Gaming with wireless peripherals

Lately I feel myself being drawn back into the world of couch gaming as I've opted to sit down with the xbox 360 more than my pc over the last month or so. The only real problem with that is I'd rather be playing my pc games. The solution to that would be to revisit the days of using my TV as a monitor, although now I actually have an "office" space where I keep my pc and monitors. It *is* feasible that I could run an HDMI cable for audio and video, but not feasible to run USB for the keyboard and mouse without buying active usb extensions. I'm not really keen on that idea.

In the past I've used some logitech bluetooth peripherals, which I still have, but I noticed a pretty severe amount of (intermittent) input lag. Most of the time it would work just fine, but every so often I would catch about a second of complete lag. Usually at just the right moment to ensure that I took a rocket or shotgun blast to the head :/ I couldn't honestly say whether it happened at routine intervals or not, but I would say the lag spikes were no farther apart than every two minutes.

When it comes to wireless input devices (keyboard and mouse in this case), are there any out there that offer the reliability of a wired kb/mouse? In my current situation I'm only looking at a distance of about 15-20 feet, but the signal would unfortunately have to travel through one wall.

Also, should I be looking at bluetooth devices, or RF wireless?

Thats a tough one man I have stayed away from wireless because I always feel a little lag in those devices and I never found any that helped. I hope someone knows of something

Wireless is fine. Worked for me, but ended up buying a mechanical keyboard and G500 mouse.

Microsoft xbox/PC controller for non-FPS games, and mouse+keyboard for FPS games (for me). Everything worked fine, but the mouse/keyboard were SUPER awkward without a proper couch tray. Coffee table won't cut it. Went back to standard PC monitor setup.

yeah you would need some kind of large lap tray to be truly comfortable... it would have an awesome cup holder that would chill your drink.... that would rock... but Honestly I don't know if there is a wireless setup that would work lag free, I don't know if even going and buying an expensive wireless keyboard and mouse would make a difference or not.


EDIT: have you seen any companies boasting a High frequency on their setups? the higher frequencies will cut through walls better.

tbh I haven't done any researching at all about it aside from creating this thread. I figured I would start deeper analysis after a few suggestions and comments from people here.

I never noticed any lag when gaming with a wireless mouse and keyboard, HOWEVER, they did have a tendency to run out of batteries at the worst times and sometimes randomly lose connection for a second or two.

My GF bought me a Microsoft 3000 wireless mouse/KB combo. It uses bluetrack instead of Bluetooth. I gotta say....I was very surprised at how well this this performs. I can use the mouse on any surface other than glass so sitting on the chair or couch means all I need is a comfortable place for my hand..I dont need a dedicated mouse pad. The keyboard is basic and works well for gaming. The batteries last forever. I got it Xmas 2011 and changed the batteries 2012. Now...Thats not persistent gaming but it is always turned on and sending a signal to my PC, so a year on one set of batteries is amazing! As for gaming, its a great combo for games like Mass Effect 3 or Skyrim but terrible for online stuff like BF3. The mouse does not compete w/ my MS Sidewinder. Also, maybe its just me, but windows cannot decide which mouse to stay configured to so the blue track mouse will not Knife a dude mid battle and I yell in frustration...thats why I stick to offline FPS games...its more mellow. And I gotta tell ya....gaming in a comfy chair on my 40inch TV...SWEEEEEET!!!

Oh...as far as lag...ive not noticed any. The Bluetrack mouse is just missing the bells and whistles and not to mention configs a dedicated gaming mouse has. The Keyboard is also missing macros but I never use mine on the G15 so I dont notice.

I may have to re-try my Logitech stuff again just to see if it's even feasible to transmit reliably through this wall... and maybe a full set of batteries that I know are brand new and in optimal condition.

Is there any way to adjust bluetooth drivers for things like power savings mode and all that nonsense?

Pvt.Dancer said:

EDIT: have you seen any companies boasting a High frequency on their setups? the higher frequencies will cut through walls better.

Click to expand...

Don't want to sound like an ***, but source? I've always heard lower frequencies have better penetration. Even experienced it - I get better reception in the far corners of my house on the 2.4ghz band than the 5ghz band using the same laptop/cellphone and router.

I don't have a direct source and I may very well be wrong but I used to work at a place that sold phones and it was when they were going from 900 MHZ to 2.4 GHZ and they were bragging about better wall penetration was a key feature. I will have to go out and look it up again i suppose to be absolutely sure.

Pvt.Dancer said:

I don't have a direct source and I may very well be wrong but I used to work at a place that sold phones and it was when they were going from 900 MHZ to 2.4 GHZ and they were bragging about better wall penetration was a key feature. I will have to go out and look it up again i suppose to be absolutely sure.

Click to expand...

Lower frequency has much better wall penetration. But the 2.4Ghz probably is allowed to be higher powered because it is a higher frequency so in the end the result is a longer distance and comparatively better wall penetration - all at the expense of a bit more battery - since lower frequencies do use more energy as well, so the offset isn't that big.

Pvt.Dancer said:

I don't have a direct source and I may very well be wrong but I used to work at a place that sold phones and it was when they were going from 900 MHZ to 2.4 GHZ and they were bragging about better wall penetration was a key feature. I will have to go out and look it up again i suppose to be absolutely sure.

Click to expand...

diaz said:

Lower frequency has much better wall penetration. But the 2.4Ghz probably is allowed to be higher powered because it is a higher frequency so in the end the result is a longer distance and comparatively better wall penetration - all at the expense of a bit more battery - since lower frequencies do use more energy as well, so the offset isn't that big.

Click to expand...

Ah, I see. Was just confused since I *thought* that was one of the few things I knew about wireless, lol.