wireless encryption and gaming

[T_Janis]

wireless encryption and gaming

I'm just wondering if it makes any difference whether you run no encryption, 64 bit encryption or 128 bit encryption while playing games over a wireless network out to the internet. It seems to me that it should have to work harder to decrypt and encrypt traffic?

The hardware in question is a Linksys BEFW11S4 wireless router and Linksys WUSB11 wireless usb adapter. The game UT2K4!

I'm currently using 128 bit encryption and have MAC filtering on to permit only my wireless usb adapter to connect. So is it necessary to run such high encryption and does it effect pings and gaming?

Thanks!

T.

[Fitzsimmons]

Encryption requires CPU time to both encrypt and decrypt so that would probably give a hit to both your ping and framerate (albeit very minor). If you are very concerned about your Online Gaming Experience (tm), turn encryption off. I have heard from the l33test of wardrivers that WEP encryption is completely useless anyway, but I have no proof to back that up so take it with a grain of salt. It may very well just be people bragging.

The way I see it, encryption isn't worth your time unless you're doing things on the network that you really don't want people to be seeing. Keep in mind however that most of the things that you don't want people seeing (login information, financial information, etc.) are usually already encrypted. I keep encryption off but I keep the MAC filter on to keep away all but the most determined wardrivers. It isn't something I need to worry about, with all of the completely open wireless networks in my area... I mean... uh... what open wireless networks?

[thehailo]

N/A

[T_Janis]

thanks.. I'll take that into consideration!