Latency is one of the biggest problems in the modern gaming industry, and laptop gamers tend to use their WiFi connection to play multi-player games. Qualcomm has partnered with Microsoft to deliver a potential solution for this problem with its WiFi Dual Station modules that use Qualcomm 4-Stream Dual Band Simultaneous (DBS) for the Windows 11 operating system.
High WiFi latency can significantly impact response times in online games like Counter-Strike and Dota, so gamers tend to use an ethernet connection over anything else.
Qualcomm has been working on a solution for this specific problem with Microsoft and introduced Dual Station WiFi in Windows 11 OS, with modules designed using Qualcomm 4-Stream DBS. The company says this keeps latency low and reduces jitter to a level similar to using an ethernet connection.
Qualcomm says the reduced latency results from harnessing multiple WiFi bands and antennas concurrently. Qualcomm notes that "by simultaneously utilizing the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz band (or 6 GHz where available), latency issues in one band can be easily resolved at a system-level both quickly and transparently to the end-user."
As per the company's testing, some performance benchmarks show that WiFi Dual Band mode can be very beneficial. The results using an off-the-shelf WiFi 6 access point, WiFi Dual Station, and Qualcomm 4-Stream DBS were similar to an ethernet cable. The testing between single-station WiFi showed that Dual Band systems yielded four times lower latency over the more common Single Station systems, indicating a significant improvement.
It's important to note that Valve has added initial support for WiFi Dual Station in the Steamworks software development kit (SDK), allowing CS: GO and Dota 2 gamers to use the new technology with their Windows 11 PC.
