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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Wii U has no ethernet port

Cobretti2 on 08 November 2012
burninmylight said:
oniyide said:
its not about wifi being fine, which it is, its about options and wired connections do help with latency, thats pretty much a given. BUT it is a none issue as most of us (me included) who wanted better connections(im assuming anyone here who is interested in Wii U had a Wii) bought the USB port. I still have mine somewhere


+1

 

If you own a Wii and want to see the difference between a wired and wireless connection, play Tatsunoko vs. Capcom online. You will almost instantly know what kind of connection your opponent is using. You can even see the difference in Monster Hunter Tri. When I played wirelessly, monsters would occassionally teleport across the map and other players would seem to be swinging at air on my screen when they were in fact doing something else. These things especially happened right after changing zones.

That said, wireless is still fine for most games, and it's a $8-15 fix if you want a more reliable connection.


I never found wirelssto be too bad in the games you mentioned. Although my internet to the real world is only crappy adsl2+ that sync half the speed.

I am also use to playing UT ondilaup with 400ms-500ms ping lol. The good old day where you had to predict the path of your enemy rather than shoot where they were lol.

 

ALSO FYI to everyone: Te WiiU also output audio via the HDMI port only. no optical audio out port beofre anew thread starts a few months from now.



 

 

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Player2 on 08 November 2012
runqvist said:
 


What kind of performance does that 15$ dongle offer? USB adds some latency and I really doubt that it can handle a decent internet connection.

Well here's the info for USB:

"The theoretical maximum data rate in USB 2.0 is 480 Mbit/s (60 MB/s) per controller and is shared amongst all attached devices."

"For USB1 low-speed (1.5 Mbit/s) and full-speed (12 Mbit/s) devices the shortest time for a transaction in one direction is 1 ms. USB2 high-speed (480 Mbit/s) uses transactions within each micro frame (125 µs) where using 1-byte interrupt packet results in a minimal response time of 940 ns. 4-byte interrupt packet results in 984ns."

So it is below 1ms. Since games run at 60 fps (1 frame each ~16ms) anything below 1ms is unnoticeable. There are 100MB dongles so the maximum transaction data will be the 60MB/s of the USB.


I'm sure nobody cared so much about latency when MS and Sony decided to use wireless controllers instead of wired ones, or the lag generated by the TV postprocessing if you used the default SCART cable the PS3 and the X360 come with. And this lag affects all your gaming, not only the online.



sethnintendo on 08 November 2012
Galaki said:
Faxanadu said:
No ISDN port either? OMG, Nintendo so bad!

What's ISDN? Is that some kind of a serial number for a book?


ISDN was bad ass back in the day.  I remember playing Tribes 1 online when almost everyone was still on 56Ks.  It was like I was playing Brawl offline while everyone was playing it online.



blkfish92 on 08 November 2012

Weefee is best anyway.



           

runqvist on 08 November 2012
Player2 said:
runqvist said:
 


What kind of performance does that 15$ dongle offer? USB adds some latency and I really doubt that it can handle a decent internet connection.

Well here's the info for USB:

"The theoretical maximum data rate in USB 2.0 is 480 Mbit/s (60 MB/s) per controller and is shared amongst all attached devices."

"For USB1 low-speed (1.5 Mbit/s) and full-speed (12 Mbit/s) devices the shortest time for a transaction in one direction is 1 ms. USB2 high-speed (480 Mbit/s) uses transactions within each micro frame (125 µs) where using 1-byte interrupt packet results in a minimal response time of 940 ns. 4-byte interrupt packet results in 984ns."

So it is below 1ms. Since games run at 60 fps (1 frame each ~16ms) anything below 1ms is unnoticeable. There are 100MB dongles so the maximum transaction data will be the 60MB/s of the USB.


I'm sure nobody cared so much about latency when MS and Sony decided to use wireless controllers instead of wired ones, or the lag generated by the TV postprocessing if you used the default SCART cable the PS3 and the X360 come with. And this lag affects all your gaming, not only the online.


That is just theoretical maximum performance for usb 2.0 standard. I asked about the performance for this 10$ or 15$ dongle which keep being mentioned on this thread.

I don't have any usb ethernet devices to try now, but once I had a cable modem which had usb port. When I tried it, latency was about 10ms higher than on ethernet and download speeds were significantly lower on usb.



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Train wreck on 08 November 2012

I think its time to bring back the 'Real Cost board comparsion' for the Wii U since the system is starting to have multiple hidden costs (oh go buy the pro controller, oh go buy the usb internet dongle, oh go buy another external drive), its getting out of hand. The Wii U does get to have a positive column for the HDMI cord though, Iwata mention in the unboxing Nintendo direct that the cost of getting one is expensive. I find that funny because most hardcore people don't buy expensive HDMI cables. Buying expensive HDMI cables like Monster cables is something soccer moms do to impress their husbands (Look honey the Best Buy sales guy told me to get these with the TV).



UncleScrooge on 08 November 2012
runqvist said:
UncleScrooge said:
I always use Wifi and I never had a problem.

And if you are really serious about Ethernet you already own a dongle... jeez, it's $15. Don't make a huge fuzz about it. You always need to buy "something" to get the max out of your console.


What kind of performance does that 15$ dongle offer? USB adds some latency and I really doubt that it can handle a decent internet connection.


I don't care in the slightest to be honest. I don't need one, I never had problems with my WiFi. Fast internet connection is more important than having ethernet. I've played online games on my PS3, Wii, PC and Mac and I never had a problem with WiFi.

We all know this is just nitpicking for the sake of it. If you seriously care about this (you are the one complaining) look up the speed of that dongle or look for a faster, more expensive one. If this is such an issue to you don't get a Wii U. But don't act like this was a deal breaker or anything.



jlrx on 08 November 2012
runqvist said:
Gnac said:

I'm glad you wrote that, and I hope more people read it.

Looks this this whole thread is a non-issue, and just an equivalent to a FLAC vs. MP3 argument.


It could be a non-issue to you, but I am expecting at least gigabit ethernet on next gen consoles.


Let me honestly ask you this question, what is the purpose of a gigabit port on your console when your average connection is below the common 100MBPS that the majority of ethernet ports support? I see the purpose within a business setting, because it allows faster transfer between internal machines, but a gigabit port to a gigabit router to your 10-15mbps cable modem or perhaps 40-50mbps fios? That won't make that much of a difference.



Player2 on 08 November 2012
runqvist said:
Player2 said:
runqvist said:
 


What kind of performance does that 15$ dongle offer? USB adds some latency and I really doubt that it can handle a decent internet connection.

Well here's the info for USB:

"The theoretical maximum data rate in USB 2.0 is 480 Mbit/s (60 MB/s) per controller and is shared amongst all attached devices."

"For USB1 low-speed (1.5 Mbit/s) and full-speed (12 Mbit/s) devices the shortest time for a transaction in one direction is 1 ms. USB2 high-speed (480 Mbit/s) uses transactions within each micro frame (125 µs) where using 1-byte interrupt packet results in a minimal response time of 940 ns. 4-byte interrupt packet results in 984ns."

So it is below 1ms. Since games run at 60 fps (1 frame each ~16ms) anything below 1ms is unnoticeable. There are 100MB dongles so the maximum transaction data will be the 60MB/s of the USB.


I'm sure nobody cared so much about latency when MS and Sony decided to use wireless controllers instead of wired ones, or the lag generated by the TV postprocessing if you used the default SCART cable the PS3 and the X360 come with. And this lag affects all your gaming, not only the online.


That is just theoretical maximum performance for usb 2.0 standard. I asked about the performance for this 10$ or 15$ dongle which keep being mentioned on this thread.

I don't have any usb ethernet devices to try now, but once I had a cable modem which had usb port. When I tried it, latency was about 10ms higher than on ethernet and download speeds were significantly lower on usb.

Theoretically you could use any USB dongle (unless Nintendo goes proprietary). There are 100MB/s dongles (and they do 100MB/s like this one). Since 100>60, the USB is the bottleneck and not the dongle so the maximum transmission speed will be 60MB/s (I wish my connection were like this!).

The one I posted also does add ~0.1 ms of lag, which again, compared with the 16 ms per frame is unnoticeable.

Like everywhere, there are crappy ones and good ones.



runqvist on 08 November 2012
jlrx said:
runqvist said:
Gnac said:

I'm glad you wrote that, and I hope more people read it.

Looks this this whole thread is a non-issue, and just an equivalent to a FLAC vs. MP3 argument.


It could be a non-issue to you, but I am expecting at least gigabit ethernet on next gen consoles.


Let me honestly ask you this question, what is the purpose of a gigabit port on your console when your average connection is below the common 100MBPS that the majority of ethernet ports support? I see the purpose within a business setting, because it allows faster transfer between internal machines, but a gigabit port to a gigabit router to your 10-15mbps cable modem or perhaps 40-50mbps fios? That won't make that much of a difference.

Because it is 2012 now. I have 350mbps connection now and pretty soon there is an option for faster connections here.