Dedicated USB/NIC?

[Sebichek45]

Do you guys have ang recommendation for a nic ans usb card for gaming? My mobo’s port is buggy (on/off randomly) and have tried updating bios to latest already still same problem. It also has onboard realtek ethernet and I believe intel is better in nic.

Currently looking for budget recommendations as I just want to try and see if things change at all. Searched about 210-t1 since its kind of cheap and within my budget.

any recommendations for usb card?

[0ka]

games only use ~2mbit/sec so i think any NIC will work fine for gaming.
i have internal realtek (idk the exact chip but it's from 2012) and external usb tp-link ue300 nics, both tested with i5-3330 at 1 gigabit speed and disabled RSS (tp-link doesn't support it and only uses 1 core, the same one as usb controller), tp-link tested with default usb 3.0 driver, and they have few differences:
task manager cpu usage while downloading/uploading - realtek 8%/8%, tplink 16%/8%
highest reported dpc routine (dpc spikes) while downloading - no spikes on both
highest reported dpc routine (dpc spikes) while uploading - up to 2200us on realtek, no spikes on tplink
bufferbloat - same on both

[sherifmagdy32]

Do you guys have ang recommendation for a nic ans usb card for gaming? My mobo’s port is buggy (on/off randomly) and have tried updating bios to latest already still same problem. It also has onboard realtek ethernet and I believe intel is better in nic.

Currently looking for budget recommendations as I just want to try and see if things change at all. Searched about 210-t1 since its kind of cheap and within my budget.

any recommendations for usb card?

I was thinking of buying these myself already done a good research and these the best i could find and they are not cheap unfortunately

Ethernet
https://www.amazon.com/NICGIGA-Network- ... WSMV2?th=1

USB
https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-Exp ... B00HJZEA2S
https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-4-P ... 08W58HZ1T/

[wadge]

Why not go for a usb pcie card equiped with a femto clock like this one : https://www.matrix-digi.com/product/22/element_H

It might help to get the best signal for our KB and mouse ?

And for the ethernet controller im thinking of the realtek RTL8125BGS : https://www.realtek.com/en/products/con ... 125bg-s-cg

[Sebichek45]

Why not go for a usb pcie card equiped with a femto clock like this one : https://www.matrix-digi.com/product/22/element_H

It might help to get the best signal for our KB and mouse ?

And for the ethernet controller im thinking of the realtek RTL8125BGS : https://www.realtek.com/en/products/con ... 125bg-s-cg

The one that comes with my mobo is the rtl8125B

[kyube]

I've wanted to long since make a thread about external PCIE USB cards, but I guess I can post my answers here.
From what I've gathered, most non-Intel / non-Ryzen chipset solutions have been wonky at best.

I've got a card with the Renesas uPD720202 with vendor drivers (default MS drivers didn't provide the benefit mentioned below) installed and it is definitely not 1KHz mouse ready, let alone 8KHz. Only 500hz works flawlessly without drops. To be specific, every 256ms it drops a poll, which is basically IMOD.
However, LatencyMon results show a compeletely different picture. For things such as keyboards, USB audio (both input and output), this thing is a beast. No ISR stutters regardless of device I put on it. (Yes, I know LatencyMon isn't reliable to test interrupts and dpclat. A new FOSS solution is on the horizon and should be coming out in the coming months)

MouseTester graphs (yes, I know it's not reliable but it's the only thing we have rn):

uPD720202 w/ latest Renesas 3.0.23.0 drivers on a 8KHz mouse (happens regardless of system due to IMOD)


stock Microsoft drivers


These results have been replicated on 2 different cards (both the Startech USB card and my cheap aliexpress card), on tuned W10 systems with powersaving features disabled.

With IMOD disabled (@8kHz, performs the same as MS stock drivers basically):


With IMOD disabled (@1kHz)


The ASM3142 (USB 3.1) has been on a look-out from my part, which is on a few modern motherboards (such as the EVGA Dark lineup), but I haven't found concrete info about it's polling precision and how it handles interrupts yet.

The FL1100 chipset might also be worth taking a look into, I have one coming soon (they have Windows 10+ drivers, so maybe proper >1kHz support)

A tip I can give is to look out for USB chipsets which have W10 or W11 driver support by the vendor itself, as they've turned down the IMOD from W7's 1ms to W10's 50us.

When it comes to ethernet PCIE cards:
Take a look at
1GBit: i210-t1 (and it's variations) and maybe the 8111H (I haven't tested it extensively with iperf3, but it has much less settings to play around with compared to the aforementioned Intel NIC)
10Gbit: AQC107, intel server NICs

I'd skip 2.5GBit as the 8125B has been shown to have wonky RSS tables implementations. (and I don't know of any other vendor offering 2.5GBit)

All of this info is scattered around discords, sadly how the modern internet works. :/

[howiec]

A new FOSS solution is on the horizon and should be coming out in the coming months)
[...]
The FL1100 chipset might also be worth taking a look into, I have one coming soon.

I've always been curious about dedicated PCIe USB cards but never seriously looked into or tested them because I couldn't find good data out there.

I'm glad that you might have some experience and technical, objective understanding regarding this topic so please bear with me when I ask "noob" questions. =)

• What is the FOSS solution/product that you're referring to?

• Please do let us know how the FL1100 turns out incl. how you tested it (e.g. pertinent test setup details, control variables, measurement) which I'm sure you would probably elaborate on anyways.

Much thanks,
Howie

PS - It sucks that a while ago MS blocked RWEverything's driver so that we can't use it to modify IMOD anymore:
(https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windo ... lock-rules)

I've been a bit busy but there might be a way to modify/override the block list to allow rwdrv.sys to work but from a quick search it seems like the block list has a precedence order.

Pls let me know if you've found an alternative or have been able to bypass this issue on Win 11 Pro (latest build).

EDIT: I actually found a way to disable the MS Vulnerable Driver Blocklist but it seems that RWEverything's driver still gets blocked by Defender or something... so annoying.

[kyube]

A new FOSS solution is on the horizon and should be coming out in the coming months)
[...]
The FL1100 chipset might also be worth taking a look into, I have one coming soon.

I've always been curious about dedicated PCIe USB cards but never seriously looked into or tested them because I couldn't find good data out there.

I'm glad that you might have some experience and technical, objective understanding regarding this topic so please bear with me when I ask "noob" questions. =)

• What is the FOSS solution/product that you're referring to?

• Please do let us know how the FL1100 turns out incl. how you tested it (e.g. pertinent test setup details, control variables, measurement) which I'm sure you would probably elaborate on anyways.

Much thanks,
Howie

PS - It sucks that a while ago MS blocked RWEverything's driver so that we can't use it to modify IMOD anymore:
(https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windo ... lock-rules)

I've been a bit busy but there might be a way to modify/override the block list to allow rwdrv.sys to work but from a quick search it seems like the block list has a precedence order.

Pls let me know if you've found an alternative or have been able to bypass this issue on Win 11 Pro (latest build).

EDIT: I actually found a way to disable the MS Vulnerable Driver Blocklist but it seems that RWEverything's driver still gets blocked by Defender or something... so annoying.

Amit, the creator of https://github.com/amitxv/PC-Tuning is planning on making a LatMon-esque GUI for xperf & WPA to measure DPC latency and interrupts. All of which can be replicated with MS' tools tho (mentioned above), just in a different looking GUI.

About RWE, this tool might be a good alternative (it's a bit perplexing to use so I haven't done much)
https://github.com/Faintsnow/HE

[sherifmagdy32]

A new FOSS solution is on the horizon and should be coming out in the coming months)
[...]
The FL1100 chipset might also be worth taking a look into, I have one coming soon.

I've always been curious about dedicated PCIe USB cards but never seriously looked into or tested them because I couldn't find good data out there.

I'm glad that you might have some experience and technical, objective understanding regarding this topic so please bear with me when I ask "noob" questions. =)

• What is the FOSS solution/product that you're referring to?

• Please do let us know how the FL1100 turns out incl. how you tested it (e.g. pertinent test setup details, control variables, measurement) which I'm sure you would probably elaborate on anyways.

Much thanks,
Howie

PS - It sucks that a while ago MS blocked RWEverything's driver so that we can't use it to modify IMOD anymore:
(https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windo ... lock-rules)

I've been a bit busy but there might be a way to modify/override the block list to allow rwdrv.sys to work but from a quick search it seems like the block list has a precedence order.

Pls let me know if you've found an alternative or have been able to bypass this issue on Win 11 Pro (latest build).

EDIT: I actually found a way to disable the MS Vulnerable Driver Blocklist but it seems that RWEverything's driver still gets blocked by Defender or something... so annoying.

I got RWEverything working on windows 11 by enabling testing mode it started working after that even when it is disabled and i already had windows defender fully disabled if you need the script for disabling and enabling the windows defender to test let me know.

[kyube]

• Please do let us know how the FL1100 turns out incl. how you tested it (e.g. pertinent test setup details, control variables, measurement) which I'm sure you would probably elaborate on anyways.

My FL1100-based card arrived, here are the results:

Card name: ULS-UP3100
System: Win10 LTSC 22H2 (debloated, Bitsum highest performance power plan)
Driver: 3.8.35514.0 (taken from Winraid forums labeled as `Other "pure" Fresco Logic USB3 drivers`)
Driver has been manually installed through devmgmt, as per Winraid guide.

Mousetester graph:
(1kHz spinning in circles, both MS drivers and Fresco Logic drivers resulted in the same graphs)




xperf results:
(spinning in circles, only mouse plugged in and set to 1kHz polling ratescript taken from https://github.com/amitxv/PC-Tuning/tre ... in/scripts labeled as "xperf-dpcisr.bat")

DPC Info:
Total = 5449 for module Wdf01000.sys
Elapsed Time, > 0 usecs AND <= 1 usecs, 243, or 4.46%
Elapsed Time, > 1 usecs AND <= 2 usecs, 75, or 1.38%
Elapsed Time, > 2 usecs AND <= 4 usecs, 3, or 0.06%
Elapsed Time, > 4 usecs AND <= 8 usecs, 0, or 0.00%
Elapsed Time, > 8 usecs AND <= 16 usecs, 3126, or 57.37%
Elapsed Time, > 16 usecs AND <= 32 usecs, 1997, or 36.65%
Elapsed Time, > 32 usecs AND <= 64 usecs, 5, or 0.09%
Total, 5449

Interrupt info:
Total = 5128 for module Wdf01000.sys
Elapsed Time, > 0 usecs AND <= 1 usecs, 5114, or 99.73%
Elapsed Time, > 1 usecs AND <= 2 usecs, 9, or 0.18%
Elapsed Time, > 2 usecs AND <= 4 usecs, 0, or 0.00%
Elapsed Time, > 4 usecs AND <= 8 usecs, 5, or 0.10%
Total, 5128


Sadly, the FL1100 doesn't seem to be using vendor drivers and instead relies upon the wdf0100.sys driver.


In comparison, my Conrad UB108 (startech renesas/nec card performs identical)

uPD720202 xperf results:
(mouse @ 1khz spinning in circles & usb mic plugged in)

DPC Info:
Total = 10286 for module rusb3xhc.sys
Elapsed Time, > 0 usecs AND <= 1 usecs, 0, or 0.00%
Elapsed Time, > 1 usecs AND <= 2 usecs, 4339, or 42.18%
Elapsed Time, > 2 usecs AND <= 4 usecs, 794, or 7.72%
Elapsed Time, > 4 usecs AND <= 8 usecs, 2403, or 23.36%
Elapsed Time, > 8 usecs AND <= 16 usecs, 2727, or 26.51%
Elapsed Time, > 16 usecs AND <= 32 usecs, 22, or 0.21%
Elapsed Time, > 32 usecs AND <= 64 usecs, 1, or 0.01%
Total, 10286

Total = 5143 for module rusb3xhc.sys
Elapsed Time, > 0 usecs AND <= 1 usecs, 5125, or 99.65%
Elapsed Time, > 1 usecs AND <= 2 usecs, 17, or 0.33%
Elapsed Time, > 2 usecs AND <= 4 usecs, 0, or 0.00%
Elapsed Time, > 4 usecs AND <= 8 usecs, 1, or 0.02%
Total, 5143

Conclusion: I can definitely say the Renesas/NEC uPD720202 is great controller for devices such as keyboard and USB audio input || output devices, as separating the mouse & other USB devices on different controllers is optimal. However, it is not a good solution for 8kHz mice.

I've been eyeing the ASM3142 (which seemingly perform similar if not identical to older 1x42 controllers) controller and how it handles interrupts & DPCs, but I doubt it'll offer a better experience.