What matters most is polling behavior. A keyboard at 125 Hz might feel tolerable. A 1000 Hz gaming mouse over USB/IP often feels weird even when ping looks fine, because jitter matters more than raw latency. That’s why people test it, see “only 3 ms added,” and still hate it.
If you want free, use the free options only as a filter:
- good for checking whether your network can handle the device
- not good for assuming long-term stability
For actual use, USB Network Gate is usually the practical upgrade path.
Pros of USB Network Gate
- free forever per 1 device, you pay only if you want more devices (up to 10 in paid version)
- generally more stable session handling
- simpler setup than most open-source options
- better for controllers, dongles, utility devices
- less fiddly when reconnecting after sleep/reboot
Cons
- still not ideal for competitive mouse input
- performance still depends heavily on your LAN quality
My take:
- controller on gigabit Ethernet: worth trying
- racing wheel / HOTAS: maybe
- mouse for shooters: skip it
- anti-cheat-sensitive games: be careful, weird USB layers can cause headaches
If you had drops, I’d suspect power saving on USB hubs or NIC settings before blaming only the app.