I'm trying to find a way to reduce my net lag. I've got a cable connection that I connect to via a dlink router and wireless adapter.

Ideally I'd like to get rid of the wireless for gaming but my PC is in a different part of the house to the router so I cant plug in directly.

Which got me wondering about connecting via the mains circuit. I've seen the adapters you can get for this but would it be an improvement over wireless? Anyone use these?

I've heard of them but never used it myself. It probably introduces less latency, and higher reliability than wireless, but it's still going to be slower than Cat5 because you're converting ethernet to something else and then back again, inevitably that process will introduce more latency than ethernet end to end.

I have a 30 metre Cat5 cable running from my router downstairs into my loft! It's ugly but makes sure my latency is at it's minimum.

One of these days I really should wire the house properly!

It greatly depends on your setup. If you're got both homeplugs plugged into surge-protected powerstrips, with high noise devices also plugged in, you're going to unstable pings from an average of 15ms, and can peak quite high. On the other hand, if you've got them both plugged straight into sockets on the same ring, with good quality wiring, latency can be down to a nice constant 3-4ms.


Nonsense my good sir HPAV 2.0 devices (I swear by the ZyXEL PLA line) support 200mbit speeds, whereas Cat5 cable is rated for 100mbit.
Cat5e or Cat6 are the ideal solution, supporting gigabit transfers with <1ms latency, but when you're not in a position to be drilling holes through walls homeplugs are a nice little (if a bit pricey) solution ^_^

lol sounds just like my house

been there that long, i no longer notice it

hey if you're too fussed about drilling holes in the walls but not neccesarily the ugliness of the wires either drag it around the walls or go through a window and over the roof. Although wireless is constantly improving if your area is busy with other people using wireless theres quite a bit of noise to bring down your strength and connection. Try switching wireless channels.

In answer to your question the homeplugs would improve your latency but have never tried it myself. I've been gaming wirelessly for over 5 years now don't really get many problems even though the routers down 2 floors and on the otherside of the house. I would suggest checking out different wireless channels firstly especially channel 13 (simple reason being most online guides and hardware settings default at US standards of 1-12 channel, whereas we in the eu have an extra channel to play with) Worth checking out before going down the wired route.

If you will be using wireless get good antennas or build yourself a cantenna.(Google on cantenna)
There is a nice software called network stumbler that can check for what channels are used by your beighbours if you want to change channel.

For ethernet:
If you have a telephone/TV connected to your room you can usually put a network cable through the same pipe as the Tele/TV is connected to. Just unplug the connector and look behind, easy if you make your own cable and use shielded one.

Sorry to be the pedantic bugger, I have to explain my reasoning now 'cos it aint nonsense, and with my job being a network engineer (and proud owner of a CCNP qualification), I can't let it lie (sorry)

You're quoting bandwidth, but I'm referring to latency. Inevitably, because you are doing a conversion from one media type to another, and then the reverse at the other end, you will introduce added latency with HPAV devices. This latency may only be of the order of 3-4ms as you say, but it varies from household to household, and from manufacturer to manufacturer, and as you pointed out, if incorrectly installed can introduce significant levels of latency.

The bandwidth issue is also a bit of a red herring, because the HPAV device connects to Ethernet (i.e. Cat 5) The reason 200Mbps is quoted is because it operates in Full Duplex, i.e. 100Mbps up and down at the same time. This is also true of Cat5. Theoritically, even if HPAV were capable of 200Mbps in each direction, it offers no benefit because it's still connected to Ethernet at the other side.

I'd suggest to anyone considering it, not to bother with Cat6 at home, you'll get absolutely no benefit because it's designed for Gigabit speeds, meaning the cost of the router will be very expensive, as will the gigabit ethernet card for your PC, and when you've only got 8Mbps of ADSL into your house it's pointless.

From a pure networking perspective, Cat 5 is better because you can predict what your latency is going to be from the PC to the router. That said, it's still only milliseconds of introduced and as such it's probably going to be ok. I'd also recommend Zyxel for home networks, they are really good products.

also the 2 network things have to be plugged into the same ring main / circuit (i think i read that somewhere)