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General discussion

Xbox live lag time

Nov 9, 2010 1:22AM PST

I have an Xbox slim w/ built in N broadband and my wireless router is an N but the Xbox isnt recognizing it as N just as G. Sorry if my terminology is off. Any suggestions? thanks

Discussion is locked

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Most likely
Nov 9, 2010 10:31AM PST

Most likely you have some draft-N router, which doesn't implement the official 802.11n standard. Some routers can fix this with a simple firmware upgrade, but most are just designed to be shoved out the door, be on the market for 6-12 months, and then EOLd.

So, save yourself some money and just buy a patch cable to connect the Xbox to the router. Wireless is horrible for gaming. Just having a faster connection won't do anything to improve lag times, but a wired connection over wireless might.

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Awesome
Nov 9, 2010 8:34PM PST

Thanks alot. I'll give it a try

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one more question
Nov 9, 2010 8:36PM PST

Does it matter how long a cable is? Meaning if it's a longer cable does it lose any strength?

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For the most part
Nov 9, 2010 8:53PM PST

For the most part no. Technically the answer is yes, the longer the cable the more energy it takes to push the signal along the cable, but for something like online gaming, it's effectively a no difference sort of proposition. And you won't find ethernet cable over a certain length, because that is the maximum length you can have and still be guaranteed a particular theoretical maximum speed. I want to say it's something like 50 meters for Cat5e, but I honestly do not remember. It's quite a bit longer than you're likely going to need.