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Setting up a home gaming network

El Greco

Summer worshipper
El Greco
Joined
Nov 11, 2003
Messages
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So I'd like to connect two PCs. The first one is wired via Ethernet to a wireless router/modem (this means that I'm not currently using the wireless capabilities of the router). It's a 802.11b/g device with 54MBps speed. The second one has an Ethernet adapter. There's also another spare wireless modem/router. The question is whether I should go wired or wireless.

If I go wired I should get a switch. I suppose I could connect the router directly to the second PC too (since it has two Ethernet ports) but I'd also like to allow the option for a visiting laptop to connect, so I guess I should get a switch.

To go wireless I should get for the second PC either a) a PCI wireless card, b) a USB wireless adapter or c) an Ethernet-to-Wireless adapter.

Both computers run XP and the distance between them will be no more than 7-8 meters (23-26ft).

Now, would the wireless be good enough for gaming ? If yes, I'd prefer the ease of the USB adapter, but is it as good as the PCI card ?
 
I think that if you're transferring huge amounts of data around then wired is better than wireless - but gaming doesn't use huge amounts of data. Most multiplayer games are playable over the internet which is still good deal slower than any modern wireless network . In my opinion, you'll be fine with wireless.
It's pretty easy to set up these days as well.

On the choice between USB/internal cards, I don't think it really matters. If you get an internal card try to get one that has the antenna on the end of a decent length of wire - it's my experience that being able to get the antenna up high makes a big difference to connection speed and reliability (which depends on where your router is, I suppose.)

(I have a USB wireless adaptor on one PC and a PCI wireless adaptor on the other - there's no difference between them, performancewise)
 
Last edited:
El Greco said:
So I'd like to connect two PCs. The first one is wired via Ethernet to a wireless router/modem (this means that I'm not currently using the wireless capabilities of the router). It's a 802.11b/g device with 54MBps speed. The second one has an Ethernet adapter. There's also another spare wireless modem/router. The question is whether I should go wired or wireless.

If I go wired I should get a switch. I suppose I could connect the router directly to the second PC too (since it has two Ethernet ports) but I'd also like to allow the option for a visiting laptop to connect, so I guess I should get a switch.

To go wireless I should get for the second PC either a) a PCI wireless card, b) a USB wireless adapter or c) an Ethernet-to-Wireless adapter.

Both computers run XP and the distance between them will be no more than 7-8 meters (23-26ft).

Now, would the wireless be good enough for gaming ? If yes, I'd prefer the ease of the USB adapter, but is it as good as the PCI card ?
Click to expand...

My experience has generally been... well, it depends. There are a few problems with wireless and if you can deal with them, then it's a perfectly reasonable way to go.

First, wireless networks are half duplex. Two people on the network cannot transmit at the same time, they have to take turns. Now don't think half duplex necessarily means half speed (it doesn't) but it does generally have a noticeable impact on ping time.

Second, realize that participating members in a wireless network are regularly performing link retraining. That is, they're making sure they can maintain the best possible transmission rate by checking the signal quality and character. This isn't a huge overhead, but it isn't zero.

Along the lines of the above, wireless access points regularly broadcast their SSID.

Next, if you already have something with wireless, do a local scan at your house. The numbers of APs that show up gives you an idea of the lower bound of the number of people you'll be sharing those frequencies with. 5 years ago at my house I was the only one; now there are 12. (I think this is more a theoretical consideration: even though there are now 12 other APs around me, and my phone uses 2.4GHz as well, I still seem to get okay transfer rates)

Lastly, there is security. If you WPA-enable your Wireless Access Point, you have to administer that and remember how to administer it. If you don't, you're just asking for trouble. In my case I ran an open AP for four years. If one of my neighbors jumped on, I didn't really care as long as they weren't soaking my bandwidth. Then the teenaged kid across the street discovered the gnutella network. Well, that was the end of the open access point. WPA is often implemented in the wireless driver; meaning your CPU is used for the encryption. This may be of no concern with todays processors.

Now if you go USB there is another thing you should know. USB is also a half-duplex protocol. And worse than that, USB is a strictly host-driven protocol. Meaning that there is only one bus master: the host. Nobody gets to say anything on the bus without the host addressing them by name (endpoint) first.

Anyway, what all of this longwinded blabbering means is... There is a noticeable increase in ping when playing over wireless. It's less than over the internet, but people who do these things regularly have decidedly different expectations of LAN connections versus internet connections. Your mileage may vary.
 
What is the actual equipment you have got? How far apart are the PCs? How many ports has the router got?

Wireless still seems to be slow for transferring large files, even with the claimed 54Mbs. Also, make sure you lock up the wireless access, don't leave it open for hackers or freeloaders.
 
Wavicle said:
My experience has generally been... well, it depends. There are a few problems with wireless and if you can deal with them, then it's a perfectly reasonable way to go.

First, wireless networks are half duplex. Two people on the network cannot transmit at the same time, they have to take turns. Now don't think half duplex necessarily means half speed (it doesn't) but it does generally have a noticeable impact on ping time.

Second, realize that participating members in a wireless network are regularly performing link retraining. That is, they're making sure they can maintain the best possible transmission rate by checking the signal quality and character. This isn't a huge overhead, but it isn't zero.

Along the lines of the above, wireless access points regularly broadcast their SSID.

Next, if you already have something with wireless, do a local scan at your house. The numbers of APs that show up gives you an idea of the lower bound of the number of people you'll be sharing those frequencies with. 5 years ago at my house I was the only one; now there are 12. (I think this is more a theoretical consideration: even though there are now 12 other APs around me, and my phone uses 2.4GHz as well, I still seem to get okay transfer rates)

Lastly, there is security. If you WPA-enable your Wireless Access Point, you have to administer that and remember how to administer it. If you don't, you're just asking for trouble. In my case I ran an open AP for four years. If one of my neighbors jumped on, I didn't really care as long as they weren't soaking my bandwidth. Then the teenaged kid across the street discovered the gnutella network. Well, that was the end of the open access point. WPA is often implemented in the wireless driver; meaning your CPU is used for the encryption. This may be of no concern with todays processors.

Now if you go USB there is another thing you should know. USB is also a half-duplex protocol. And worse than that, USB is a strictly host-driven protocol. Meaning that there is only one bus master: the host. Nobody gets to say anything on the bus without the host addressing them by name (endpoint) first.

Anyway, what all of this longwinded blabbering means is... There is a noticeable increase in ping when playing over wireless. It's less than over the internet, but people who do these things regularly have decidedly different expectations of LAN connections versus internet connections. Your mileage may vary.
Click to expand...

Thanks a lot! After reading this I think I'll remain wired for a while. A cable lying around when friends come by is not that much of a nuisance :) Better wait for that 802.11n to mature...
 
All my internal computers in my computer room are wired using a 1Gb/s switch. These are pretty cheap now a days.

My upstairs computers (includes my Tivo and an iPod dock with Internet radio option) are also wired together. The two are then joined wirelessly with a WPA encrypted 802.11g connection.

Outside of my personal network is an Airport Express with no encryption that visitors or neighbors can use all they want. If a visitor needs an encrypted connection I can set them up on my wireless network.

I would go wired as much as conveniently possible. 1 Gbps switches are cheap and way faster than wireless.
 
kevin, just out of curiosity, how do the boxes connected to the switch share the Internet ? Is there a router ? A cable modem ?
 
El Greco said:
kevin, just out of curiosity, how do the boxes connected to the switch share the Internet ? Is there a router ? A cable modem ?
Click to expand...



Code: 
                              |--- Internal Network router
DSL Modem --- 100 Mbps Switch + -- Internet Server
                              |--- Open wireless

My ISP gives me 3 dedicated IP addresses
 
If the router has ports for wires and you are using a switch couldn't you just plug the switch's uplink port into the router?
Would the router then be able to provide DHCP and internet sharing with all machines plugged into the switch?

The reason I ask is that I have an 8 port 10/100 switch with a Linux box acting as router. It has two Nics one goes direct to the cable modem and the other plugs into the switch where it provides routing and DHCP for everything on the switch.

I would like to ditch the box for a simple wireless router. This reduces power consumption and provides wireless for friends.

It should work right?
 
jimlintott said:
If the router has ports for wires and you are using a switch couldn't you just plug the switch's uplink port into the router?
Would the router then be able to provide DHCP and internet sharing with all machines plugged into the switch?

The reason I ask is that I have an 8 port 10/100 switch with a Linux box acting as router. It has two Nics one goes direct to the cable modem and the other plugs into the switch where it provides routing and DHCP for everything on the switch.

I would like to ditch the box for a simple wireless router. This reduces power consumption and provides wireless for friends.

It should work right?
Click to expand...

Oh my network gets much more complicated than what i've shown, that's pretty much what you see from the internet side.

The internet server is my public web server and e-mail server.
The open wireless is just a wireless connection for anyone in my neighborhood to use.
All MY computers are behind that internal network router.

The internal network router is ALSO wireless and wired. it has 4 wired ports and can do 802.11b/g wireless. This is my personal wireless. It has WPA encryption enabled and is much more protected. It's also a print server, but I haven't setup that part of it yet.

I think you're interested in the internal network branch of my setup.

This is my main router:
http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=0&pid=274

In a more normal home situation I would plug it's WAN link directly into dsl modem. Then all my computers would either plug into the wired connections (if they were nearby) or connect wirelessly -- forming a local LAN behind the router.

The one router can replace the box you have, and probably do as much as you'll ever want with the box you use now (you can even VPN into the router from the internet, handy if you travel.)

It might even be overkill. If you don't need the VPN or the printer sharing but wanted faster speeds you could go with:
http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=0&pid=530

That provides 802.11 N (Draft) AND the wired ports are gigabit ports. I don't quite trust 802.11 N yet (since the spec is still in Draft) but it should do 802.11b/g just fine.
 
I have had a lot of problems in the not so early days of wireless with incompatible brands and firmware that needed to be reset every so often.

Once, all I did was turn on a Belkin piece of equipment, and a Linksys router died, and that was only a year or so ago. There was a patch, but....
 
I would expect problems from different brands of 802.11n products because the spec isn't finished, but for 802.11b/g I haven't had problems. Currently I have a Mac connected to my D-Link, plus a Belkin traveling router acting as a bridge from a wired switch to my D-Link router.

The open wireless hub I have is an Apple Airport Express and I regularly connect Toshiba and Dell laptops to it.
 
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