Connecting direct to router through ethernet cable is it quicker? and need help.

[#1]

Right...
So, errr, some basic networking stuff here.
Traffic only needs to go via a router when the traffic is going to another subnet, for most home users that in effect means, when the traffic is bound for the internet.
Switches are not hubs, hubs are no longer produced, but what hubs did was retransmit everything it received to everything else, whether it was needed or not, in effect a hub always broadcast all traffic, however, the world and dog has switched to switches, a switch only transmits data down a particular wire if there is a device on the end of the wire that needs that data.
Switches are very fast, and cause very little latency (delay) to the extent that on a local network that latency (delay) can be discounted.  Switches do have a maximum amount of data they can handle in any one moment, but on a home network it is almost inconceivable that that would be reached.
However latency, should NOT be confused with speed.  Even if the switch introduced a massive latency of say 1 second it would still be perfectly normal to see the two devices talking to each other at the full network bandwidth (bandwidth = maximum speed of traffic).
Most home routers also act as switches (which is where some confusion comes from since people think the router is routing local traffic when it is not) although some don't and a router that had no switching capability would still be a router.
And, again whilst I am not wireless expert, I can see no logical reason why a wireless PC talking directly to a 2nd wireless PC would be any slower than a wireless PC talking to a Wireless Access Point (again most home routers are also WAP devices, but not all are, and a router without WAP abilities would still be a router) which then talks to a switch, which then talks to a wired PC.  The only reason I can think for why direct wireless conections would be slower would be if the WAP insists on intermediating, i.e. not allowed the wireless devices to talk to each other direct (but we'd need a wireless expert to illuminate on that subject).
So in effect, when two wired devices talk to each other, you can view it as they are talking to each other directly, and at first design principles of IP, that is actually what the devices themselves presume.  The whole idea of IP is that any device on your local subnet (that for most home users means any device connected in the home) is directly addressable.

Quote from: A

The router is needed to do the routing. Everything goes via the router.

No traffic on your local network needs or even can be routed.  Please don't confuse routing and switching.

[#2]

Correction - all traffic may need routing.
A switch can handle local traffic, a router is needed to handle traffic destined for the internet.
When wireless sends a packet to the access point, no other wireless device can transmit or receive.
So the access point will forward the packet to the destination, blocking activity by the source.
This means that wifi speeds are, optimistically, only half of the maximum (each end has to confirm correct receipt of data).
Replacing half of the connection with a non-wifi connection allows the lowest speed connection (wifi) to operate at its maximum rate.
I once tried FTP (wirelessly) between two PC's - using ip addresses - I estimate I was getting less than 1Mbps
I now do backups to a cheapo "NAS" device attached to the router with ethernet over wifi - I get speeds of around 10Mbps - which is poor but just usable.

[#3]

Remember also that Ethernet is full duplex, and Wireless and Homeplug devices are half duplex (simplex).
100Mb Ethernet can send and receive simultaneously at 100Mb.
85Mb Homeplugs can send OR receive data at 42.5Mb, and after overheads the best case is clearly going to be a LOT lower than the 85Mb the packaging and naming can appear to imply.
And as Mr F says, wireless network card can only speak to one device at a time. Yes, the principle is that it may support up to x devices, but it just supports that number of sequential connections that it rotates through pretty quickly.
Fine for web browsing etc, but when transferring large files, the wireless card still has to rotate between sending, receiving and checking for other devices.
If the device you are transferring TO or FROM is connected by Ethernet, the wireless device is only rotating between checking for new devices, and sending/receiving to one other device - so the throughput should be quite a bit better.
But it will still be rubbish compared with Ethernet.
44D - None of this invalidates what you say, indeed your post should have enlightened a few folks - I just think you missed the logic of what AFIE was saying about WiFi cards.

[#4]

Quote from: James_G

Remember also that Ethernet is full duplex, and Wireless and Homeplug devices are half duplex (simplex). 100Mb Ethernet can send and receive simultaneously at 100Mb.

You are right about simplex/duplex, I didnt mention it because I had understood that most 100mb devices were simplex, perhaps this is outdated now but when 1000mb devices first started being introduced into small/medium size business the fact that it was always duplex was a selling point over 100mb devices, 1GB wasn't 10x faster, it was 20x times!

Quote from: James_G

85Mb Homeplugs can send OR receive data at 42.5Mb, and after overheads the best case is clearly going to be a LOT lower than the 85Mb the packaging and naming can appear to imply.

Surely a 85Mb Homeplug (all other things being perfect) can transmit OR receive at 85mb?

Quote from: James_G

the principle is that it may support up to x devices, but it just supports that number of sequential connections that it rotates through pretty quickly. Fine for web browsing etc, but when transferring large files, the wireless card still has to rotate between sending, receiving and checking for other devices. If the device you are transferring TO or FROM is connected by Ethernet, the wireless device is only rotating between checking for new devices, and sending/receiving to one other device - so the throughput should be quite a bit better.

That explains a lot, as I was saying, the actual mechanism used for wireless networks was beyond the limits of my knowledge, and now it makes perfect sense that device to device traffic would be way off the theoretical maximums.

[#5]

My Oh My! I never realised a question out of innocent inquisitiveness would raise a threads post count so much.;D

[#6]

Quote from: fourfourdevon

it makes perfect sense that device to device traffic would be way off the theoretical maximums.

And that's before you start looking at interference in what is an "unregulated" part of the spectrum..........
And remember, while the 2.4GHz band has a nominal 13 channels available, in reality the chosen channel is just the centre of a 3-channel spread.
Anyone using wireless will be "amused" to run a tool like inSSIDer and see what's really going on, and that will only pick up computer networks. Video senders and the like on the same fequencies won't even show up, just obfuscate your signal.

[#7]

These homplugs and wifi are given nominal speeds by salesmen.
Reasoning(?)
Raw wifi data rate 27Mb send or 27Mb receive - so 27 + 27 = 54Mbits - even though only one of these is possible.
Add in a fair bit of control overhead
Add in all that encryption overhead.
If the signal is weak, knock some more off.
So 54g is actually 11Mb, at best.

[#8]

Quote from: A

So 54g is actually 11Mb, at best.

I beat that regularly.  
My ADSL2+ syncs at about 20mbps and I can pretty much max that out over 54g wireless links (from another room) in download tests.

[#9]

Quote from: fourfourdevon

Quote from: James_G 85Mb Homeplugs can send OR receive data at 42.5Mb, and after overheads the best case is clearly going to be a LOT lower than the 85Mb the packaging and naming can appear to imply. Surely a 85Mb Homeplug (all other things being perfect) can transmit OR receive at 85mb?

http://www.solwise.co.uk/downloads/files/solwise-homeplug-comparison.pdf
Solwise admit in their tech specs that an 85Mbps homeplug actually supports a Max of 40Mbps, and a typical throughput of 15-20Mbps
The dangers of letting marketeers get involved in deciding on product names...

[#10]

I have wired router combined modem/router/switch (DG834) and  a separate WAP (WG602 v2). Does the WAP act as a switch so that wireless PC to wireless PC traffic goes nowhere near the router combined modem/router/switch?
Edit: Corrected for the pedants

[#11]

Kinda, in so much as the traffic is never seen by the router (or more precisely the switch contained in the device known as a router), but, the WAP doesn't act like a traditional switch in of itself, indeed, it more than halves your potential throughput just by being there, whereas a traditional switch will at worst make things no slower and at best speed them up quite considerably.

[#12]

The biggest difference will be when you have more than 2 attached devices I think. Am I correct in thinking that even the most basic of switches (including those on ADSL "routers") can handle simultaneous traffic at full speed (e.g. with 4 PCs you could have two simultaneous 100Mb PC to PC transfers)?
WAP obviously falls off badly when there are multiple 'simultaneous' transfers as there can only be one active at a time so the transfers are interleaved.

[#13]

Yes 

[#14]

yes