Windows Vista Wireless Gaming Woes

[Sav]

Hey Guys,

I've been having a pretty decent experience with Vista except for wireless gaming... everytime I try and play an FPS or WoW I'll get a ton of chop lag every minute or so within in the game. I think it's Vista doing something odd with wireless searching. I never had this problem with XP. I've used both a Linksys WUSB54GP and a Hawking HWU54D, both have the same problem. Is there any resolution to this?

Thanks!

 

[Smilin]

The driver and hardware actually do the "searching" then present the results to the OS. See if there is an update available.

 

[tatteredpotato]

Yea, probably bad Vista driver.

 

[Smilin]

just as an FYI though here is a pretty good info site..

www.microsoft.com/wifi (redirects you)

 

[Solema]

I'm just curious as to why you'd want to game with wireless anyway? Is it your only option?

 

[Sav]

Hey guys, thanks for the help, unfortunately Wireless is my only option because my wireless is placed at the center of our house so that it can be reached all over... which also means my computer is pretty far from our router. I've been googling and many people are having this problem and saying it's due to windows WLAN manager doing a search every 60 seconds, I have the latest vista drivers for my wireless adapter so I am not sure what else it could be besides Vista's wireless manager.

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: Sav
Hey guys, thanks for the help, unfortunately Wireless is my only option because my wireless is placed at the center of our house so that it can be reached all over... which also means my computer is pretty far from our router. I've been googling and many people are having this problem and saying it's due to windows WLAN manager doing a search every 60 seconds, I have the latest vista drivers for my wireless adapter so I am not sure what else it could be besides Vista's wireless manager.

I've got "the man" sitting in the next row over from me. He gets back next week. I'll ping him on this. He's one of top guys in the world on wireless. If there is a common issue people would have filtered through him to get it solved so he'll be aware. Sorry it won't be an instant response but I'll do what I can.

 

[Sav]

Originally posted by: Smilin
I've got "the man" sitting in the next row over from me. He gets back next week. I'll ping him on this. He's one of top guys in the world on wireless. If there is a common issue people would have filtered through him to get it solved so he'll be aware. Sorry it won't be an instant response but I'll do what I can.

Wow, thank you very much

 

[Smilin]

Don't thank me yet, I haven't done anything!

I'm hoping it does turn out to be some issue with polling because it could possibly be tweaked or disabled. If it turns out to be the 3rd party driver I won't be able to help

I've subscribed to the thread and flagged a reminder for next Wednesday.

 

[Sav]

I found out on another forum that doing

netsh wlan set autoconfig enabled=no interface="insert interface name here" <--- include ""s there will stop windows wireless from polling

This little command fixed all my problems, so it is a windows wireless polling problem. Anyone know how I can make a .bat file to do that command everytime I boot up?

Thanks guys!

 

[Smilin]

Good deal!

This polling should remain unchanged from XP. I'm having someone check. I don't see any cases on this yet so this may get some attention.

What is the state of your WLAN AutoConfig service? running or stopped? manual or auto?

Thanks,
Josh

 

[Sav]

I have it disabled as of now, and I no longer have lag. When I first boot into windows I re-enable it, it connects to my wireless network, then I disable it. Works like a charm, I would of course just prefer the polling was fixed for me though .

I found it here:
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies-archive.cfm/677463.html

 

[Looney]

Well, i never played WoW on Vista, but EQ2 and Vanguard both run very smoothly for me (ping and PL wise that is).

I would try pinging the WoW servers for an hour or so and see what kind of response you get. If you get a lot of PL or high pings, then try pinging something like google and see whether you get the same thing or not. If you do, then it may be a router issue.

 

[Sav]

My lag is completely gone with Vista wireless polling off though.

 

[Sav]

Hey Smilin, any good news ?

 

[InlineFive]

It might be polling combined with the drivers for whatever card you happen to have. Did you eventually update your driver? That can do a world of good.

 

[Jeff7181]

Might take a look at this and see if the solution there helps you...

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=34&threadid=2032536

 

[InlineFive]

Originally posted by: Jeff7181
Might take a look at this and see if the solution there helps you...

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=34&threadid=2032536

By default the Indexing Service only indexes the Start Menu and User folders so I think it's highly unlikely to fix his problem.

 

[Smilin]

Legacy ( <=XP ) drivers may have such issues. For the OP this is what I found:


No Vista driver for the Linksys..

Product: WUSB54GP
Classification: Driver Release History
Release Date: January 24, 2005
Driver Version : 1.02.00 (Win2000 and WinXP)


For the Hawking adapter:

The original release does not have Vista drivers. The serial on the originals begins with HEMTU54D

Rev Z appears to have a Vista driver. The Serial number on the Rev Zs will begin with HEMTU54DZ

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: InlineFive

Originally posted by: Jeff7181
Might take a look at this and see if the solution there helps you...

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=34&threadid=2032536

By default the Indexing Service only indexes the Start Menu and User folders so I think it's highly unlikely to fix his problem.

The Indexing Service has my entire hard drive indexed and I haven't touched a thing until I forced it not to index the directory containing those huge files.

 

[Sav]

I have the latest wireless drivers (vista) for my HWU54D and I still have wireless lag ONLY when I leave Vista wireless polling running, when I turn off wireless polling the lag stops. So it's not an indexing problem, and I have the latest drivers. I might just go back to XP till this is fixed as gaming is very important to me and wired connections are not an option as my router is on a different floor. Thanks though guys!

 

[Smilin]

did you remove the linksys?

 

[Sav]

yeah their tech support said the XP drivers would work fine in Vista, but I removed it anyway once it started lagging and installed the HWU54D vista version. This also has the same problem unless I turn off polling.

 

[mb]

Originally posted by: Sav
I have the latest wireless drivers (vista) for my HWU54D and I still have wireless lag ONLY when I leave Vista wireless polling running, when I turn off wireless polling the lag stops. So it's not an indexing problem, and I have the latest drivers. I might just go back to XP till this is fixed as gaming is very important to me and wired connections are not an option as my router is on a different floor. Thanks though guys!

How do you disable the wireless polling in Vista?

I'm forced to run wireless right now and I'm getting a lag spike every 60 seconds. I've tried Vista Anti-Lag and WLAN Optimizer, didn't work. I've tried disabling wireless security. I edited the "Scan Interval" key in the registry and even disabled the systems permissions to edit it back. I unchecked "Connect to a more preferred network if available." Nothing has worked.

If I open the command prompt as an admin and enter netsh wlan set autoconfig enabled=no interface="my wireless network" while I'm connected, it tells me "Auto configuration has been disabled on interface "Wireless Network Connection 2". But I still get the 60 second lag spike. If I type enter that in the command prompt while not connected to a network, I am then unable to connect to my network.

I'm using a Hawking HWUG1 with the 64bit Vista drivers from Ralink.

 

[mb]

Here's an interesting development:

I pinged my router for a few minutes on my 32bit Vista laptop with the built in wireless card. There were occasional ping spikes, but never above 18ms and not exactly at every 60 seconds. This was WITH autoconfig enabled.

So I installed the HWUG1 using Hawkings 32bit Vista drivers on my laptop. I got the usual 3000ms ping spike every 60 seconds. Tried all those programs and disabled autoconfig, still got the 3000ms ping spike.

So, I think it so far seems to be a problem with the HWUG1, not Vista & wireless. Of course, I can't game on my laptop, so I guess I'll have to try to find a better wireless adapter for my desktop. Sucks I spent $50 on this damn thing.