Using ICS + router causes high ping in games

Question

My main (work) PC connects to the internet using my brother's router (he lives a few houses from me) via wifi using an Alfa AWUS036H adapter and a big antenna. To connect my second (gaming) PC to the internet, I have connected both PCs to my own router and enabled ICS on the main PC. I used my own router instead of connecting both PCs together because my router also has wifi and I can use it like a "repeater" for my Kindle HD and other devices that wont reach my brother's router.

To achieve this I enabled ICS on my main PC "Wireless Network Connection" and shared it to my "Local Area Connection", I setup the gateway on my own router as the main PC local ip.

With this setup both PCs (and any other device connected to my router via wifi) have internet, but when I try to play online video games, the second PC gets really high pings.

I tried editing the "Local Area Connection" IPv4 properties on the second PC, so instead of getting the DNS ips automatically (which is the main PC local ip set on the router) it use OpenDNS ips (also tried Google Public DNS ips). OpenDNS does improve web surfing a little bit (google public dns doesn't), but I still get high pings on video games. If I connect the second PC using the Alfa adapte directly without my own router, it gives me much better pings.

Is there anything else I could test to get better pings using my own router?

Answer 1

You accumulate hops in a breathtaking manner: ISP->Brother's Router -> Brother's WLAN station -> Your WLAN dongle -> USB -> Your PC -> USB to NIC driver -> IP Stack -> ICS -> IP Stack -> NIC -> Your router -> rest of network.

While this may not create a throughput problem, it definitly creates a latency problem.

My suggestion:

• Attach the "big antenna" to a simple WLAN/LAN bridge (in essence an AP run backwards) for ca. EUR 20 (or whatever $)
• Use this as your router's WAN interface
• If you are willing to sacrifice the local WLAN and your router has the firmware for it, you can also attach the "big antenna" directly to the router and have it run in "WLAN Client" mode, negating the necessity of buying anything and saving another tiny piece of latency
• Attach everything else to the router, forgetting about USB networking and ICS

The simple fact, that your Windows PC need not run, if you want to use your Kindle from the sofa (no ICS involved) should be argument enough.