We tested the Killer Xeno Pro playing Team Fortress 2 and World of Warcraft while simultaneously downloading files from a Torrent client to see how the card managed packets and if we were going to have either some gain or less interference while playing. We used the free software FRAPS utility to measure the framerate and put the values against those generated by our own on-board network card.

It’s important to point out that this test is subject to lots of uncontrollable variables. Online game elements are mutable – number of players in a server, amount and intensity of the action etc – so no test is ever the same. Still, in the case of Team Fortress 2, we played on the same crowded server and tried to be at the thick of the action to gather the framerate and latency values.

The framerate improved overall with the card on, both when we played the game without downloading anything and when running the Torrent client. We got a 5 to 6 FPS improvement on both counts, going from 120 to 126 FPS and from 118 to 123 FPS, respectively. We had better results on latency as we usually play on some overseas servers that usually kick us out when we go over their ping limit (either 200 or 300 ms, depending on their mood). Even with a 500 MB file being downloaded we manage to keep on playing without being shown the door (although we almost broke the limits), something impossible with the regular on-board card. Kudos to the Killer Xeno Pro.

World of Warcraft was harder to test because our player character, the mighty Ogrum (Warrior 38), is only a middle-level character. We had to borrow a friend’s account with some much higher-level characters to go to some crowed and more dangerous (i.e., with more action) areas of the game world. Framerate value kept to a steady 70 FPS with either the Killer Xeno Pro on (simultaneously downloading or not) or the on-board card. We had an overall latency improvement of 10 ms with the BigFoot Networks device.

None of the tests revealed a life-or-death improvement or even such an advancement to leave us flabbergasted. We got a better result with Team Fortress 2 because we usually play on overseas servers that are really strict about player latency. We stopped being kicked out with the Killer Xeno Pro. Although the results are not spectacular – a bad connection will always be a bad connection, there’s no magic wand to change that – the gaming network card delivered. Still, it begs the question to whom might get a better value out of it. The casual player will not feel an advance in performance and may not even notice the small gain in framerate and latency. It’s only useful if you really, really need to download something during game time.