Disclaimer: I am fully aware that I am mostly ignorant about everything related to this subject, and that it is very likely I would need to buy a new piece of hardware to fix this issue, however I do want to shoot my shot and see if my current hardware can be scrapped together into something functional.
I'm gonna be putting the basic information in bold letters so that its easier to skim, sorry if it is annoying or anything I have a tendency to type too much and I don't want people to get lost :c
Hello there, I am in fact very new and quite incompetent to setting up networking related stuff on my computer- and I have been absolutely struggling to figure this out, so please bare with me as I am very likely not as smart as some of you guys. I have an issue where in order to connect custom hardware to my PC (a VR headset and a set of 10 motion trackers) I need to have the hardware connect to both a 2.4 GHz WiFi connection as well as a 5 GHz WiFi connection simultaneously to my (unfortunately) Windows 11 Pro PC. I have two different unused NICs to work with as my PC is ran with Ethernet (It only has one Ethernet cable unfortunately :c) from my router in an unfortunately really far away place of the house that would add high latency to my setup. For hardware I have a wireless PCIE card (Intel AC 8265, that I can replace with an alternative Intel AX210 but I would have to take it out of my Laptop) as well as a UGREEN USB 3.0 AX900 WiFi 6 adapter. I also have a Netgear AC750 EX3700 range extender to work with in case that might be of assistance. I want the USB adapter to run the 5 GHz channel as I only have 1 device I need to connect to it (The VR headset) while the 2.4 GHz connector ideally ran with the Intel AC 8265. Unfortunately it is the only supported bandwidth for the tracking pucks so it would have to be populated with 10 devices. I am not opposed to trying to figure this out with a cmd or power-shell setup, I am sure there totally is software that has a 7 day free trial that can work with this, but I will kindly pass on paying a subscription for a service I might have the capability of running myself. Curiously- when trying some power-shell commands I got recommended through some random forums that google gave me, the built in windows hot spot option just does not function at all after I ran it. with or without either of my NICs enabled, enduring its broken nature through multiple network hard resets, PC restarts, services.msc adjustments, and even a darn windows registry wipe. it is problematic, yes. but I am still able to run hot spots, it just doesn't work in the settings. I have MyPublicWiFi downloaded and it quite literally works perfectly for setting up a singular hot spot, however even when my windows settings version of a hot spot still worked, it would shut down the windows one after a few seconds. Frustratingly I was capable of seeing BOTH internet connections at the same time but only for a few seconds before one overrode the other, so I know it is entirely possible to keep both of them up, without them interacting or behaving badly- its just that the OS I am unfortunately locked to due to compatibility constraints is afflicted with a terrible illness called being made by Microsoft. I have considered buying a small network switch and making the Netgear range extender into an access point with an additional Ethernet cable leading into it while lining the other side into my PC- but it would require some additional work to function as best as it can. I am mostly only aware of the very basics of networking and aside from that, the fact that you can use different channels for 2.4 GHz to lower latency further. I'm not asking for anything insane, I just don't want to have like 240 ms response time from my headset to my PC while playing Blade and Sorcery. probably gonna shoot for similar latency to my trackers so around 20-40 ms in the 'perfect ideal' scenario while not having to be wired in with a link cable. (which causes its own issues for me unfortunately)
Thanks for reading, once again, sorry that I'm not super knowledgeable about this stuff. I have no intention on coming off as 'reaching for unattainable goals' or anything, I just would like some guidance on where to go with what I already have. Thanks.