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Minimizing Your Lag When Playing Brawl Online (Updated 01.21.08 Wii VGA Cable Info)

Chi's Finest

Smash Lord
Joined
Dec 18, 2005
Messages
1,988
Location
Chicago
According to Guitar Hero three, I have a lag of about 20ms. I doubt anthing about my connection would change just for a video game, but it's decent right now, so meh.

That is, once my Wii starts working online again... :(
 

pirkid

Smash Lord
Joined
Jul 26, 2006
Messages
1,254
Location
¿¡ Canada ¿¡
This must get sticked soon, it's coming out in 36 days.

This is in-depth, detailed, and amazingly organized. Great job!
I'd do the stuff in it now, but I'm too lazy right now. :D
 

ShortFuse

Smash Lord
Joined
May 23, 2007
Messages
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NJ/NYC
According to Guitar Hero three, I have a lag of about 20ms. I doubt anthing about my connection would change just for a video game, but it's decent right now, so meh.
Controller to TV to Video/Audio output is not the same as Internet/Network Lag. That has nothing to do with it. And 20ms is kinda a lot. If you have an HDTV and are not using 480p, enable that.
 

Sai Winner of Games

Smash Cadet
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Aug 25, 2007
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somewhere between the 10th and 11th dimensions
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SpiralDragon
3DS FC
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Ok its updated. Main things:
  • Added signal velocities for copper and fiber
  • Changed the way internet latency was calculated
  • Added how to find specific pings
  • Suggested a possible latency checking tool for smashboards, so people don't have to ping
  • Added HDTVs and converters to video hardware
  • yay, colorz
 

ShortFuse

Smash Lord
Joined
May 23, 2007
Messages
1,523
Location
NJ/NYC
For the sake of this thread. Look at this image to know what your IP is:
if your background is black, just click the picture
 

ShortFuse

Smash Lord
Joined
May 23, 2007
Messages
1,523
Location
NJ/NYC
White background.

What does it mean, sensai?
What does what mean? Your IP? Your IP is your number on the internet. Sure it's a little more complicated than that but just think of it as your phone number. no two location can have the same phone number. as for a router, a router just routes your IP to work on more than one computer. it's the same way you would have multiple phones in your house.

if you want to know what i meant by black background, smashboard defaults to a black background and you can't see the numbers in the picture.
 

NoNessNoProblem

Smash Ace
Joined
Jan 3, 2008
Messages
511
Location
Da Bay
I have Comcast and when i played madden online i didnt lag at all hopefully Brawl is the same way..PS3 and Wii in the same room using the internet modem that is upstairs
 

_Phloat_

Smash Champion
Joined
Dec 1, 2006
Messages
2,953
Location
Tennessee V_V
Thinking ahead, thats a good person right there =P...

Thanks for the info, although the distance thing might get hard to control if you really want to play a certain person, everything else is really manageable and fairly easy to do.
 

skraaah

Smash Cadet
Joined
Jul 1, 2007
Messages
26
Location
Winnipeg
With regards to connecting the LAN adapter directly to a modem instead of using a router...
A buddy of mine bought the LAN adapter and we were trying to set it up directly to his modem, but it seems that the LAN adapter doesn't really work that way. The instruction manuals of the LAN adapter and the Wii itself indicate that the LAN adapter doesn't support PPPoE, and is designed to work only when connected to an existing network. I don't really know a lot about this stuff, so if I'm being a complete noob and there is a way to do it, would someone please enlighten me?
 

DanteFox

Smash Champion
Joined
Apr 4, 2006
Messages
2,628
Location
Santa Barbara, California
I have a bit of a dilemma, I can choose to hook my wii up directly to my router to reduce lag, but then I have to use my HDTV in that room, or I can go wireless with a normal sdtv which is better ( which will lag less)?
 

Sai Winner of Games

Smash Cadet
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somewhere between the 10th and 11th dimensions
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SpiralDragon
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I have a bit of a dilemma, I can choose to hook my wii up directly to my router to reduce lag, but then I have to use my HDTV in that room, or I can go wireless with a normal sdtv which is better ( which will lag less)?
I would suggest geting a super long ethernet cord and run it to the sdtv. You could test to see how much more lag the wireless connection causes than the wired connection with a ping to see if it really makes a difference if you want to make sure.

How much ping would you say that would cause brawl to become super laggy "Unplayable"
It is probably too soon to say now, since we don't know how much precision the techniques need to have to execute well. I would guess for competitive battles, people would want within 20 ms maybe up to 40 so they don't get adjusted to laggy battles so they can go to tournaments or play with other competitive friends.

I bet most people will be running around spamming B moves and chasing after items until a smash ball pops up, so they probably would not notice much lag unless there are huge spikes.
 

Turtlefox

Smash Cadet
Joined
Aug 31, 2007
Messages
53
Location
Mississauga, Ontario
How significant would the reduction of latency be when switching from wireless to wired?

I was just wondering because I already have an ethernet cable set up beside my Wii (For my PS2) but for the sake of my DS I picked up a Wifi USB Connector instead of the LAN USB Adapter.

I just want to make sure spending an extra $30 for this game would be significantly more beneficial in terms of online play. I have to wait another year till I can start workin' in my uncle's restaurant =/
 

NintendoWarrior

Smash Lord
Joined
Jun 12, 2006
Messages
1,088
Location
Oregon
Have you guys tried changing your router channel to 1? Once I did that I have no lag whatsoever and the Wii Shop Channel boots up really quick.
 

Dragonboy2k4

Smash Ace
Joined
Jun 3, 2006
Messages
723
Location
Location: 1vs1 no items online at this very moment
With regards to connecting the LAN adapter directly to a modem instead of using a router...
A buddy of mine bought the LAN adapter and we were trying to set it up directly to his modem, but it seems that the LAN adapter doesn't really work that way. The instruction manuals of the LAN adapter and the Wii itself indicate that the LAN adapter doesn't support PPPoE, and is designed to work only when connected to an existing network. I don't really know a lot about this stuff, so if I'm being a complete noob and there is a way to do it, would someone please enlighten me?
And you were getting the 50 thousand number error each attempt right? :laugh: Iam having the same bs happening to me.

Good question btw because Iam for one is super clueless on that.Maybe there isnt a whole lot of LAN users in here but I just got mine off of Ebay recently and was sent a Japanese packaged Wii LAN adaptor.The seller on their told me that there were basically no virtual difference with the US/PAL/Japan versions besides packaging.But since your having the same drama as me with a US one,the seller is indeed right.And even the instructional packaging on the japanese version shows a diagram with 3 examples all hooking up to a router.So I guess we need one reguardless? If someone knows out there,fill us in please?

Anyhow,I ordered a wireless router(with ports) to test it out and I should get it later this week.Ill pm you if I do and see whats up.Peace.. :cool:
 

cwal37

Smash Rookie
Joined
Dec 15, 2007
Messages
23
Well thank god most of the year for the next few I'll be on University Internet with my Wii hooked up through Ethernet. It's incredibly phenomenally fast (I've hit several hundred Mbps before[supposed max is 1k Mbps], I think we're in the top few in the nation for internet speed, I even spent some time on Internet2, which just set a new record for itself with like a 10GBs connection I think) for all my other games and everything else, I don't see why it would be different for Brawl.

Sucks to come home to crappy DSl and wireless though, I'll have to rewire some walls in order to move the router/modem to a room with a TV for this summer if it's bad.
 

skraaah

Smash Cadet
Joined
Jul 1, 2007
Messages
26
Location
Winnipeg
Ya, I bought the LAN adapter from my buddy since hooking it up directly to his modem doesn't seem to work, and I too am back at school now, and plugging it into the school's network seems to work great. We're not lucky enough to have a particularly fast connection here, but I'm glad I'll atleast be cutting out lag that would occur with a wireless connection. But I'll reiterate that I'm not extremely knowledgable on these subjects, and if someone DOES know somethign that I don't about hooking it up directly to a modem, I'd be interested in hearing it.
 

MookieRah

Kinda Sorta OK at Smash
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Messages
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Umeå, Sweden
@Sai
Not sure if this has been said in the thread, but it would do us a lot of good if this were explained. You refer to latency by milliseconds, is that the same as ping? I would assume it isn't the same measurement, and if that is the case what kind of ping should we be shooting for?

Right now I can get sub 100 ping in Atlanta, although I've gotten much better at my house in Tupelo (at my college apartment right now). I'm also on cable internet.
 

ShortFuse

Smash Lord
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Messages
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NJ/NYC
@Sai
Not sure if this has been said in the thread, but it would do us a lot of good if this were explained. You refer to latency by milliseconds, is that the same as ping? I would assume it isn't the same measurement, and if that is the case what kind of ping should we be shooting for?

Right now I can get sub 100 ping in Atlanta, although I've gotten much better at my house in Tupelo (at my college apartment right now). I'm also on cable internet.
"PING" is an action, a verb. You PING a remote computer. Pinging is two actions. Computer A sends a PING (small data asking for a response) to computer B. Computer B sends a PONG (small data response).

The TIME it takes from sending the PING to receiving the PONG is what's measured. Usually measured in milliseconds. the 50ms you are saying is, it takes 50ms from your to say "Hi" to Computer B until your hear Computer B saying "Hi" back
 

MookieRah

Kinda Sorta OK at Smash
Joined
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Messages
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Umeå, Sweden
So basically my latency in milliseconds is roughly half my ping, since pinging is actually the length of time it takes to give out information and receive it from another computer? Also, since I'm sure I'm not the only one that was confused on this, Sai should put this on the front page, as well as perhaps a site that rates your actual latency and not just ping.
 

cormano

Smash Rookie
Joined
Jun 9, 2006
Messages
14
i don't know about you guys, but if i'm gonna play online, i'm shutting off the option to allow "spectators."

there's 4 people connected battling each other, the last thing i want is more people watching, slowing down our connections even more.
 

Dragonboy2k4

Smash Ace
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Location: 1vs1 no items online at this very moment
Ya, I bought the LAN adapter from my buddy since hooking it up directly to his modem doesn't seem to work, and I too am back at school now, and plugging it into the school's network seems to work great. We're not lucky enough to have a particularly fast connection here, but I'm glad I'll atleast be cutting out lag that would occur with a wireless connection. But I'll reiterate that I'm not extremely knowledgable on these subjects, and if someone DOES know somethign that I don't about hooking it up directly to a modem, I'd be interested in hearing it.


Yeah..The modem you tried at your friends place is DSL right? Cuz I have DSL too.But a friend of mine just told me that he read somewhere that most DSL connections cannot connect directly to the LAN due to the PPPoE business,Nintendo doesnt support it because they arent getting paid from the internet provider I guess.Iam guessing it HAS to have a network(Hub/Router) which is shared,probably explaining why its working at your dorm(T1+shared with thousands of peoples) and not at your pals crib.We might of just figured it out on our own bro. :laugh:
 

ShortFuse

Smash Lord
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Messages
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NJ/NYC
So basically my latency in milliseconds is roughly half my ping, since pinging is actually the length of time it takes to give out information and receive it from another computer? Also, since I'm sure I'm not the only one that was confused on this, Sai should put this on the front page, as well as perhaps a site that rates your actual latency and not just ping.
I guess you can say that it's half, but it's not really measured like that and when you say latency, you say the latancy (lag) between two points. If you want to know how much of it "is your fault" then you ping your gateway IP. Getting your gateway IP can be more difficult. Usually, but not always, your Gateway IP is the your External IP address with the last number changed to .1
For example, if your IP is 123.123.123.123, then your internet Gateway normally is 123.123.123.1 though it's not always the case. Pinging that will give you the latency between your computer and your connection to your ISP. After that, it's really out of your hands.

If you're behind a router, you could ping your router. A router is always a Gateway and if your router gives you 192.168.0.100 then usually your Gateway IP is 192.168.0.1, but please note this is your Internal IP, not the IP on the internet. Your router has it's own IP other than 192.168.0.1

I know, I know. It's confusing. I'll think of a way to clarify this but I hope you can gain SOME understanding.
 

mista_mista

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Dec 17, 2006
Messages
239
Location
Upper Michigan
about how many ms would you improve by if you switched to a lan adapter? i can't decide if its worth it or if i should stick with wifi
 

Sai Winner of Games

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72
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somewhere between the 10th and 11th dimensions
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SpiralDragon
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When I get my LAN adapter I will test it.

The main post is updated.
  • Clarified bandwidth vs. latency
  • Clarified ping locations
  • Changed the way some of the latencies are calculated, so it should be simpler
  • Added how to interpret the latency section

@MookieRah
I defined the concept of Smash Latency more clearly so it can be directly compared to the time interval available to do certain actions. This made it simpler doing the math, and interpreting it. Let me know if its still doesn't make sense.
 

Dragonboy2k4

Smash Ace
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Messages
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Location: 1vs1 no items online at this very moment
When I get my LAN adapter I will test it.

The main post is updated.
  • Clarified bandwidth vs. latency
  • Clarified ping locations
  • Changed the way some of the latencies are calculated, so it should be simpler
  • Added how to interpret the latency section
Major coolness bro. :) If you get it before I get my router,you should post up a tutorial on how to connect the Wii LAN adaptor,cuz me and skraah founded out that it cannot directly hook it up to a Cabel/DSL modem.Well most of them cant at least,but the instructions claim you have to have a router/some kind of networking in order to get online.At the mean time,Ill await them crooks at RadioShack to send my router.. :mad:
 
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