Hardcore Gaming Network Card?

[bapenguin]

Tired of those horrible ping times. Don't blame your DSL, Cable or Dial-Up...blame your NIC! CrowdedBrain (http://www.crowdedbrain.co.uk/2006/07/bigfoot_introdu.html) looks at the upcoming KillerNic (http://www.killernic.com/KillerNic/) from BigFootNetworks (http://www.bigfootnetworks.com).

Powered by LLR Technology, the Killer NIC offers gamers superior speed and performance in their online games. The reason for this bold statement lies with its technology, the Killer’s 400 MHz Network Processing Unit (NPU) and 64 Megabytes of dedicated DDR is one of the first applications of Corporate Network Acceleration Technology introduced to the consumer market.
Umm...maybe. I never saw my NIC as a bottle neck for pings. Can't wait to see some real numbers on this.

[The Continental]

I'll wait till they bundle it with the Aegia card, so I can throw my money down one toilet rather than two.

[Soap]

I'll wait till they bundle it with the Aegia card, so I can throw my money down one toilet rather than two.

Don't forget to wipe your ass with a couple of $20s before you flush.

:D

[Deadend]

Damn it! Someone already beat me to a PPU card joke!

[Varsity]

People still have trouble with pings?

[NoName]

People still have trouble with pings?
Yea, dialup users ;).

[serioustommy]

I guess it won't help the dialup users that much... since a dialup modem usually plugs into the serial port or the usb port hence bypassing this awesome killer network card.

[benig]

Your NIC is actually quite a large bottleneck to your network performance. A lot of things like TCP caching, windowing, and packet decompisition are done on the card. When you're using your on-board garbage, you are using very inefficient hardware and software that when you are just browsing it is hard to notice, but I can see a real boost if a dedicated card with efficient elements were used.

[Heretic Machine]

Hurray for negative ping code! (http://www.glitchless.com/dawn.html)

Launch all fetapults!

[Ernst_Jager]

There is a huge difference between a cheap $15 network card and a nice quality card.
If they priced the card right and the performance is as good as it claims I would be all over this.

[SexualChoc]

I still get kicked from servers for a 170 ping. It's not my damn fault I can only get 512!

[BabyJesus]

I loves me that big K heatsink on that mutha.

Any quality nic will do most of the processing on board, but still even with on the on board nic of my NFORCE I get sub 25ms pings most of the time, so what if I can get 15 or 20ms pings with that card? Sure your card is dependant on some of the ping but not very much. It really depends on how many hops and what type of routers your traffic is hitting. This product is for all intents useless crap that people that must have the newest crap on thier rigs want.

[da.Guvna]

What about the speed at the other end of your line though....the router? No point in splashing out on a snazzy NIC if your router is wank.

I can't see this helping much for online gaming....just LANs, unless I'm missing something?

[Wyrm]

I pay for cable internet and my DL speeds are, at best, 50k a second, and at worst, like 10. There are just too many people around where I live on it, and they wont dedicate another line out to my town, so the net is slow as shit during prime time.

[earthworm48]

I've had sub 30 pings since my 512k DSL years ago. I plugged that into USB. The only time I experience latency is A) When the server is far far far away (normally I can get decent pings quite often though) or B) theres lag as the game runs crappy on the computer I am using at that moment.

I now have 8MB DSL here (I'd have better if ADSL2+ e.t.c. was supported by any ISPs where I live) but games are affected mainly by upload speed AFAIK. haven't had a problem like I said I can only see this working for LAN things maybe, but Gig NICs are like everywhere now and I just can't see how this will make a difference.

EDIT: Also this thing has half the RAM of the Physx and 100Mhz less core speed, so what its $200 instead of $300?

[51|RandoM]

Your NIC is actually quite a large bottleneck to your network performance. A lot of things like TCP caching, windowing, and packet decompisition are done on the card. When you're using your on-board garbage, you are using very inefficient hardware and software that when you are just browsing it is hard to notice, but I can see a real boost if a dedicated card with efficient elements were used.


It isn't a significant bottleneck at all at typical access speeds. It isn't like we're tuning gigabit connections here where a 5% increase actually means something.

You don't need dedicated hardware unless you're trying to keep multiple gig interfaces fully fed, or accelerating many SSL connections, etc.

this is just somebody trying to cash in on the marketability of "gamer" gear and the e-peen mentality.

[easi]

Snake oil. Just like Aegia.

[Goronmon]

Not that I am buying this card, but I've always wondered if I should get a separate NIC for my PC. I use the onboard NIC on my Asus mobo, and WoW won't let me use Peer-to-Peer because it says my drivers are too old (even though there are no new ones). I don't know, it was just something I had considered but never knew if it would be worth it.

[RMan]

Yea, I can ping my ISP with an average of 7ms, and on a lan, I haven't gone over 1ms pings for many years. Even if they could eliminate the current ping to my ISP it wouldn't be worth the trouble, much less the money IMO. They're going to have to spend WAY more money to convince me to buy it than they'll make on the thing :). I can only see this appealing to pro gaming circles (like tournaments and such), even most high end gamers aren’t going to swallow the idea of this thing’s worth.

[Food Nipple]

Your NIC is actually quite a large bottleneck to your network performance. A lot of things like TCP caching, windowing, and packet decompisition are done on the card. When you're using your on-board garbage, you are using very inefficient hardware and software that when you are just browsing it is hard to notice, but I can see a real boost if a dedicated card with efficient elements were used.

I'm going to have to call extreme bullshit on ths one. There is no way that any of this stuff is a factor AT ALL.

When you're playing on LAN, you're still running TCP in the background to communicate between comptuers, yet there's no lag. That's because the TCP opperations aren't the cause of lag, it's the latency associated with transmitting data over long distances.

It's true that TCP does have a lot of overhead, and many of the checksums and other header data is just adding fluff. That's why most modern games don't even use TCP anymore, as far as I know, Quake III really pioneered using UDP instead and the programmers just implemented any other necessary features on a software level.

So long story short, I'm pretty sure you're wrong. The NIC is preforming all the same opperations when you play on LAN as when you play on the internet, so you can't point to that as a bottleneck. This card is 100% a waste of money in my opinion.

[HonestIago]

Since every tiny bit of hardware gets so much attention lately (separate physics gpu and stuff like it), hell, I am looking for a solution on how to cram 6 or 7 sound cards into my pc - one for each channel to get HD audio in 5.1 or 6.1 quality!

I have never had latency issues - either with or without FastPath activated on my connection. The only issues I have had as of yet were because of lazy programming and buggy games :(

[Sl1pstream]

I think I spent more than enough when I bought the DGL-4300 (http://games.dlink.com/products/?pid=370).

[BabyJesus]

What I am interested in is the new NFORCE board that have dual nics you can pair up(up to 2Gb speeds..). Wheeeeeee...

[Strand]

I don't understand how this is going to improve my pings on online games. Currently I can ping my local router and get < 1ms pings. If my NIC was a bottleneck wouldn't I see higher pings on my local network?

I get 30ms pings to google.com and < 1ms to my router. Seems to me like the slow down is occuring after my router.

Am I missing something there?

Strand

[Voodoo]

You can get a nice QoS router/firewall which takes care of this problem. Sorry KillerNoobs but your NIC SUXX0RS!

[Voodoo]

I think I spent more than enough when I bought the DGL-4300 (http://games.dlink.com/products/?pid=370).
Those are damn nice. No router can keep up with that one or its non-wireless brother when it comes to pure throughput & simultaneous connections supported.

[Goronmon]

I think I spent more than enough when I bought the DGL-4300 (http://games.dlink.com/products/?pid=370).I have a brand new 4100 (non-wireless) sitting on my desk next to me ready to go home. :D

[Voodoo]

I have a brand new box for the 4100 (non-wireless) sitting on my desk next to me ready to go home. :D
That 4100 is the one I have as well. Best damn firewall/router I have ever used at home. I really like the game acceleration modes with the QoS. Now I'm able to download from wherever and still play without suffering impact. Bad ass.

[Gedd]

Does that router (or NIC) really help all that much? I find this a bit too "gimmicky".

I live in the suburbs of chicago.. I play FEAR MP occasionally and there's been a server up from time to time down in St. Louis that i've played on with like a 15 ping. My current network setup is fairly simple.. two pc's and a laptop - cable coax into cable modem, out of modem into my Intel D875PBZ's integrated 10/1000 and then heads out to share the connection on an Intel Pro 100 PCI(10/100) which is tied into a netgear 16 port switch.

Based on that setup alone, i'm already making my gaming pc do ton of routing - it's handling the sharing etc at the same time i'm gaming. Regardless, I have no issues that would make me want to purchase a Hi-Fi (so to say) NIC or optimized router. I'm not feeling cramped/bottlenecked in any way whatsoever.

/shrug - I guess if you've got the cash to spend though :)

ps.. plz don't flush the $20's you wipe with.. send em my way, i'll clean em up.. I don't mind!

[Sloth]

Maybe its got "Blast Processsing" from the Sega Genesis or maybe the now defunct and internet joke Dawn's killer anti lag code.

[Namielus]

I can (and do) see a use for this while doing file transfers and other more 'non-gaming' related stuff. The biggest problem with lan transfers is that your cpu is handling the network interface and the hard disk. I've seen substantail improvements by switching to a 'hardware' network interface driver.

Snake oil for 90% of games me thinks.

[Suicidal ShiZuru]

I think its all bs until I get some more info on its actual performance. The card looks badass though.