some things ive always wondered

[zippy]

what does early TX threshold mean?

whats the difference between 100 half mode and 100 full mode? is full faster or summing and allow 200mb/s instead of 100, cos im sure i read somewhere that u can get 200mb/s with a certain setting.

[Riki]

Well if u mean Duplex.

Half duplex is forced when a Switch is connected in series with a Hub.

If this is so the network Runs at mbps (even tho the Media 10bastTx can support upto 1000MPBS).

[SquireMuldoon]

Riki... your post makes no sense. Please try again. :)

[RTO]

Half duplex is where you can only send or recieve data. Full duplex is when you can recieve AND send data the same time...

[SquireMuldoon]

But dont fall into the same trap as most peons and think that full duplex doubles your bandwidth to 200Mbits/s. It doesn't.

[Cabe]

in theory it does double your bandwidth.

half-duplex (100mbit) shared both up and down gives you a theoretical 50mbit (in a symmetrical environment) and full gives you the full 100mbit on both transmission ways

thats in theory...

in practice, networks are invariably asymmetrical and most of the time your getting data in and sending lots of small ACK's + requests out.

Games however do use near symmetrical data transmissions so pings suffer quite highly in these circumstances (typically 30-35%)

[bvark]

On a 10MB HDX network connection under minimal load, your 64 byte ICMP round-trip-time will be in the order of 500 microseconds longer than a 100MB FDX connection under the same load.

This does not, in any way, equate to an in-game ping difference of 30-35%, since the network card is sitting idle (neither TX nor RX) for approximately 99.9% of the time, assuming about 100 kbps of gaming + broadcast traffic.

At the risk of repeating myself, your network card makes almost zero difference to your in-game ping. This is a vicious myth perpetrated by f'ing n00b0r owners of 60quid 3Com cards who want to make themselves feel better.

[Throughput on bulk transfers, however, is an entirely different matter]

[MONK]

Bvark owning people about ping again ;)

Yes in game ping is very different from network ping.

Remember how many people get a 100Mb d/l rate non stop.... theory is nothing to do with the real world it just give you somewhere to start!

[Cabe]

so my 300-500 ping in Q3 on my modem (20 on a lan) is what, an abberation?

my point is connection speeds do have an impact on pings, and yes i acknowledge that GFX cards have a larger impact on them than connection speed.

[MONK]

The in game ping means just that "in game".....

If you want network proformance then look for you're ICMP packets!

If you're round trip time on the ICMP packet is low then the problem is not the network!