Faster Network

[coxhaus]

So, I am going to build my granddaughter a faster game network without wireless. She has gotten into gaming and I thought I would take wireless out of the picture. Wireless is slow and will slow down a network waiting on responses.
Anybody doing this?

Basically, I am building a network vlan without wireless which will be L3 switched out to the internet.

 

[ddaenen1]

I don't know much about it but my brother is a gamer and he swears to a wired connection with a DMZ on the assigned network port to get the lowest possible ping.

 

[coxhaus]

Yea, wireless is very slow compared to a switch. You want the wireless out of the same L2 segment and in a different broadcast domain.

 

[sfx2000]

I game on wired myself...

 

[coxhaus]

I game on wired myself...

Wired is the way to go. My thinking though if your gaming IPs are in the same network as the wireless then you will run slower.

 

[drinkingbird]

Wired is the way to go. My thinking though if your gaming IPs are in the same network as the wireless then you will run slower.

Wired will have lower latency and jitter than wireless.

Having them in the same subnet or different subnets won't change anything.

 

[Tech9]

Also internal wired network won't improve any of the external factors like latency to the gaming server.

 

[coxhaus]

Wired will have lower latency and jitter than wireless.

Having them in the same subnet or different subnets won't change anything.

Think what you want. When you have higher latency and higher jitter it does have an impact on your network performance. I have seen it in the past.
No wait you can't do it because you don't run L3 switching. If it made no difference then L3 switching would not exist.

 

[drinkingbird]

Think what you want. When you have higher latency and higher jitter it does have an impact on your network performance. I have seen it in the past.
No wait you can't do it because you don't run L3 switching. If it made no difference then L3 switching would not exist.

Of course it will have an impact, wired is always better, there was no disagreement there. However, having wireless on the same subnet will not impact your wired latency and jitter, assuming you aren't using hubs or thousands of devices in the same segment.

Your understanding of L3 switching is off. L3 switching is faster than traditional routing, but slower than L2 switching. It is a tradeoff to allow segmentation of large networks at a somewhat lower latency penalty (and higher throughput) than using traditional "full" L3 routing.

By all means, there is no problem with isolating your wireless devices to a different broadcast domain than your wired ones, but there is also no latency benefit, at least assuming they are all sharing the same egress point.

 

[coxhaus]

You should try L3 switching sometime. L2 has issues with lots of clients. Yes you can get away with in a small wireless router most of the time. But networks are getting much larger at home and small businesses.

Back when I was working only phone companies used a lot of L2 but their use was different than a large PC network.

 

[drinkingbird]

You should try L3 switching sometime. L2 has issues with lots of clients. Yes you can get away with in a small wireless router most of the time. But networks are getting much larger at home and small businesses.

Back when I was working only phone companies used a lot of L2 but their use was different than a large PC network.

I run L3 switching at home and at work every day. We've had this discussion before, I'm well aware of the benefits and disadvantages of both. As I said, L3 switching helps reduce the impact of adding a router when you have a LOT of clients, but there will always be some penalty or limitation vs L2. Does your granddaughter really have 100+ clients?

L3 switching will do nothing to improve latency when you have a few wired and a few wireless clients, and in fact may add some latency (likely negligible though).

 

[coxhaus]

Glad to hear you are running a L3 switch at home. What brand and model? L3 networks work more consistently under load vs like a wireless router. I have over 20 clients now. A lot of them are slow IOT devices my wife buys. They are kind of like using a slow PC vs a new fast PC.

It is a lot easier to setup VOIP on a Cisco small business L3 switch. At least it was when I setup 19 VOIP phones with priority. There is a thread on here about it when I did it.

 

[drinkingbird]

Glad to hear you are running a L3 switch at home. What brand and model? L3 networks work more consistently under load vs like a wireless router. I have over 20 clients now. A lot of them are slow IOT devices my wife buys. They are kind of like using a slow PC vs a new fast PC.

Asus AC1900. Yes, shocker, that's all these home routers are, switches with hardware assisted software routing, aka L3 switches. I could fire up a Cisco 3560G, 3750, or 4900M from my lab, but the power draw and noise for absolutely no benefit would not make sense. Heck if I want to drive to Chicago and pick them up there is a stack of 6509E/SUP720s sitting there for me. Not worth the gas.

L3 networks work the same at idle and under load (until they hit their load limit), just like L2 ones. True the first packet to pass through is a tad slower than the rest (just like any router with a flow cache) but the difference these days is negligible, and that is the same whether they are heavily loaded or not. Unless you're paying tens of thousands for one of the Nexus ultra low latency L3 switches, all L3 switches are store and forward, where many L2 can be run in CTF, even the switches in our cheap asus routers. The Nexus ones are store and forward for the first packet/frame only to build the cache then CTF for all matching packets/frames after that.

Your 20 clients would perform just as well, if not better, on a single L2 segment. Isolating slow wireless IOT devices to a separate AP would do far more to improve performance than separate broadcast domains (which isn't giving any benefit, any network device from the last 20+ years can handle the broadcasts from 20 devices). They are not slowing down your wired devices, and unless you are putting each one on its own AP, they are slowing each other down (and dragging your higher performing devices down with them) whether you have an L2 or L3 switch. That's why it is best to keep your cheaper IOT stuff on 2.4ghz (which is all most of them support anyway) and your higher performing stuff on 5ghz or a separate 2.4 radio.

The only exception I'd grant is some of the IOT devices that use mDNS (and use it poorly) resulting in a ton of broadcasts and a ton of processing load on all the devices in the segment. Separating those can help resolve that problem, but that is more of an OS problem than a network problem (and of course isolating them stops the mDNS from functioning).

Just hardwire her gaming console to the main router and call it a day. Adding more devices in the path will reduce performance, not improve it.

Enough banging my head against the wall for one day.

 

[coxhaus]

I already have a plan using my L3 switch that I stated above. I am not going to change my mind. The nice thing is everybody gets to do their network their way.
And yes, I use mDNS and it is turned on in my L3 switch and 3 wireless APs. It makes Apple devices happy.
Three wireless APs can move more data than a single wireless router.

So, you don't really have a L3 working solution at home. Just a bunch of old Cisco hardware. Fast yes but not a working solution for home.

I am not adding more devices for my granddaughter gaming computer as you have that backwards, maybe you don't understand, but I am reducing the devices in her gaming vlan. You should be able to tell that from my initial network statement at the top.

 

[drinkingbird]

So, you don't really have a L3 working solution at home. Just a bunch of old Cisco hardware. Fast yes but not a working solution for home.

I am not adding more devices for my granddaughter gaming computer as you have that backwards, maybe you don't understand, but I am reducing the devices in her gaming vlan. You should be able to tell that from my initial network statement at the top.

Yes, I do have a working L3 switch solution at home, like I said, Asus AC1900. Also has an AP built into it.

I read your first post, did you? You are adding an L3 switch into the path, according to you.

Enough already, do as you please, just don't spread misinformation in the process about wireless devices slowing down wired and L3 switches being faster or better than L2. You can't just blanket apply a design rule from a multi hundred or thousand client network to a home network. You design appropriately for each situation.

 

[coxhaus]

Yes, I do have a working L3 switch solution at home, like I said, Asus AC1900. Also has an AP built into it.

How are you doing routing from a AC1900 router to an L3 switch and back? Plus your wireless will not work. You don't understand L3 switching.

I read your first post, did you? You are adding an L3 switch into the path, according to you.

"Basically, I am building a network vlan without wireless which will be L3 switched out to the internet."
Again you are not understanding.

 

[drinkingbird]

How are you doing routing from a AC1900 router to an L3 switch and back?

I'm not. Read what I wrote. All these Asus "routers" (and just about all home based "routers") are just an L3 switch (brouter in *nix terms), lightweight linux based firewall, and AP housed in a single chassis. Everyone using Guest Wireless 1 with intranet disabled is running an L3 switch with VLAN segmentation (and I've extended it further via scripting to have wired ports in VLANs, and VLANs extended out to an L2 switch and additional AP too).

Plus your wireless will not work.

Wireless works fine.

You don't understand L3 switching.

Clearly that's the case.

"Basically, I am building a network vlan without wireless which will be L3 switched out to the internet."

Plug a wire into a LAN port on the Asus, same thing, having wireless on the same segment won't impact the wired devices. Since you have to pass through an Asus or other aggregation point to hit the internet (unless you're buying a second dedicated internet for this network too), you're going to hit the segment with wireless on the way anyway.

Again you are not understanding.

I am understanding, you're adding another L3 switch into the path, but then using mDNS helper to allow those broadcasts (well multicasts but in this scenario, same thing) to traverse between segments. mDNS WILL slow down wired devices, at least ones that participate in mDNS, so you're mostly defeating the purpose of the segmentation (which wasn't needed in the first place, extra hops and latency for little to no benefit).

Not sure why I keep letting myself get dragged into this. You're welcome to read what I wrote (doesn't appear you have so far) and maybe gain some knowledge and help you design your network better, or ignore it and do what you want, obviously that is your prerogative. I'm out.

 

[coxhaus]

I'm not. Read what I wrote. All these Asus "routers" (and just about all home based "routers") are just an L3 switch (brouter in *nix terms), lightweight linux based firewall, and AP housed in a single chassis. Everyone using Guest Wireless 1 with intranet disabled is running an L3 switch with VLAN segmentation (and I've extended it further via scripting to have wired ports in VLANs, and VLANs extended out to an L2 switch and additional AP too).



Wireless works fine.



Clearly that's the case.



I am understanding, you're adding another L3 switch into the path, but then using mDNS helper to allow those broadcasts (well multicasts but in this scenario, same thing) to traverse between segments. mDNS WILL slow down wired devices, at least ones that participate in mDNS, so you're mostly defeating the purpose of the segmentation (which wasn't needed in the first place, extra hops and latency for little to no benefit).

Not sure why I keep letting myself get dragged into this. You're welcome to read what I wrote (doesn't appear you have so far) and maybe gain some knowledge and help you design your network better, or ignore it and do what you want, obviously that is your prerogative. I'm out.

You don't understand L3 switch routing.

 

[Tech9]

When using the same shared Internet connection between all devices no matter what switching and segmentation you have there will be no measurable difference in gaming. Your L3 switch is like going with 50-seater bus to Starbucks for a coffee. Gamers do use wired gaming devices for years. They just wire their gaming PC or console to the router they have. Depending on the options available they prioritize the gaming device. This is done to eliminate wireless lag and hoping gaming networks are fast enough for what they need because there is no control over external lag factors. No one is using L3 switch because there is no point of it on a small network. Just one extra device burning electricity and adding complexity. Good luck.

 

[coxhaus]

When using the same shared Internet connection between all devices no matter what switching and segmentation you have there will be no measurable difference in gaming. Your L3 switch is like going with 50-seater bus to Starbucks for a coffee. Gamers do use wired gaming devices for years. They just wire their gaming PC or console to the router they have. Depending on the options available they prioritize the gaming device. This is done to eliminate wireless lag and hoping gaming networks are fast enough for what they need because there is no control over external lag factors. No one is using L3 switch because there is no point of it on a small network. Just one extra device burning electricity and adding complexity. Good luck.

If you want to talk QoS then it is better done on a L3 switch in a higher level Q using a vlan. It is closer to the source than doing it at the router. You will have less overall effect on the network using priority on the L3 switch than at the internet router. The L3 switch priority will handle multiple gaming devices just like setting up VOIP phones and doubt you can do this on a wireless router. It is just most people do not know how to do this.
And I don't need good luck as I already know how to do it.