New to EVDO - Home LAN Questions running World of Warcraft

mrbouchez · EVDO Newbie Joined: 12 Jun 2008 Posts: 10

Sprint recently began offering EVDO service in my area. The new cell tower is less than 2 miles from my home but LOS is blocked by a large amount of trees. They sent me the Sierra Wireless Compass 597 which recieved a decent signal, about 80% most of the time. My major application for the internet is World of Warcraft with a liberal smattering of surfing and email.

The latency is unacceptable to do most things in WoW, Player vs. Player combat is out of the question as is healing for a group or raid as a lot of bad things can happen in 1.5 seconds. And so begins my quest for reduced latency.

The first thing I tried was a http tunneler. It does seem to help and is relatively inexpensive but it was not the cure so I purchased an antenna from this site.

http://3gstore.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=114&products_id=838

I assembled the antenna and ran the 15 feet of cable that came with it out into my yard and attached it to a stake that I put into the ground. I know it needs to be elevated but until I'm sure where the best spot would be to install it I was curious to see weither it improved my signal. The hope was that it would hold my signal closer to 100% but it did not. In fact it dosent seem to improve my signal at all. To install the Wilson antenna anywhere else I'm going to need several feet of coax and some time and tools. I know that long lengths of cable can effect signal/noise but just how much? 50 feet? 100 feet? and at what point would a booster or amp be justified? and in the end will all of this reduce my lag/latency?

I have also purchased a CradlePoint router for the Compass 957 because my girlfriend also plays WoW and we enjoy playing in groups together. Will this router hurt or help my situation? Will splitting the signal increase the latency for both of us? If so is there anything I can do to improve that?

whyzeman · EVDO Heavy User Joined: 14 Dec 2007 Posts: 105

Quite honestly, I don't know if there's a lot you can do to help with latency as high latency is simply a crutch in the cellular and satellite technology.

Kain · EVDO Fledgling Joined: 18 May 2008 Posts: 12

1.5 sec? What is your latency? I use data card when I am out on oil rig jobs and my latency within WoW is around 400-500 (which is about 1/3 - 1/2 sec at worst). I find that to be more than acceptable for healing and main tanking all 25 man raids (although we are not doing Sunwell, still in Black Temple). As for pvp it is not great, but doable even as melee.

There really isn't much you can do to my knowledge to reduce it as it is one of the things you have to put up with... Communication travel time using wireless... Antenna and boosters will only strengthen your signal, not your latency as it is a separate issue. Much like using satellite connection, going to space and back takes time, so too does tower to tower cell communication.

mrbouchez · EVDO Newbie Joined: 12 Jun 2008 Posts: 10

I've done quite a bit of research and have come to realize that I'm only going to get a 1xRTT connection until Sprint upgrades a few towers in my area. The EVDO area ends about 10 miles from my house so even thoughI've done quite a bit of research and have come to realize that I'm only going to get a 1xRTT connection until Sprint upgrades a few towers in my area. The EVDO area ends about 10 miles from my house so even though I'm paying for an EVDO connection I won't be using it without a laptop.

My ingame latency hovers around 1500 with the current connection. With 2 users it runs 1500-2300 which is not much worse really. I have been playing with the idea of trying different home agents as I hear you can improve transmission rates by shortening the hops to your home agent. I've got to call Sprint customer service to get my access password though so i'm not looking forward to that.

As for in game play, PvP is pretty much a waste of time and I use my priest to heal with area effect heal spam which seems to work for the most part. PvP can be done, though melee is almost impossible, I've found that hunter and warlock pets help as do the autofire and DoTs respectively.
I'm paying for an EVDO connection I won't be using it without a laptop.

My ingame latency hovers around 1500 with the current connection. With 2 users it runs 1500-2300 which is not much worse really. I have been playing with the idea of trying different home agents as I hear you can improve transmission rates by shortening the hops to your home agent. I've got to call Sprint customer service to get my access password though so i'm not looking forward to that.

As for in game play, PvP is pretty much a waste of time and as for healing I use my priest to heal with area effect heal spam which seems to work for the most part in instances. In smaller quest groups the druid Heal over Time spells work great but switching to other players is cumbersome. PvP can be done, though melee is almost impossible, I've found that hunter and warlock pets help as do the autofire and DoTs respectively.