Playing an online game connected to a server with 64 players and an avg. ping of 50 I get quite a bit of lag. So while being connected to the server, I ran a "cmd.exe && /c ping 192.168.0.1 -l 65500 -t" for a minute and got a result of 43ms(avg.), 28ms(min), 89(max). Notice that "65500" is the packet size to be sent in bytes which is the maximum the Ping command can send. This behaviour is obviously reasonable, because my router sits on a table through a wall, giving an avg. of -50dB signal while being near to 10-15 other Wi-Fi's and due to that, sometimes I experience big spikes. So, does this mean that my overall avg. latency is about twice as more as my avg. latency with the game server and is completely normal considering all the inconvenience caused by the neighboring Wi-Fi's?
32 Answers
You're not measuring latency. You're measuring the time to send 65,500 bytes twice.
Let's say your wireless connection has a useful transfer rate of 18Mbps. That's a pretty realistic rate.
To send 65,500 bytes twice would require sending 65,500 X 8 X 2 bits, or 1,048,000 bits. At 18Mbps that would take 1,048,000 / 18,000,000 seconds or 58 milliseconds.
That's about the same as the average that you measured. And you noticed that my calculations didn't have anything to do with latency.
WiFi Latency is tough to measure accurately: a lot of variables. A few nasty events are like a neighbor starts streaming a movie and hogs the channel your router is using and forces a channel swap; your DHCP lease can run out requiring the network to drop until a new lease is negotiated; the OS or Chrome or even the game can decide to check for updates while you are at 3% in a boss fight.
I use PING and the default 4 replies tells me enough that the WiFi is working as normal. You can add -n 300 to get five minutes worth.
On my old world router I see an average under 15ms... where a cable yields <1ms.
For grins just checked my notebook, and it confirms 20ms spikes. But it said 2ms min, 19ms max, 4ms average.
