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Network Card for Gamers - Uses Linux to Reduce Lag

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the slave-to-the-ping-number dept.

Cujo writes "The folks at GDHardare have an interview with Bigfoot Networks discussing the pending release of their Killer Network Card which is said to greatly reduce in-game latency. According to the Interview, this card uses a Linux-based subsystem to do its magic."

4 of 410 comments (clear)

  1. Re:So it's a QoS Network Card? by bcmm · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This is offtopic, but I have to mention this while we're talking about audiophiles. About a month ago, I saw in a shop a device even more blatantly pointless than this NIC. It was an "A/V USB cable". Gold-plated. That's right, ordinary USB cables are not good enough for running a projector, presumably because those cheap stainless steel USB connectors introduce too much noise into the (digital) signal.

    (For anyone who doesn't frequent the same shops as crazy people, it is common to gold-plate the connectors of analogue audio connectors to improve the quality of the signal. Presumably the untarnishable gold reduces the resistance of the connection. This gets taken to rather silly extremes when gold-plated 3.5mm connectors are marketed for use with low-quality stuff like MP3 players.)

    --
    # cat /dev/mem | strings | grep -i llama
    Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
  2. Re:Yes. by russ1337 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ....and probably bypasses any software firewall on your machine at the same time... how long till there is an exploit to get the network card to trigger 'gaming mode' for a worm... my bet is 2 days from release...

  3. Re:So it's a QoS Network Card? by slackmaster2000 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Yeah audiophiles are very easily fooled. I laugh every time I hear about digital technology being described in analog terms, which is terribly common in the audiophile realm. It's sort of understandable though because "digital" is so variable whenever we interface with the analog world. Not all AD/DA converters are created equal. Audio CD playback is very similar to analog technology in that it's designed play right through and mask errors which can result in high frequency distortion and various other artifacts that one might not expect from "digital" and how that term is marketed. It can be difficult to understand, so why wouldn't the quality of a USB cable be as important as the quality of a microphone cable or the weight of a speaker cable? Well, most of us would say "duh", but the second big problems is that these people can "hear" the difference! Ah the power of suggestion. You won't find a lot of double blind studies published by audiophile gear manufacturers.

    Aside from $30,000 speaker cables (I shit you not), my most favorite audiophile product is a wooden knob that costs $500. "What does the wooden knob do, though?" Well, nothing on its own. It is in fact, a wooden knob. A knob made from wood. It sounds great when attached to your volume pot, though. Five hundred dollars please.

    So today we learn about a network card that somehow reduces lag by implementing hardcore quality of service on an endpoint that is for all intents and purposes dedicated to a single application. Are gamers analogous to audiophiles? "Quake III is a lot more responsive now. My ping is about the same, but I can feel the difference." It must work though. I mean, who would make something and charge so much for it if it didn't actually work? :)

  4. Re:Yes. by sketerpot · · Score: 3, Interesting

    One of the cooler features of this card is that it can be programmed to run things like firewalls on its own processor.