Santa bought me a router :P

[Video]

Heh, like the topic says, I got a router for christmas. Long ago, I got on live, back in the old original X-box days, but that was at a different place we had fully wired. Now everything is wireless, so this christmass I got a wireless router. One that's actually called a gaming router (like that means a damn thing, I'm sure )

 

But....I have literally never set anyting like this up before. I don't know anything about it. My computers all had the stuff built in and just asked for passwords to get on the network, other than that, my wii, but eh....yeah.

 

Is there anything special to setting this up? Do I have to use the eithernet port, or can I hook it up USB? Will the Xbox talke to it through bluetooth or something? Is there a spacific language or whatever to talke to it in? Anyhow, other than that, I may just try to hook it up and push buttons, that's how I do everything else (and sometimes it doesn't work but eh...)

 

Other than that, what exactly can I do with it? I know the 360 can supposedly talk to the computer, for what? can I copy my saves to a PC? Or will it just load music or videos (not that I'll do to much of that, I only got a 20G drive) Can I still get demo games without a live account, or do I have to get a card? Same for games, can I play games online as is, or do I need to get a card for that too?

 

Anyhow, thanks for any info.

[godslabrat]

Is there anything special to setting this up? Do I have to use the eithernet port, or can I hook it up USB? Will the Xbox talke to it through bluetooth or something? Is there a spacific language or whatever to talke to it in? Anyhow, other than that, I may just try to hook it up and push buttons, that's how I do everything else (and sometimes it doesn't work but eh...)

 

Other than that, what exactly can I do with it? I know the 360 can supposedly talk to the computer, for what? can I copy my saves to a PC? Or will it just load music or videos (not that I'll do to much of that, I only got a 20G drive) Can I still get demo games without a live account, or do I have to get a card? Same for games, can I play games online as is, or do I need to get a card for that too?

 

I know you don't want to hear this, but if you can hook up your stuff using wired connections, DO IT! I cannot stress enough how much hassle you will save yourself if you can somehow find a way to run a cat-5 connection to your router. WiFi is great for web browsing and IMing, but for gaming related stuff, wired is the way to go. Gaming really taxes your connection, and wired is the best way to ensure speed and reliability. Plus, you probably won't move your xbox around much, so once you get the wiring hassle done once, you'll probably never have to worry about it.

 

*Sigh* Now, having said that, you're probably still hell-bent on doing this wireless. Okay, first of all, you'll need to secure your connection. Use WPA. It used to be that WEP+MAC filtering was enough to keep the riffraff from poaching your connection, but now those two methods (even combined) are so easy to crack that it's not worth it to even use them. You should be able to set up everything by accessing the settings on your router through your webbrowser (the manual will tell you how to access them, usually by navigating to something like 192.168.1.1). There's no special language, it's just a web-based form. Some might offer a "setup" disk... use it if you want, I choose not to. I'd prefer to know exactly what I'm doing to the router when I set it up.

 

I don't know if you can copy game saves to a PC, but I know if you have tons of Windows Media Center features on your PC, you can stream music and movies from your PC to your 360.

[cybercylon]

Seconded for going wired for your 360 and PC. Cat5 cabling isn't that expensive, and it is simply more reliable. For devices that provide services, I give them static IP addresses.... i.g, your router is 192.168.1.1 so you PC can be 192.168.1.2, the 360 192.168.1.3. You may need to add your IP's DNS servers if you go that route. That way, if something acts up, I know what IP address it has. For your wireless devices, you can tell your router to start giving them out at say 192.168.1.100. Your Wii... probably okay to leave wireless and let your router assign it an IP address. Don't waste your money on the USB dongle that lets you wire it to your router.

Edited December 29, 2009 by cybercylon

[moycon]

I just plugged my DSL phone cable into the router and then set up the router to connect to the DSL provider (put in the passwords etc...) I hard wire everything to the ethernet ports on the router (360, PC etc...)and set up WEP connections for the wireless (Wii, PS3) and let the router assign all the IPs. I don't static IP anything.

[+RevEng]

I have to second godslabrat's recommendation to use WPA instead of WEP.

 

I crack WEP for sport, and on an active network it only takes a few minutes to get the keys. MAC filtering does little good, and not broadcasting your SSID does nothing.

 

To someone with half a clue, WEP encryption is equivalent to keeping your network open.

[godslabrat]

Your Wii... probably okay to leave wireless and let your router assign it an IP address. Don't waste your money on the USB dongle that lets you wire it to your router.

 

FWIW, I wired my Wii as well. I don't see the USB dongle as a waste of money AT ALL. YMMV, of course.

 

In my house, the only wireless devices are two computers that can't be wired and my iPhone. For every device in which there was SOME way to reasonably run cable, I did so.

 

Still not sure what to do with the DSes, since they don't support WPA... but then again, it's been so long since I've used the DS online from my own house that I'm not sure it's worth worrying about.

[Tr3vor]

wireless is gaming's most horrible laggish nightmare. i tried the difference between wired and wirless with my laptop and wired wins.

[JamesD]

You said gaming router. If it's a DLINK I suggest you go to the online forums and look at how much trouble people are having with them.

I have a DLINK "Gaming Router" and the stupid thing will crash at random. It used to be pretty stable but someone screwed it up and it's been a PITA ever since the update.

If it gives you ANY trouble I'd seriously consider returning it and getting something else while you can.

[Tom-Lynx]

I have wireless gaming adapters on 4 consoles and don't have any problems at all.

 

What is the model of router you got?

[hex65000]

As everyone else has said, if you can go to hard wires v/s wireless, do that. It's less complex to set up, faster, and more secure than wireless. Not to mention, once it's in place, you'll rarely have to mess with it at all.

 

However, with wireless you do have some options. In my case, the router lives on the top floor of the house near the DSL modem and my ancient print server, but my game machines live on the first floor on the opposite end of the house. I _COULD_ run cat5 through the walls of a house built in the 1940s or earlier, or perhaps outside through two windows would be easier.

 

I'm thinking... no. :v]

 

Since my wife loves roaming around the house with her Mac on wireless, I've had a wireless router for a while. I'm a fan of Linksys generally, and the web interface you use to configure the routers are pretty solid. Also, make sure you do a firmware update on your router and if you're pretty tech savvy check for updates every 6-9months. Sometimes this will fix a few problems that you may care about or won't affect anything. I do typically like my semi-secure devices at least somewhat up to date.

 

Use WPA. The only real downside to this is that you can't connect your DS (fat/lite) to the Internet without extra hardware. Not critical, but something to be aware of. I think the DSi supports WPA though.

 

Now, back to my setup issue. I really don't do a lot of multiplaer online, and attach my XBox360 for my amusement mostly. I also didn't want to shell out the crazy money for their overpriced, half-baked wireless adapter. Instead, I took that crazy money and bought this: D-Link DAP1522 It has worked for me reasonably well, but it is a pain to get set up and running. I had to do a bit of research to get everything configured and talking correctly. the upshot is that now I can hook up pretty much anything that requires a cat-5 connection, including some of my other wired game systems.

 

Hex.

[ Went tangenting on some anime videos on Amazon for the heck of it... ]

[Hyper_Eye]

I use the MS adapter and connect to my Linksys WRT54GL that I have running DD-WRT (a custom Linux firmware.) I also use a wireless-to-ethernet bridge on the Xbox and PS2. For the Wii I use the builtin wireless. They all work great. I stream movies, music, downloads, and play games over the connection. My wireless has latency equivalent to my wired connection when using the internet and my wireless connection is a good deal faster than my internet connection and that of anyone else here. They would not know the difference if they were playing a game with me.

 

If your antenna are not powerful enough to provide a good signal replace them with high-gain directional antenna. Routers come with omni-directional antenna that provide signal in all directions that gets weak within a smaller radius than that of a directional antenna. Many routers have two antennas so you could provide signal in two directions or use one omni-directional and one directional. Also, if you run Windows download inSSIDer to monitor the wireless signals that are within the area of your wireless adapter. Look at the channels they are on and how strong their signals are. Sticking to one of the legal non-overlapping channels (1, 6, and 11) find the one that has the least number of foreign signals on it taking into account the strength of those other signals. Keep in mind that a stronger signal is going to provide more interference than a weak one. So two very weak signals is not going to interfere as much as one very strong signal. Also keep in mind that deviating away from a non-overlapping channel opens the possibility that you will have interference from channels across a broader range of channels. One of the non-overlapping channels is almost always best.

 

Once you have optimally configured your connection and ensured that you can receive a strong signal you will find that using the wireless connection works just as well as using a wired one. I use my consoles all the way on the other side of my house from my router but due to my optimization they work great and I go online with them all the time as well as stream high quality movies without interruption. The problem is blindly setting up your wireless and expecting it to work perfectly. Take the time to get it right. Once you have it set up correctly you shouldn't have to mess with it much. Someone above said a benefit to wired is not having to mess with it. I never have to mess with my wireless. It works great.

 

I have a large network with many components including desktops, voip adapters, and servers. I have a 24-port switch for wired connections and I use a lot of those ports. But I don't want to run cat5 all the way across my house. I have done it before and when I moved into this house I vowed to get my wireless set up to where that would not be necessary. I have achieved that. Don't listen to the naysayers because you can to.

[+RevEng]

But I don't want to run cat5 all the way across my house. I have done it before and when I moved into this house I vowed to get my wireless set up to where that would not be necessary. I have achieved that. Don't listen to the naysayers because you can to.

When I moved into my new house, I vowed to wire each room with cat5 because I didn't want to live with the hiccups associated with wireless bridges. I've suffered them enough.

 

You can have things set up beautifully and then one day the neighbour's kid gets a wireless router and steps all over your channel. Or they get a noisy microwave. Or whatever. Then you're back to troubleshooting and determining what your new best config is.

 

I agree that a wlan can be substituted for a simple lan if you do some planning, but the main advantage of going through cat5 is that its less prone to changing on you over time. (Well, that, and the fact that all the users on your lan aren't sharing the same "wire")

Edited December 30, 2009 by RevEng

[Hyper_Eye]

You can have things set up beautifully and then one day the neighbour's kid gets a wireless router and steps all over your channel. Or they get a noisy microwave. Or whatever. Then you're back to troubleshooting and determining what your new best config is.

 

I've been here for 6 years now. I will let you know when this happens.

[+RevEng]

Bully for you!

 

I expect I'm the only one to have experienced wireless interference then.

Edited December 30, 2009 by RevEng

[Tom-Lynx]

You can have things set up beautifully and then one day the neighbour's kid gets a wireless router and steps all over your channel. Or they get a noisy microwave. Or whatever. Then you're back to troubleshooting and determining what your new best config is.

 

That's why I live on a lot that is 1.5 acres....I didn't want conflicting wireless signals. Hell....I don't even encrypt mine!

 

 

 

[JamesD]

Someone said they were a fan of Linksys... wanna crash a Linksys? Do file sharing. I've had friends with Linksys routers. I helped set them up. Absolutely craptastic garbage. ALL of them. I've helped set up a dozen of the older style over the years and they were all the same.

Set up a bunch of forwarded ports, file share, do any high bandwidth stuff with a 2nd machine... expect reboots.

Also one of the worst for setting up any kind of port forwarding when compared to other brands.

I want to assign ports to a machine name and have that machine assigned an IP address automatically or used a fixed IP if I want.

Is that really too much to ask?

The new cool looking ones have a better software setup than the older style but it pales by comparison to DLINK and Netgear.

I also couldn't get my friend's new one to connect to my wireless bridge using the Wifi auto config buttons.

I didn't get to play with it long enough to see if it crashed like the older models but I wouldn't hold my breath.

There is at least one open source router software project that runs on the older Linksys routers that is supposed to be reliable but I've never tried it.

 

The dualband Super A/G Netgear I have has worked flawless from day one.

Forwarding ports is easy and I've never had a problem.

I just wish they hadn't discontinued it. Perfect for the older 360 wireless adaptor, it was Super A/G as well.

 

The DLINK was great when I bought it, but I upgraded firmware to add the shareport support for it's USB port.

HUGE mistake on my part. Now it might run for days.... or an hour.

I should have read the forums before doing the upgrade and they offer no downgrade.

Shareport is cool. Being able to hook a printer or hard drive to the router... great idea.

Sadly, some hacks made their way onto DLINK's dev team and now it's craptastic as well.

 

I gave my brother a CompUSA B router that was pretty good after a firmware update but B isn't secure anymore.

The setup was pretty generic but it did what was needed.

Then I gave him a 108G Trendnet so he could use wireless hook up for the XBOX 360 I gave him... he never took it out of the box and now he can't find it so I have no idea how reliable those are.

Let me ask you... would any of you have been so stupid? Dare I say NO!

Sometimes I feel like an only child.

[Hyper_Eye]

Linksys routers suck until you download a good open third-party firmware like DD-WRT or tomato. Then they are amazing routers and it is for the fact that Linksys produces routers with Linux-based firmwares, allowing this to be so easily done, that I give them great credit.

 

Before I used my Linksys with DD-WRT I went through a number of Linux routers over a few years including Coyote Linux, FreeSCO, and I used Smoothwall for a couple of years. Some basic consumer router software simply wasn't going to be sufficient for me. I needed the same kind of power and stability I was used to having. A WRT54GL with DD-WRT allowed me to drop the router tower and move to something compact without sacrificing the niceties I had become accustomed to. I have had terrible experiences with D-Link and their craptastic firmware and Netgear is an utter joke. I had a Netgear wireless router and every time they put out a firmware update they fixed one thing while breaking another. When I e-mailed them about their broken firmware they referred me to the guys in Taiwan that work on the firmware. I shouldn't have to chase down their bugs.

[moycon]

Don't listen to the naysayers because you can to.

 

Agree'd.

 

It can be fine for gaming when set up correctly.

[JamesD]

Don't listen to the naysayers because you can to.

 

Agree'd.

 

It can be fine for gaming when set up correctly.

I haven't seen game lag issues. My problems were elsewhere.

[moycon]

I haven't seen game lag issues. My problems were elsewhere.

 

Yes same thing here.

I have issues with streaming video (in particular PlayOn and 4 bar Netflix on my 360) . Luckily I have a DVD player, HD DVD player and the PS3 (Blu-Ray player) in the same room as my wireless 360 so as long as it works for gaming, I'm good.

[godslabrat]

Don't listen to the naysayers because you can to.

 

Agree'd.

 

It can be fine for gaming when set up correctly.

 

I'm not saying it can't be done, I'm just saying that IF you have a reasonable option to run a wire, it's much less hassle. No troubleshooting, no reconfiguring, not interference testing, and NO LOSING A MATCH BECAUSE THE WIRELESS SIGNAL DROPPED! Granted, there are cases where wireless is the only reasonable way to go, but if you can run a wire... just do it.

 

Then again, I've hit the point where I insist that technology exists only to serve me, not the other way around. When setting up anything I always ask myself how I can configure it to give myself the least amount of hassle. It's not that I can't troubleshoot and tweak this stuff, but after a long workday and before a good hot meal, I just don't want to.

 

Again, not knocking wireless, just trying to look at it from an effort:benefit ratio.

[moycon]

I'm not saying it can't be done, I'm just saying that IF you have a reasonable option to run a wire, it's much less hassle.

 

Agreed. The fact I used to run network cable for a living makes running cable in ways where it won't be in the way or even seen for me all the easier than most probably. Still I'm glad wireless is an option these days because like you suggested, not all cable runs are reasonable.

[Lord Helmet]

I'm wired for everything in my house except laptops, iphones, psp's and DS's...makes a world of difference for things like streaming HD video...which I do all the time to my various set top boxes and Xbox 360's. For gaming I would assume that wireless would do just fine assuming you have a nice strong signal.

[Hyper_Eye]

I'm wired for everything in my house except laptops, iphones, psp's and DS's...makes a world of difference for things like streaming HD video...which I do all the time to my various set top boxes and Xbox 360's. For gaming I would assume that wireless would do just fine assuming you have a nice strong signal.

 

Again, I stream HD video to my 360 and Xbox (XBMC) over wireless all the time. Apparently there are a lot of people here with badly configured wireless or poor conditions for using a wireless connection. Here is a speed test I did last night from the opposite end of my house:

 

 

That is pretty much my internet speed as advertised. That is over 1MB/sec and that is the same as I get on a wired machine. I have gotten higher than that (sometimes over 10mb/sec) but only every now and then. I would say what is real impressive there is the ping. Anyway, this wasn't a one-off test. I can test that way consistently. As I said before, my wireless is faster than my internet connection and I can maintain sustained speeds much greater than this across my local network. It sucks that so many people have such bad experiences with wireless connections but I do everything with my wireless that I do with my wired including streaming HD quality video.

 

If I am doing a very large file transfer between two local machines there is obviously a benefit to doing that transfer wired. But unless I'm transferring a couple gigs and need to to be done ASAP I am happy with the wireless. I don't use it for continuously running connections (multiple desktops of different OS flavors, phone adapters, print server, *nix servers, etc.) but for laptops, wireless phones, handheld games, and my game consoles the wireless works great and I don't have to run any wire around the house. As far as "sharing the same wire" it isn't likely that more than one or two of those devices is going to be using the connection at once and it is even more unlikely that they are all going to be maintaining sustained traffic simultaneously.

 

That is just my experience with my current setup. It wasn't always this way. I went through a really crappy D-Link access point that was serviced by my Linux router tower and then I tried to switch to a Netgear wireless router and that was disastrous. I know what it can be like to have an unreliable wireless connection. I also understand that some troublesome conditions cannot be overcome due to unique circumstances. The instant trashing of wireless anytime someone wants help setting up their connection isn't warranted though simply because you happened to have a negative experience. Wireless is widely used and there are many people who have great wireless service for playing games or whatever.

[Tom-Lynx]

Can you explain how you are successfully streaming HD video over wireless? Are you using Wireless N? 5 GHz band?

 

I have a media center PC in the main living room with over 4 TB of movies....DVDs and Blu-Ray, and I'd like to watch those movies on other TV's as well.