Gaming over a laptop and a 4G Wireless card.

I have downtime at work sometimes.

I have a LOT of downtime at work sometimes.

Recently, a company called Clear Wireless is offering 4g wireless aircards (with unlimited data and no throttling) for $45/month.

I can actually see the clear wireless tower from my office. It's less than 1/2 mile to my desk.

Here's the question:

Can I get a decent enough signal from the wireless card to play some games (Starcraft2, WoW, maybe SWTOR when it comes out) over the Clear (or other wireless) card and on my shiny new gaming laptop?

Anybody else playing with this kind of setup?

Just wondering...

I think the main thing that you need to find out is what the latency will be... the speeds won't be a major issue, but if your ping is going to be constantly something that you're not comfortable with then it'll be pointless.

Latency is killer on any sort of cellular gaming.. i.e. it just flat out doesn't work.. unless you like playing with incredible lag and generally unresponsive gameplay.

Clear is wimax and runs Sprint's network. Latency's pretty bad.

Just to hammer this point home.. NO cellular network will be adequate for gaming.. at least not any sort of online gaming that requires a decent ping.. Certain online games you would probably be just fine playing (think Farmville and Poker type games.. and of course "hot seat" turn based games with enough time between turns)

LTE, WiMAX, whatever.. all will suck.. WiFi or even fix point WiMAX (802.16d spec) might do the trick depending on how the network is deployed in your area...

The only experience I have had gaming over a cell network was off of a Sprint 3G modem with a boost antenna out at my inlaws. It worked decent, but I was playing at non peak times, and I was just playing Titan's Quest, so that may have been a factor.

I'm a Clear customer. The downloads speeds are pretty good (I can watch netflix or hulu -- no problem), but everyone else is correct; the latency is horrible. You'll be stuck with turn-based games.

It worked decent, but I was playing at non peak times, and I was just playing Titan's Quest, so that may have been a factor.

Peak or non-peak would only affect bandwidth.. latency would be essentially the same either way.. BUT in some bandwidth starved scenarios you might attribute higher latency to latency when if fact it was completely starved for bandwidth.

I'm surprised that even MP Titan Quest ran well.. I tried some MP Diablo type games over cellular and it was a warp-tastic affair.. basically unplayable.

Sprint 3G modem with a boost antenna out at my inlaws

That might have been a version where they bounce over a regular Internet connection instead of using the cell tower. That is, if the boost antenna plugged into your inlaw's home network, you were really on a wired connection.

Normally, when you're on a cell network, 300ms pings are pretty good. Some games can tolerate that much lag, especially older ones, but many can't. And packet loss is often severe.

TheGameguru wrote:

Just to hammer this point home.. NO cellular network will be adequate for gaming.. at least not any sort of online gaming that requires a decent ping.. Certain online games you would probably be just fine playing (think Farmville and Poker type games.. and of course "hot seat" turn based games with enough time between turns)

LTE, WiMAX, whatever.. all will suck.. WiFi or even fix point WiMAX (802.16d spec) might do the trick depending on how the network is deployed in your area...

Not necessarily true. I've speed tested and gamed on the Verizon 4G LTE here. The pings averaged anywhere from 70ms to 100ms and gaming was fine.

Gumbie wrote:
TheGameguru wrote:

Just to hammer this point home.. NO cellular network will be adequate for gaming.. at least not any sort of online gaming that requires a decent ping.. Certain online games you would probably be just fine playing (think Farmville and Poker type games.. and of course "hot seat" turn based games with enough time between turns)

LTE, WiMAX, whatever.. all will suck.. WiFi or even fix point WiMAX (802.16d spec) might do the trick depending on how the network is deployed in your area...

Not necessarily true. I've speed tested and gamed on the Verizon 4G LTE here. The pings averaged anywhere from 70ms to 100ms and gaming was fine.

That kinda defies physics.. unless you were very very near a tower.. and even then it would have to have direct ethernet backhaul and not microwave.

TheGameguru wrote:
Gumbie wrote:
TheGameguru wrote:

Just to hammer this point home.. NO cellular network will be adequate for gaming.. at least not any sort of online gaming that requires a decent ping.. Certain online games you would probably be just fine playing (think Farmville and Poker type games.. and of course "hot seat" turn based games with enough time between turns)

LTE, WiMAX, whatever.. all will suck.. WiFi or even fix point WiMAX (802.16d spec) might do the trick depending on how the network is deployed in your area...

Not necessarily true. I've speed tested and gamed on the Verizon 4G LTE here. The pings averaged anywhere from 70ms to 100ms and gaming was fine.

That kinda defies physics.. unless you were very very near a tower.. and even then it would have to have direct ethernet backhaul and not microwave.

I can take screenshots of multiple speedtests or ping test if you'd like...

Like I said.. you would have to achieve near perfect conditions to get basically wired ping results.. I'm not doubting you but I don't think that is a typical scenario for cellular data.. Certainly I would never tell someone that on cellular data they will always get wired ping results.. I mean 70ms-100ms is better than some peoples Cable and DSL pings lol.

My speed tests on my Verizon phone are actually very similar to Gumbie's most of the time. During real peak hours it might be up more toward the 130-150 range, but I've run the test several times in different areas and it definitely trends more around 100ms.

TheGameguru wrote:

Like I said.. you would have to achieve near perfect conditions to get basically wired ping results.. I'm not doubting you but I don't think that is a typical scenario for cellular data.. Certainly I would never tell someone that on cellular data they will always get wired ping results.. I mean 70ms-100ms is better than some peoples Cable and DSL pings lol.

IMAGE(http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t22/Gumbie84/photo.jpg)

I guess I've gotten spoiled on the 4G in this area. I just assumed all the markets were this good. Also that test was on 3 out of 5 bars.

I have the exact same Verizon LTE.. Havent dont any gaming tests on it in a while.. I will have to try BF3 on it and see my pings.. maybe things have gotten dramatically better..

Just ran Speedtest on my iPad with Verizon 3G and the ping is only 82ms. I used to play WoW using my old 3G samsung blade as a modem with about a 200-300ms ping and it worked decently. So maybe not for online shooters but any mmo or strategy game should work fine.

Also my pings at home using cox cable these days are usually sub 30ms.

Huh, that's actually getting decent. Good to know. Historically, ping times on cell networks have been horrrrrrible, but I guess they're finally fixing it, at least to some degree.

This is going to require more research....

Was kind of interested in this myself so did a bit of googling and found this...

http://www.carrypad.com/2011/04/22/v...

I was thinking of just getting one and replacing my home internet but the data caps are too stingy at $50/5GB and $80/10GB.

Any updates on this?

I don't have 4G where I live yet, but will gladly switch to it over the mediocre DSL I have now. Cable is a not an option; a local company has a monopoly and they suck for internet.

I have Century Link DSL and don't understand why they won't let me pay them for a better package unless I'm a business. I live two blocks from one of their substations so distance isn't an issue.

I'm currently connected to my sister's Verizon LTE via her laptop:

IMAGE(http://www.speedtest.net/result/1611834160.png)
IMAGE(http://www.pingtest.net/result/51231064.png)

If it wasn't for the horrid data caps, that might actually be a workable solution.

TheGameguru wrote:

Like I said.. you would have to achieve near perfect conditions to get basically wired ping results.. I'm not doubting you but I don't think that is a typical scenario for cellular data.. Certainly I would never tell someone that on cellular data they will always get wired ping results.. I mean 70ms-100ms is better than some peoples Cable and DSL pings lol.

I'm getting around 60ms here in Cheyenne Wyoming with lte 4g. It blows my main internet out of the water. Been gaming all night. Mechwarrior. Online for pc and Forza4 for 360. Noticed some minor hickups while playing Forza but was pretty good. Skype was flawless

Total Bandwidth usage was under 100 megs for the night.

I also did several ping tests. No packet loss. Jitter is around 10ms and latency is about 60. All and all very glad I tried because my internet is crappy.