Wi-Fi lag

Wi-Fi lag, which is very often confused with frame delay, is a drop in the FPS (frames per second) of a game due to a slow or inconsistent connection. Wi-Fi lag is very common for Super Smash Bros. Brawl and semi-common for Super Smash Bros. when emulated on Project64k or Dolphin. Wi-Fi lag can be a result of multiple things, such as:

• A naturally slow connection, such as a dial-up connection.
• A wireless connection, such as by a laptop, automatically causes a small FPS drop every so often on Project64k and Dolphin.
• Other programs are using the connection, such as someone else in the house downloading a large file.

Wi-Fi lag is a very trodden-upon part of Brawl, and is often cited as one of its worst aspects. One reason that Brawl's lag differs from games with minimal visual Wi-Fi lag such as the Mario Kart series is that in such games a system can predict other player's positions while it waits for the next update — a half-second of lag is perfectly playable. In the Super Smash Bros. series, the system requires the exact position and action of every element of gameplay before it can do anything; as this must be done 60 times every second, tiny amounts of lag have a massive effect.