Should You Turn WMM On or Off For Gaming?

When choosing to spend some time gaming online, it is massively important that you have everything set up as best as possible. It’s such a competitive arena that if you overlook one little detail, you can hand the advantage to your opponent. 

Sure, the first thing you should always ensure is that you have the highest possible speed connection to the internet that you can. Naturally, the next thing is that you should make sure that this connection is always stable and doesn’t drop out. 

Without these two things, you are forever going to be the victim of lagging and all sorts of other issues that can totally ruin the whole experience for you. Really, the best way to ensure that all of this is in order is that you are using the right gear. Even with that, it is always way better to connect to your internet using an Ethernet connection.

But, seeing as the world of gaming is always evolving at a rate that seems to be much quicker than pretty much anything else, there is always the chance that you may have missed something. Now, we’re not talking about neat tricks like overclocking or anything like that. 

No, today, we are here to get to grips with a simple setting that not many seem to know about. Of course, we are talking about Wi-Fi Multimedia, or WMM for short. In this little article, we’re going to explain what it is and whether or not you should have it switched on while you are gaming. So, without further ado, let’s get stuck right into it!

So, what exactly is WMM?.. Should You Turn WMM On or Off For Gaming?..

As we mentioned briefly above, the acronym WMM stands for Wi-Fi Multimedia. But, what you may not have known is that every router that supports a Wi-Fi 4(802.1) internet connection will most definitely have this feature. 

In specific, these types of routers are associated with Netgear routers. Essentially, what they do is they allow you to customize a whole load of settings (including GUI) so that you can pretty much control everything that your router does. Great, if you know how to make use of it. 

To add another advantage, WMM also allows you to prioritize network traffic as you see fit in order to improve the performance of various applications. Let’s say for example that you are really into streaming content on the internet. So much so that it has become your primary usage of it. 

If this is the case, you can set the WMM to enhance the speed in order to improve the quality of both your video and audio. Basically, it just ups the quality of everything! But, this does not necessarily mean that it is ideal for gaming. We will get into that right now!

Should I Switch on WMM for Gaming?

Streaming content is well and good when it comes to enhanced video and audio qualities. But, as it turns out, there is a bit of a payoff that you have to consider. With the WMM on, a lot of attention will be devoted to improving these aspects. 

But that extra oomph has to be coming from somewhere, right? Well, as it turns out, turning on WMM will have negative effects on both your download speeds and your uplink speeds. Sure, the image quality might be improved, but for most, this is a price not worth paying. 

So, knowing what we know, our best advice would be to always leave the WMM off while you are using your Wi-Fi for gaming purposes. However, there is a chance that this feature is already on without you even knowing about it. 

If you have even the slightest suspicion that this is the case, we would recommend that you go into your router settings and disable it. While you are there, we would also recommend disabling the QoS (Quality of Service) if it is on. This will be sure to give you the best possible gaming experience you can have with your current set up. 

If you are wondering why exactly we have decided to say that off is best, consider that the average game also needs to download and upload a large amount of information in the blink of an eye for it to work right. 

So, if your WMM is too busy focusing on the aesthetics and the audio quality, you are going to end up feeling a little more sluggish than you normally would, in game. 

The Last Word

So, we hope that you found this little piece on WMM informative as you made the decision whether to keep it on or off. While we are here, if any of you would advise the opposite of this article, we would love to hear why in the comments section. We think we have this one right, but we are always interested in hearing an opposing take. Thanks!