego bullshit. Whenever I see semi-rigurous tests, it turns out that people over report how sensitive they are.
So do I notice those things? Yeah, I think I do, but I'm not confident in my ability to self report it.
Have I ever experienced things like rubber banding and lag in the last decade? Of course. But rarely can I attribute it to the wireless network rather than server issues, since typically it'll go away when I change servers.
I will say that, personally, I don't find a lot of value in >120fps unless it's important to read a lot of moving text quickly.
That one in the picture is $599 isn't it?
Given the choice, I'd definitely choose a cable for anything I know will require high internet usage. Wireless is just too slow, even on a 5G connection.
I still remember I once broke my Windows installation (young me had tried dual-booting the Windows 10 beta and my Windows 7 installation). I had to get system restored discs from the manufacturer. It wasn't particularly tricky to fix, but it took a long time to download those Windows updates after it finished. I noticed an immediate change once I remembered I had an old 30 ft. ethernet cable lying around and plugged it in. (This was maybe 8-10 years ago.)
if that's the latest one that's a great deal. it's usually $800.