Wlan Optimizer and Vista Anti-Lag

[Webslinger]

I have, until recently, avoided wireless networking because I didn't want to have to deal with possible signal strength issues, especially while gaming. Anyway, I recently acquired a wireless router, and I started experiencing the dreaded 60 second Vista lag issue.

I tried fiddling a lot with wireless router settings, drivers, etc. I started cursing a little . . .

Then finally I did a search online, and apparently (lol), I'm not alone. That's an understatement.

Anyway, I've run across two programs. One is called Wlan Optimizer, and the other is called Vista Anti-Lag.

I haven't tried Vista Anti-Lag since Wlan Optimizer appears to do what I want.
Edit: Vista Anti-Lag doesn't appear to have the option to bootup/start with Vista 64 bit edition.

Anyway, so far, so good.

http://www.martin-majowski.de/wlanoptimizer/

http://www.wlanbook.com/vista-wifi-60-second-lag-problem/

I suppose this is a general hardware issue, but I figure people who play PC online games might be interested (or those who stream stuff constantly).

If there's a better solution out there, I'm quite interested (feel free to tell me).

 

[Webslinger]

I suppose this thread really does belong in the General Hardware Issues forum.

 

[Hawk]

Thank you for nifty tool.

 

[Webslinger]

Thank you for nifty tool.

You're welcome!

 

[Adbear]

Strange, I use wireless on all my Vista systems at home and never have any lag on either of my wireless routers. But thanks for the tools, I'll know what to do if it starts happening

 

[Webslinger]

Strange, I use wireless on all my Vista systems at home and never have any lag on either of my wireless routers. But thanks for the tools, I'll know what to do if it starts happening

The problem is WLAN AutoConfig (Wlansvc), which is similar to Wireless Zero Config in XP, but there appears to be no easy way to turn this off in Vista.

You can navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Wlansvc\Interfaces\[Network adapter#]\Scan Interval in your registry

You can try changing the scan interval, but that doesn't seem to help because each time you restart the WLAN service, that value gets reset to default. :bang:

To disable the WLAN Autoconfig, do the following (not my instructions; I found this somewhere):

a) Click on Start; type "cmd" (no quotation marks). Right click on cmd.exe (search results), and select run as administrator.

b) The WLAN service needs to be running. If it isn't type net start wlansvc.

c) Type in netsh wlan set autoconfig enabled=no interface="name of your wireless network here" (with the quotes)

d) If you need to see the name of your wireless network first, type in netsh wlan show settings

But If you disable wlansvc, then of course, if you need to reconnect to the network and haven't set SSID manually, you're pretty much screwed.

So Wlan Optimizer is a lot easier.

The situation is pretty bizarre because I have "Connect to a more preferred network if available" unchecked in my Wireless Network properties, but for whatever reason Vista is still running wireless background scans about every 60 seconds. So every 60 seconds I would notice a very tiny lag hiccup in certain MMOs, which is extremely annoying. I installed WLAN Optimizer and the hiccup vanished.
I never noticed the problem while watching streaming video online, probably due to software player buffers. I also never noticed the problem while testing F.E.A.R 2 multiplayer on Steam (which is kind of odd). But the problem was pretty noticeable when my girlfriend was playing an MMO.

I doubt this problem has anything to do with the router. I'm sure the issue is how Vista's background wireless network scan is affecting the Dual band Wireless-N USB Network Adapter I'm using.

SamuriHL has also indicated that Wlan Optimizer appears to have helped when streaming to his Onkyo receiver. We definitely aren't using the same routers nor the same Wireless network adapters. But we are both using Vista when the problem occurs. If you do a search online about this issue, you'll see tons (and I mean tons) of hits.

Also, I feel this situation puts into perspective online user reviews of wireless routers and wireless network adapters. Quite often you'll see people complaining about small periodic dropouts. Well, if the problem is Vista doing wireless network scans in the background every 60 seconds then the problem never was the router or wireless network adapter that these people returned to the store.

I also speculate that maybe some wireless network adapter drivers may accommodate for this 60 second background scan. But clearly the ones I'm using don't.

 

[Webslinger]

If you do a search online about this issue, you'll see tons (and I mean tons) of hits.

http://www.google.com/search?q=vista+60+second+wireless+lag

 

[andy o]

I've seen this mentioned, but I never really paid too much attention to it since it always was about gaming. Now that I think about it, on my laptop which is always connected to Wifi, I get some connection problems from time to time, as if the servers were being reset. If I hit refresh it usually then loads fast. So now I wonder if it's this instead of their servers. I'm trying Vista Anti Lag right now. I downloaded the RAR and not the installer, you can put a shortcut to the .exe in the startup folder in Windows and it should work OK. That's what I've done and I'm using Vista x64.

 

[Webslinger]

installer, you can put a shortcut to the .exe in the startup folder in Windows and it should work OK.

Yeah, I prefer not having to do that for reasons I'm not going to bother discussing. That's basically why I prefer Wlan Optimizer. But both programs work fine. Anti-lag has more configuration settings that I don't need.

 

[andy o]

Yeah, I prefer not having to do that for reasons I'm not going to bother discussing. That's basically why I prefer Wlan Optimizer. But both programs work fine. Anti-lag has more configuration settings that I don't need.

Is there some bug in the Vista x64 startup folder? I'm having the .exe stop randomly. I'll try wlan optimizer I guess.

 

[Webslinger]

Is there some bug in the Vista x64 startup folder?

Not really . . . But there can be added issues sometimes.