Gaming router

[Dsparil]

le beste? heh within reason. I got say a $150 budget.

 

[M. Sage]

When I had a roommate, we used a Netgear 3700. It was pretty slick, but now there's only one computer so it collects dust for now.. But as long as you've got a 10/100 connection to the router, you won't really notice a difference between a bottom-end router and a top of the line unit.

 

[TexasBrandon]

Yeah, I work with network engineering for a living and I can tell you right now, unless your running some internet like fiber with more than a 50 Mbps pipe you really don't need anything rediculously expensive.

 

[Dsparil]

hmmm it says on my connection 100 mpbs via comcast?

 

[M. Sage]

Comcast ain't that fast. And for gaming, huge amounts of bandwidth don't really help anyway. It's ping that kills you, and more bandwidth won't really help with that.

Where the router I have is nice is the wireless. The stuff is about as fast as running through a 10/100 to the cable modem.

 

[jgalvanatx]

The best thing to do is to speed test with and without the router. Some low-end routers are weak on memory and CPU and can cause extra latency. Remember, there are two issues at play here: latency and bandwidth. Latency is what will make your game "lag" and bandwidth is actually less important but will affect things like map downloads etc.

You can use my speed test to test:

Renew Data Corp Speed Test

or

Chose the server closest to you on speedtest.net:

Speedtest.net - The Global Broadband Speed Test

The lower the latency the better and for gaming you want to have a sub 100ms ping(latency) at a minimum. I tend to have latency of 20-40ms when on a good server. Other things can affect your latency that have to do with internet routing. If you want to have an offline discussion about internet traffic shaping or BGP routing, you're on the wrong forum but you can ping me. Also, try to chose game servers with the lowest ping.

IMHO the best home router on the cheap is a Linksys WRT54GL running DD-WRT. They run around $50-70.

 

[TexasBrandon]

speedtest.net as the above poster said is a good reference. What your computer says on the connection is the maximum speed that adapter can function at, not what your actual speed is. Now, if you have almost any connection from a known good ISP, your ping is going to be no problem. So more bandwidth will definitely help you in terms of download/upload. Generally, your upload will be between 1-5 Mbps which is good and your download should at a minimum be around 5 Mbps unless you are on DSL. I have never had a ISP deliver bad pings unless they were experiencing routing issues in their NOC. I have TimeWarner and pay the extra for the additonal bandwidth. I personally need that amount but for just a few computers gaming, you shouldn't need anything over 10Mbps download and any router will be capable of that in 2011. Now if your running a big computer network, you definitely want to pay for a good router.
Also on the latency, if your on cable, your ping shouldn't really be any higher than 50. If it is higher, you need to consider who your ISP is and what kind of connection you are running. If it's DSL, than it is tolerable to have sub 100 pings.

 

[thorkyl]

Express Open Source Firewall Project

All you need is a spare machine that is a few years old.

Enterprise level Firewall and its open source (free as in beer)

 

[TheDan]

If all you have is a few PCs or mixed devices you don't need anything fancy. Your budget should be $50 not $150, lol...

 

[Flash Ninja]

IMHO the best home router on the cheap is a Linksys WRT54GL running DD-WRT. They run around $50-70.

Big +1

 

[Rangerscott]

Routers haven't evolved too much lately. You can still buy that one I have that I got two years ago. I've been using a D-Link DIR-655. I've had no problems with it for the years I've been using it. Lots of gaming and downloading/uploading on it.