Wireless connection laggy in Vista

[redsteven]

I did some searches and most of the results about wireless problems had to do with XP, and none of them exactly described my problem, so here goes...

When I run Windows Vista in bootcamp on my first revision intel iMac, the wireless connection is laggy... always.
I can always connect... that's not the problem.
I can browse the web and download files while running windows... that works fine.

But games are where lag spikes become very noticeable.... and it makes internet play impossible on that computer.

I've read plenty of articles about how wireless networks aren't great for playing games, and that wired connections are MUCH better (most of the articles referred to PCs). Well, I've never had that kind of problem.

My wireless netgear router is located downstairs. My room is on the second floor of the house. My old iBook G4 never had a problem connecting to the wireless router 2 floors below it. And I never had lag problems from it.
The Macbook Pro and iMac I have now work fine when running OS X. Once again, no wireless problems.

But I constantly experience lag spikes while using the wireless connection under vista.

I did some testing. I brought the iMac downstairs so it was one room away from the router... same thing... laggy wireless connection.

Well... here's how I've (temporarily) solved the problem.
If I want to play games in Vista, the iMac MUST have a wired connection to the internet. The solution... is to use my macbook Pro as a gigantic Airport Card.
I turn on internet sharing on my macbook pro (connect on airport, share through ethernet), and connect it to the imac via an ethernet cable. So in essence, I'm still using a wireless connection to play games on vista.... but windows is DIRECTLY connected via wire to the macbook pro.

When I do this, I have NO problems whatsoever.
However, it's inconvenient to have to use a macbook pro as a bridge simply to play games in Vista.

One person suggested I use vista antilag (http://www.codecase.de/content/view/14/20/lang,en/). Unfortunately, that hasn't helped at all.

Any suggestions?

 

[redsteven]

no advice? not even a "lol your MBP is being used as a $2000 airport card?"

 

[edonetampa]

Let me start out with this. I have not used Vista with Bootcamp, and probably never will. Well, at least not until they come up with a major revision like they did for 98-B.

There, that's out of my system. The major issues with Vista is that it is inconsistent on the best of days. I do a lot of upgrading to customers computers, i.e. software, hardware, OS, etc. I have had a few clients who have lots of issues with Vista in general. One day everything works fine, they can share files of the network, get online....Then the next day, nothing works. Or, they can travel around their networks, and not get online. Then the next time they restart, everything is working again.

Now the easiest way a lot of people have dealt with this is to turn to Apple

But for those of us who want to use Macs for both OS X and Windows have issues. A lot of people (myself included) have done re-installs of the Vista system and everything works fine. Personally, I don't think Vista was quite ready to be released, and it kinda got rushed, which happens a lot in technology. So maybe Vista is working exactly as it should in the iMac, but not the MBP. The only thing I can suggest is try to re-install Vista and see if that works. Another thing might be the drivers. A lot of devices don't work on Vista because of driver incompatibility, although we only have what is available to us through Apple for the most part. I am running XP Pro and have absolutely no issues with anything.

Last, and sorry for making everyone read this far, Bootcamp is still beta. The final won't be out until the new OS comes out. Even then, there will still be a lot of tweaking from Apple to get everything working correctly.

 

[redsteven]

So maybe Vista is working exactly as it should in the iMac, but not the MBP. The only thing I can suggest is try to re-install Vista and see if that works

I never installed vista on my macbook pro......

I'm saying that i can only play in vista with a WIRED connection. So I use my macbook pro, IN OS X, as a giant bridge with internet sharing enabled.

I mean, I COULD go through the trouble of reinstalling, but I've had this issue since the day I installed it, so it's not like there were many things that happened that could've corrupted the install. I'm thinking it's either poor vista drivers, or poor bootcamp drivers for the airport card.

I'm just surprised that nobody else has ever heard of this

 

[redsteven]

hopefully I can have this issue fixed by the time halo 3 is ported to windows

 

[nylock10]

Sorry for the bump, I was going to post a new thread until I found this.

I'm having problems with games lagging in Vista like you.

I've tried enabling "Default Host" mode on my Airport Extreme, which didn't work (I can't even tell if it opened the ports in Vista).

I've tried disabling/enabling things, WLAN-"optimizters".

It's really making me mad. Vista is perfect besides this problem, maybe games run fast, it looks nice. It's a great companion to Leopard, but the wireless lags so much I cannot enjoy my games.

Anyone have any ideas?

 

[redsteven]

don't apologize for the bump... i've still never actually figured out what the problem is.... i still have to use my macbook pro as a giant airport card if I want to play multiplayer games on my imac in windows.

Also, even though the connection is too laggy to really play games... downloads are still fine. I was able to download the Orange Box over steam at quite a decent speed.

And Nylock, it's nice to know i'm not the only one in the world with this problem lol.

 

[nylock10]

I sent an email to Microsoft and they told me to call some IT place, I might do that this weekend.

Right now I'm looking at my router settings (Airport Extreme Base Station) to see if that would help at all).

 

[medvesajtgaz]

hey all!

i had the same problem with a previous PC setup already.
now on my sexy new imac i have the same irritating thing under vista
its caused by wzc (wireless zero config), vistas network managing soft...
if you just type cmd into run, and ping your router constantly, (ex.: ping 192.168.0.1 -t ) you will notice the spikes
the solution on my pc was downloading the network managing soft of the wireless cards supplier, in my case it was the soft RaLink for my TP-Link pci wireless card, and stopping vistas wzc working...
http://www.ezlan.net/wzc.html
so ovbiously well need someting for apples broadcom n-type wifi chipset...

 

[redsteven]

hey all!

i had the same problem with a previous PC setup already.
now on my sexy new imac i have the same irritating thing under vista
its caused by wzc (wireless zero config), vistas network managing soft...
if you just type cmd into run, and ping your router constantly, (ex.: ping 192.168.0.1 -t ) you will notice the spikes
the solution on my pc was downloading the network managing soft of the wireless cards supplier, in my case it was the soft RaLink for my TP-Link pci wireless card, and stopping vistas wzc working...
http://www.ezlan.net/wzc.html
so ovbiously well need someting for apples broadcom n-type wifi chipset...

Sounds like your talking about the kind of thing vista anti-lag is supposed to fix (maybe....) http://www.codecase.de/index.php/downloads/cat_view/34-vista-anti-lag

VAL didn't work for me though : \


And nylock10, I don't think it has to do with the router settings... it's definitely the software... vista... I'm using the same wireless router right now that I used when I bought my airport extreme card for my old ibook G4 3+ years ago. No lag spikes... wireless gaming was fine.

It's fine for my macbook pro and my imac too... unless i start the imac up in vista.

 

[The Flashing Fi]

Is this an Wireless N router? If so, try running it in b and g.

I had an issue with Leopard with my D-Link N router where it wouldn't connect to the router properly with N enabled, but forcing it in b and g mode fixed it.

I've also never had lagging problems in Vista to my D-Link router (and N worked fine with it), but this is on a Macbook Pro.

 

[redsteven]

Is this an Wireless N router? If so, try running it in b and g.

<...same wireless router right now that I used when I bought my airport extreme card for my old ibook G4 3+ years ago.>
Mine's a G router
Netgear WGR614 v5

note: i'm glad to FINALLY be getting responses on this issue... and this isn't the only board i've posted this problem to.

 

[medvesajtgaz]

mine is a DIR-635 D-Link N type router, but i dont get the spikes under osx, everything works fine there, just under vista

as i said its caused by wzc checking periodically for other wireless networks, even tough youre connected to one
now that causes the spikes

ps: anti-lag didnt work for me neither

 

[redsteven]

mine is a DIR-635 D-Link N type router, but i dont get the spikes under osx, everything works fine there, just under vista

as i said its caused by wzc checking periodically for other wireless networks, even tough youre connected to one
now that causes the spikes

ps: anti-lag didnt work for me neither

how come most people don't have problems with it then? : \

 

[medvesajtgaz]

how come most people don't have problems with it then? : \

liek most people dont use cs:s for killing time

well i almost managed to solve the problem...
there are still spikes, but its only noticeable during pinging my router (for ex. every 2 mins its about 30 ms, before that, there were 1000s and even timed out ones every minute), online games run smooth

for some stupid reason windows update is messing around with the original bootcamp driver of the wireless card
try reinstalling the driver from your osx install disk (its the file broadcominstaller.exe located in the drivers folder)
i hope this works for you also

 

[redsteven]

liek most people dont use cs:s for killing time

well i almost managed to solve the problem...
there are still spikes, but its only noticeable during pinging my router (for ex. every 2 mins its about 30 ms, before that, there were 1000s and even timed out ones every minute), online games run smooth

for some stupid reason windows update is messing around with the original bootcamp driver of the wireless card
try reinstalling the driver from your osx install disk (its the file broadcominstaller.exe located in the drivers folder)
i hope this works for you also

thanks, i'll try that.

just to clarify though, i don't get the lag spikes once a minute... i get them like once every 10-15 seconds : \