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WiFi Speeds Experiment


Guest Monolithix

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Guest Monolithix [MVP]

One of the sore points in this forum is the fact that the various incarnations of the Wizard do and don't support 802.11g wifi speeds. Personally i've never noticed much of a difference on my 11g router, but i thought i'd run a few quick n dirty tests to see what difference g has over b.

I installed apache webserver on one of my machines at home, and then forced the routers wifi config into b or g mode only. The times are that for downloading a 10MB .bmp file from the webserver over the wireless LAN. All PPC devices were set to best performance in the wifi settings and had at least 9/10ths of the signal quality bar. I downloaded the file 10 times on each device and averaged the results.

The results below are quite interesting (lower bars are better!)

post-993-1143920556_thumb.jpg

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Guest Webreaper

I came across a reg hack on XDA Developers the other day which reckoned to force the wifi into g mode on my Wizard (XDA Mini S). Tried it, but haven't noticed the slightest difference since.

I don't think the Wizard really 'does' g properly...

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Guest Samsonite
One of the sore points in this forum is the fact that the various incarnations of the Wizard do and don't support 802.11g wifi speeds. 

...

I downloaded the file 10 times on each device and averaged the results.

The results below are quite interesting (lower bars are better!)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

did you have any encryption running?

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Guest shadamehr
I came across a reg hack on XDA Developers the other day which reckoned to force the wifi into g mode on my Wizard (XDA Mini S). Tried it, but haven't noticed the slightest difference since.

I don't think the Wizard really 'does' g properly...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It is a widely known given that the g mode on a Wizard is MODE only - compatibility etc, NOT speed.

In other words, enabling g on the wizard will allow connections to g only routers and networks, but it will NOT run any faster than standard 11Mbps.

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Guest Webreaper

Fair enough. Not that widely known, as none of the 20 or so topics I've read on the subject have mentioned it and most have referred directly to speed increases.....

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Guest Monolithix [MVP]

Indeed, this is why i was always confused by the number of threads concerning it. Unless you have a particular need in your own home to access at G speeds, B is sufficient in 99% of all other cases (hotspots etc).

Samsonite - i used standard WEP encryption

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Guest Webreaper
Unless you have a particular need in your own home to access at G speeds, B is sufficient in 99% of all other cases (hotspots etc).

True... but I'd like G to work so I can watch video streamed over the wlan direct to my Wizard without choppy playback... ;)

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Guest Monolithix [MVP]

I dont think that G would help, why on Earth would you encode a video file at 11Mbps+? ;)

The video files i have on my PC are encoded at 128Kbps audio and 138Kbps video (for eg), nowhere near 11Mbits!

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Guest shadamehr
True... but I'd like G to work so I can watch video streamed over the wlan direct to my Wizard without choppy playback... ;)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

And, given my last post, how would changing the Vario to 802.11g help you achieve this, if the g mode on the vario, as I stated, is MODAL only, not speed based.

So if the transfer SPEED on a vario for 802.11g is the same as 802.11b, how would changing to 802.11g help improve this for you?

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Guest Samsonite

I thought that the difference between G and B was the modulation type.

G gets more information in a given period of time sent over the air. This is why you have a higher datarate without a change in transimssion frequency...

so my question is regarding the G mode on the wizard - which i dont have so its academic really - if it can see/interpret a G signal, why doesnt it get the higher datarate?

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Guest Webreaper

What I meant by my comment was that I wished g support on the wizard wasn't just modal, but was actually faster. I was just dreaming of what could have been....

Oh, and as for video encoding rates, you're probably right - perhaps it's the wizard's cpu/ability to decode that's the problem. I don't have a miniSD card yet so haven't been able to try watching video stored on the device itself...

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Guest shadamehr
I thought that the difference between G and B was the modulation type.

G gets more information in a given period of time sent over the air.  This is why you have a higher datarate without a change in transimssion frequency...

so my question is regarding the G mode on the wizard - which i dont have so its academic really - if it can see/interpret a G signal, why doesnt it get the higher datarate?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Because, as I understand it, once again, for the third time, g mode on the Wizard is for COMPATIBILITY only - i.e. it will allow connection to a g only router, if this is your scenario.

The speed, data transfer, and data rate, are all fixed at 11Mbps, as per b speeds.

That is my understanding of it, for which I could be wrong. But if not, I hope this once and for all settles any debate about it.

The Wizard will run at 11Mbps theoretic maximum, no matter WHAT flavour of 802.11 you have it running at.

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Guest Samsonite
Because, as I understand it, once again, for the third time, g mode on the Wizard is for COMPATIBILITY only - i.e. it will allow connection to a g only router, if this is your scenario.

The speed, data transfer, and data rate, are all fixed at 11Mbps, as per b speeds.

That is my understanding of it, for which I could be wrong.  But if not, I hope this once and for all settles any debate about it.

The Wizard will run at 11Mbps theoretic maximum, no matter WHAT flavour of 802.11 you have it running at.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

oh, ok...

i read up on 802.11 at Wiki and understand more now... it would appear that even 11Mbps is not usually attained either...

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Guest Monolithix [MVP]

Yes, it is of course 11Mb in "ideal" conditions ;)

Either way, hopefully this will settle any arguements the next time a Wizard ROM update is released minus G compatability ;)

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Guest daftveggie

As far as my playing with streaming films over the wifi go I've deceide that it is definatly the CPU that can't handle prper files sizes

Dropping the file onto an sd card doesn't even make a great deal of difference, the machine just can't handle it.

I use pocket DivX to drop the screen res / file size so the wizard can handle it!

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Guest Jorsher

for the guy talking about video...what media player are you using? If it's media player I recommend you get tcpmp...I encoded a file and it was horribly choppy on media player...but on tcpmp was smooth as silk.

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Guest Webreaper
for the guy talking about video...what media player are you using?

I'm using TCPMP - I can't get WMP to play video direct from a network share at all (it doesn't seem to understand \\server\folder\file style paths at all).

I think it's definitely a network issue - I re-encoded a 600Mb divx file down to a 149Mb 320x240 divX file using pocketdivxEncoder, but when I play it across the network it's still not smooth.

The problem I have is that the files play fine for 20-30s, but then they pause - I get the 'spinning rainbow thingy' - then the video continues to play. Whilst it's playing, everything is smooth as silk (even on the full-sized 650Mb divx file); it's the pauses while the player catches up that's the problem.

I'm absolutely convinced it's a network speed problem, particularly as it's much worse if I have the wifi setting on 'best battery'. I tried running OmapClock to overclock to 240Mhz, and there was no improvement (other than my hands weren't as cold ;) ).

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Guest Jorsher
I'm using TCPMP - I can't get WMP to play video direct from a network share at all (it doesn't seem to understand \\server\folder\file style paths at all).

I think it's definitely a network issue - I re-encoded a 600Mb divx file down to a 149Mb 320x240 divX file using pocketdivxEncoder, but when I play it across the network it's still not smooth.

The problem I have is that the files play fine for 20-30s, but then they pause - I get the 'spinning rainbow thingy' - then the video continues to play. Whilst it's playing, everything is smooth as silk (even on the full-sized 650Mb divx file); it's the pauses while the player catches up that's the problem.

I'm absolutely convinced it's a network speed problem, particularly as it's much worse if I have the wifi setting on 'best battery'. I tried running OmapClock to overclock to 240Mhz, and there was no improvement (other than my hands weren't as cold ;) ).

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

lol sorry I forgot you were streaming over the network... Not sure what to tell ya on that if you have a good signal. I would just recommend a sd card...I got a 1gb for 55...and you can find them cheaper. Are there any buffering settings you can play with in tcpmp?

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Guest Jorsher
Remember, you can access shared data when you are connected via USB...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

yes but i think he's trying to be free from wires...can't think of why he'd want to plug his phone up to his computer when he could just watch it on the computer...

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