First Person Shooter (FPS) games are a popular online gaming genre played predominately over wired networks. FPS games have stringent delay requirements. However, the explosive growth in wireless LAN (WLAN) deployment has seen an increase in the use of such networks for gaming purposes. The varied performance of the IEEE 802.11 standard has tended to make WLANs unsuitable for FPS games. The IEEE 802.11e enhancement introduces Quality of Service (QoS) mechanisms including Enhanced Distributed Channel Access (EDCA) allowing prioritization of competing flows. Using the NS-2 simulator, we evaluate the capability of 802.11 WLANs to support Quake IV games traffic in the presence of web traffic. We compare the results achieved using EDCA with those achieved by a non-elevated differentiated services scheduler known as Best Effort with Loss Trade-off (BELT). We find that the BELT scheduler compares favorably with EDCA in this context.

This paper describes a new game assessment metric for the online gamer. The metric is based on a mathematical model currently used for network planning assessment. Beside the traditional network-based parameters such as delay, jitter and packet loss, new parameters based on online players' game experience/knowledge are introduced. The metric aims to estimate game quality as perceived by an online player. Measurements can be achieved in real-time or near real-time and could be useful to both online game players and game service providers. In order to validate and calibrate the proposed metric a subjective game quality assessment is also proposed. Two 5-point scales are introduced: a game-quality scale and a game playing-effort scale. The mean average of each scales termed, as Mean Opinion Score (MOS), will indicate the game quality (MOSGQE) and the playing-effort required (MOSGPE). The results obtained using subjective tests are divided in two parts. The first part is used during the development and calibration of the proposed objective algorithm. The second part is used to validate the proposed algorithm. The algorithm's performance can be measured using Pearson correlation between the subjective and objective MOSGQE scores

Multiplayer gaming over the Internet continues to grow in popularity, despite a lack of Quality of Service (QoS) mechanisms. Future QoS-aware networks such as those based on the Differentiated Services (DiffServ) framework will provide an opportunity for gamers to enhance their game-playing experience. An important QoS metric for networked games is a user's delay relative to the delay of other users. In this paper, we propose a Relative Delay Minimization (RDM) algorithm for use in DiffServ environments. Simulation results are described and presented showing that the algorithm can reduce the Relative Delay Variation (RDV) between users in a DiffServ environment.

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