This paper presents a detailed packet-level simulation comparing four multi-hop wireless ad hoc network routing protocols: DSDV, TORA, DSR, and AODV. The simulation was conducted using an extended version of the ns-2 network simulator, which accurately models the MAC and physical-layer behavior of the IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN standard, including a realistic wireless transmission channel model. The simulation involved networks of 50 mobile nodes moving in a rectangular space of 1500m × 300m for 900 seconds. The results show that DSR and AODV-LL perform particularly well, delivering over 95% of the data packets regardless of mobility rate. DSDV-SQ fails to converge at pause times less than 300 seconds. The four routing protocols impose vastly different amounts of overhead, with DSR having the least overhead and TORA having the most. Routing overhead is an important metric for comparing these protocols, as it measures scalability, performance in congested or low-bandwidth environments, and efficiency in terms of consuming node battery power. The packet delivery ratio is important as it describes the loss rate that will be seen by the transport protocols, which in turn affects the maximum throughput that the network can support. The results show that DSR and AODV-LL have the highest packet delivery ratios, while TORA's performance drops significantly with higher network loads. The paper also discusses the implementation details of each protocol and the factors that influence their performance.This paper presents a detailed packet-level simulation comparing four multi-hop wireless ad hoc network routing protocols: DSDV, TORA, DSR, and AODV. The simulation was conducted using an extended version of the ns-2 network simulator, which accurately models the MAC and physical-layer behavior of the IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN standard, including a realistic wireless transmission channel model. The simulation involved networks of 50 mobile nodes moving in a rectangular space of 1500m × 300m for 900 seconds. The results show that DSR and AODV-LL perform particularly well, delivering over 95% of the data packets regardless of mobility rate. DSDV-SQ fails to converge at pause times less than 300 seconds. The four routing protocols impose vastly different amounts of overhead, with DSR having the least overhead and TORA having the most. Routing overhead is an important metric for comparing these protocols, as it measures scalability, performance in congested or low-bandwidth environments, and efficiency in terms of consuming node battery power. The packet delivery ratio is important as it describes the loss rate that will be seen by the transport protocols, which in turn affects the maximum throughput that the network can support. The results show that DSR and AODV-LL have the highest packet delivery ratios, while TORA's performance drops significantly with higher network loads. The paper also discusses the implementation details of each protocol and the factors that influence their performance.