Bigfoot Networks trounces ping times with Killer 2100 network card
By Darren Murph 
posted May 12th 2010 7:49AM
posted May 12th 2010 7:49AM
We haven't been this worked up about a product since we realized that someone actually made a Hello Kitty warming blanket, and if we can convince our sound card to slide down a slot, we'll probably be kicking our integrated Ethernet port to the curb in favor of the Killer 2100. All jesting aside, Bigfoot Networks has returned after 14 months of silence in order to debut the "world's fastest online gaming card." According to the company, this here NIC is equipped with a dedicated network processor, Windows stack bypass, Visual Bandwidth Control and "other optimizations" designed to provide the most optimal online gaming experience ever. For those drinking the Kool-Aid, it'll be available for £86 ($127) in the coming weeks -- we'd caution you to wait for benchmarks first, though. Or just buy a faster internet connection. Bigfoot Networks Unleashes Killer(TM) 2100, the World's Fastest Online Gaming Network Card
REDWOOD CITY, California, May 11, 2010 /PRNewswire/ --
- Up to 10X Faster Than Standard Connections, the Killer(TM) 2100 Delivers Unprecedented Speed and Performance
Bigfoot Networks, the networking technology company behind the Killer(TM) line of gaming networks cards, today announced Killer(TM) 2100, its next-generation network interface card (NIC) for online gaming. Killer 2100 combines elements of speed, intelligence and control demanded by gamers with major throughput and latency enhancements and an innovative and easy-to-use software interface. Killer 2100 epitomises speed and maximum performance as the fastest Gigabit NIC on the planet for gamers.
At the heart of Killer 2100 is Bigfoot Networks' groundbreaking Game Networking DNA(TM) technology, comprised of a dedicated network processor (NPU), Advanced Game Detect(TM), Windows stack bypass, Visual Bandwidth Control(TM) and other optimisations designed to deliver the best online gaming experience possible. Game Networking DNA accelerates latency-sensitive game traffic while reducing stuttering, freezing and other symptoms of lag, giving online gamers a competitive edge.
"Killer 2100 is the fastest network card available for online games, period," said Michael Howse, CEO, Bigfoot Networks. "From its completely redesigned user interface and race-inspired outer casing to its high-performance Game Networking DNA software, everything about Killer 2100 screams speed and maximum performance."
Using the Gaming Network Efficiency test, a new benchmark that measures network latency during gaming scenarios the Killer 2100 was more than ten times faster than standard network interfaces on multicore gaming PCs with high-end graphics cards. The additional speed provided by Killer 2100 means players can achieve quicker response times, better in-game performance and higher scores.
"We saw a dramatic performance advantage over standard network interfaces in our Killer 2100 tests-an advantage that's big enough to change the online gaming experience," said Jon Peddie, president of Jon Peddie Research. "The Killer 2100 repeatedly delivered superior network latency on mainstream and enthusiast-class gaming PCs, and this difference could easily provide a winning edge to online gamers."
Killer 2100 is a plug-and-play card that enables gamers at every level of experience to improve their online gaming with minimal setup. But for those who want to tune their PC, Killer 2100 offers powerful tools for monitoring and optimising network performance. Visual Bandwidth Control provides real-time feedback about how Internet bandwidth is used on a per-application basis, making it easy for gamers to limit or block network-hungry applications. The Online Gaming PC Monitor feature gives players at-a-glance graphical displays and detailed logging so that they can track performance statistics such as CPU usage, memory usage and frame rate along with networking activity.
"As gamers, we don't want anything to get in the way of our skill," said Alex Garfield from top eSports team Evil Geniuses. "Killer 2100 gets our reactions and commands to the network faster than any other network card, letting us concentrate on the game without worrying about lag."
Notes to Editors:
Killer 2100 specifications include:
- 10/100/1000 Ethernet
- PCIe interface (x1 form factor)
- 400 MHz dedicated network processor
- 128 MB DDR2 RAM
- Performance-inspired housing
- Advanced Game Detect
- Visual Bandwidth Control
- Online Gaming PC Monitor
- Windows network stack bypass
- Optimized for use with voice chat applications
- Support for Win7, Vista & XP 32
Killer 2100 products will be available in coming weeks in retail and online stores in the U.S., Europe and Asia from Golden Arrow, Leadtek, TUL and VisionTek. MSRP GBP86 U.K. For more details, please visit bigfootnetworks.com
Outside of LAN parties-if people even still do those - this seems kind of irrelevant?
@ajwoodhouse
Actually, if you're a performance nut, this is the most logical thing to buy once the rest of your hardware is top end. Network stability and latency are huge bottlenecks for online games, so anything that reduces response time is arguably a really good purchase. Totally unnecessary for 99% of people, but that's not who this is aimed at.
@Stumpymcdonut
Assuming this actually improves latency of course*
@ajwoodhouse Yeah but gamer kiddies will buy anything as long as it's pitched as a "gaming" product.
@PaulMdx
Don't forget to brand it with fatal1ty or some other nonsensical gamer's nick. That adds more street cred, yo.
@Stumpymcdonut
"Actually, if you're a performance nut, this is the most logical thing to buy once the rest of your hardware is top end."
In other words, this should be the last thing you buy? :P
@ajwoodhouse I doth declare shenanigans on this BS product.
@Stumpymcdonut if you wanna improve latency,truly improve it,then you should close ports on your system that you dont really use.telnet?who the hell uses telnet?plus,in doing so,you also decrease your attack surface area,making your system that much more protected.
to comment on this though...personally,i think they should just get rid of all expansion slots and replace them processor sockets.imagine having a Phenom II X6 or Core i7 as your main,and then a quad core for your video,a 2 ghz core for your sound,a 1.5 ghz core for your network,all without cards.granted,you would probably want an ice cold liquid cooler,but still,your machine would be beastly,and held back only either by your wallet or your desire to push the envelope.
@Stumpymcdonut
I wouldn't buy this product...get an Intel server NIC, they have been around longer and are proven to be reliable. I have a PRO/1000 MT Dual Port (2 x 1gbe ports with Tcp offload, vlan, and all of intel's other badass features with their network stack).
@spartan1
Closing ports will not improve latency. That makes no sense whatsoever...maybe if its a 90mhz pentium 1 with 28MB of ram.
Most latency issues are either caused by crappy wireless routers, or are outside of your control (ISP). I don't even use wireless anymore for my server and workstations because I have not been able to find a decent wireless router that can match the latency of gigabit ethernet.
@DoctarPeppar if you get rid of unnecessary traffic on unused ports,then thats more bandwidth being dedicated where you actually use/need it.it makes perfect sense.
@spartan1
Actually, closing ports will make absolutely no difference. If these are unused ports, meaning that they are safe to close without losing necessary functionality, then your system won't be getting interrupts from incoming packets on those ports anyway. More to the point, getting a few packets on those ports shouldn't impact performance on any system built in the past 15 years. I mean, if you are really concerned about that sort of thing you'd also remove every single other device on your local network so you aren't dealing with as many ARP requests and broadcast packets.
@rapier1 & doctarpeppar
ok,maybe im wrong and yall are right...true,im sec+ certified,and i dont remember nearly any of the crap from that test.but i swear i remember something about some ports typically unused by the user do drain your bandwidth and increase latency.but who the hell knows...
ALL THAT CRAP ASIDE...you gotta admit,my more sockets idea is a pretty good one...and before i get flamed,yes,you would also have to add memory slots to go with those sockets,unless you want it to pull off your main memory.
@Stumpymcdonut I sort of agree in the sense that this hardware doesn't get old. The GPU you spent 100's of dollars on will be worth very little in a few years.
It's a one down payment until Gigabit ethernet becomes a thing of the past.
@DoctarPeppar
I actually have one of those PRO/1000 MT Dual Port lying around. Maybe I should install that and test it. Then again my average latency to any server is > 300ms cause I'm in the middle of the indian ocean
@ajwoodhouse
To gamers (apparently) the speed of light is too slow as they can click a mouse and react faster than it.
@zeroinfinity2
It's the "t0ta11y 1337 p0werh0use fatal1ty Gamer Card"
@ajwoodhouse
Any Intel server grade NIC blows it out of the water, and for 30-50% less money. And server grade stuff is sexy anyhow.
"Or just buy a faster internet connection."
A faster Internet connection won't necessarily fix your ping. Then again, neither will this.
@Glitch That is what I thought...it's like all those people who spend ages fiddling with qos on their network, completely unaware that the moment it hits their ISP it's all ignored
@ajwoodhouse
do you even understand what QOS does in a home network?
it prioritises devices in the network so that the available bandwidth is shared in the desired fashion. has cack all to do with what your ISP does or doesn't do on the other side of the fiber.
@Hef
The point he was making was that you can tweak your home network to your hearts content, but if you are playing anything over the web it isn't going to do you jack once it gets on to the ISP's gear. From that point on those packets are very low priority to them.
@admlshake Yep. And unless everything supports qos in the same way it won't work even at home.
I used to do work for a voip provider so yeah I know qos
@admlshake From the point the packets get to the ISP, the pipe is so big that it doesn't matter what priority the packets are - that is the point that Hef is making and is completely valid.
QoS is a valid and effective way to manage the bandwidth leaving your home...this network card is not nearly as functional and it's obvious people here don't know the difference between a working solution and an unnecessary one.
@ajwoodhouse I believe you're referring to the high ports associated with media traffic that many switches are "supposed" to be aware of, correct? Because QoS will do its job to make sure bittorrent traffic isn't interfering with your gaming traffic at home, for certain.
@Godfail
Yeah, but for incoming QoS won't do shit, that's the problem.
Me: OMG its Bigfoot.
Mom: Honey, stop smoking that shit and come down to dinner.
@genomecop +1
F this! They actually made a hello kitty blanket!
...
This is pretty good too.
@zeroinfinity2 I'm sure I read they made a hello kitty taser too
@ajwoodhouse and a hello kitty AR-15
@zeroinfinity2 They even made Hello Kitty stickers, so if you can somehow manage to find something that they don't already have an official version of (highly unlikely) it's just a simple peel and stick procedure to making it prettiful ^_^
"this here NIC is equipped with a dedicated network processor"
Wow, a dedicated network processor. Makes you wonder what the onboard NIC in PC's is doing besides 'network processing'...
Cards like this have existed for years, but to date nobody ever put any proof online that it actually works. I guess this is one is like the $200 HDMI cables that some audiophiles sill believe are better than a random $30 one. Everyone knows you're getting screwed over but somehow people who buy into it keep coming up with creative explanations why it is definitely so much better. "It reduces clock jitter, man!"
@drange
There is a performance increase guaranteed, albeit not that much that it would warrant a purchase. The onboard NICs are the most basic solutions and as such perform worse as dedicated solutions.
On the other hand, there's Intel with their $2000+ PCIe NICs, shananigans & ripoff artists, I presume.
@drange Yeh, IMO I you can get better performance by changing a few network settings on your router... rather than on your network card. Your home network is always going to have better response times than your ISP.
It kind of saddens me that so many people will not only drink the Kool-Aid, but come back asking for more.
@FMinus Yeh, because gaming requires the same throughput (not ping) as a corporate server.
Drink up...
@drange
Actually, TCP requires a fair amount of processing. It's not a simple or lightweight protocol by any means (that would be UDP).
TCP gives you guarantees about data integrity and order that add complexity and processing. It also provides congestion detection and avoidance (which it sometimes gets wrong -- this is one of the reasons wireless networks are slower than wired ones, and its because of the software).
I find it totally plausible that doing all that processing on the card is quicker than loading Windows' software TCP stack and letting that do the decoding on the CPU. When you're talking about squeezing every ms out of your ping, it probably will work.
@KarlW
I should clarify that even though I'd totally expect a difference for the reasons above, only real tests can tell you how tangible a difference that actually makes to real-world gaming.
@KarlW
While that may be true, any overhead introduced by protocol handling absolutely pales in comparison to the latency of the network. Not to mention that before your packets arrive anywhere they're routed along 100s of switches and routers, which this card has no effect on at all.
@drange
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/killer-xeno-pro,2341-7.html
Theres your proof. Might want to try the search box sometime.
@drange
Also, check the video out. It's a comparison of two machines running Everquest 2 side by side. One with Bigfoot and one without.
@Agozyen
/sigh. Maybe I should insert the link before I submit!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJ2jnS1Zwqo&feature=player_embedded
Modern snake oil. Anyone with a high-end computer won't notice a difference. If your computer is slow enough for this to make a significant difference you have other issues.
Holy bajesus! Hopefully it performs as good as they claim because then I'll be buying it. :D
How much card do you reakon is actually under that big piece of plastic?
@masadav The plastic is the source of it's power
@masadav
http://www.esaitech.com/objects/catalog/product/image/thb16185.jpg
@(Unverified) OMFG PCI! Clearly a different card...
As someone who had purchased a 3com 56k Internet Gaming Modem for use back in the AOL dialup days, I'd be lying if I said this doesent catch my interest
Is this like those people that put a big wing on the back of their FWD car because they actually think that's the performance bottleneck?