Sharing connection and Gaming

[Whez]

Hello all

I've been with ADSL24 for about 2yrs now and for surfing, downloading it has been really good

I used to play regularly online games like Quake 1, Quake 3 and Dark Age of Camelot using Nildram ADSL which was excellent for pings.

Now I haven't played for 5 years and have decided to give gaming a go again as I missed how fun it was but my problem is that I now share a flat with 2 of my flatmates who are pretty cool but one is a really heavy downloader of p2p and also streaming video like youtube. She is a student and has a lot of free time so she spends it on the net a lot.

It wouldn't be fair to ask both my flatmates to not youtube/web-video whilst I am gaming so I had a look at Quality of Service feature of my router.

I have a Speedtouch 585 v6 which has QoS but after reading the document twice I still can't understand how to access it or configure it. Can anyone help?

Thank you.

 

[Kryten]

I can't remember much about Speedtouch routers personally, but depending on how they're set up, it's normally a matter of "QoS on/off" and that's about it. Some hardware will let you set it up manually, give priorities to some sorts of traffic - for instance best for gaming you can sometimes just give priority to UDP data rather than TCP. Some do it per port.

Mine, a Linksys as an example, has a selection of typical uses as well as separate ports - such as FTP, HTTP, Telnet, Pop3 etc, with "High, Medium and Low" priorities. If your router has something similar and can do it per port, find out the ports your friends P2P packages use and give them low priority - it wont slow them down at all when noone else is using it but will certainly help when you're gaming. Likewise, obviously find the port of the game your playing (27015 for instance a game of Quake) and give it High priority.

Naturally all the above depends on exactly how configurable your router is, open the settings page and take a look and give it a go. If you're unsure, take a screenshot of it or something, post it here and no doubt someone can point you in the right direction

 

[Whez]

Thanks Kryten for the reply, some useful info there.

My Speedtouch seems to have this ancient way of configuring the QoS called the 'command line interface - CLI'. I have absolutely no idea what that is as the manual is sparse on explaining it further unfortunately. It doesn't seem included in the general Settings page.

I am tempted to upgrade the router just for this reason, even though the speedtouch seems good for everything else.

What model is your Linksys? Would you recommend it for gaming? I used to have an old Linksys Wireless-G ADSL modem until it broke. I like how you describe the QoS on yours though - it sounds more simple to configure.

 

[Kryten]

It's an older one I acquired for nothing, a WAG354G v2. I don't rate Linksys home kit much, being honest, but it was a great deal better than the Thompson based kit provided by O2.
I'd probably suggest looking at a Netgear or something similar, easy to use, fairly reliable and well priced.
I've had a look at the CLI system in place on the speedtouch and it does indeed seem convoluted and horrible - worse even than Cisco gear

 

[Whez]

After much research into CLI i have concluded that it is best avoided Thanks for the warning. Reading those commands did my head-in i think.

I was looking into a 'quick fix' and the D-Link DGL-4300 Gaming router looks good, albiet a bit pricey, and the reviews for it have been really good.

It is only a router though and I would still need an ADSL modem. Would you know if i can use the current Speedtouch 585 Wireless ADSL Modem+Router in conjunction with the D-Link DGL-4300 wireless router or would i have to purchase a stand-alone ADSL Modem?

 

[Kryten]

You're probably best getting a router with an adsl modem built in, otherwise you're going to be pissing away your electric bill with yet another bit of kit plugged in, silly amounts of wires involved and the likes. End of the day it's up to you - it's your electric bill and you using it, but you'll avoid hassle with an all in one.