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Networking Operating Systems BSD Entertainment Games

FreeBSD Based Gaming Router 240

Posted by timothy from the special-purposes dept.
Zaphoid writes "Lan Game Reviews has posted an article on how to use an old computer and FreeBSD distro m0n0wall to create a gaming router. Gaming routers allow users to use their full bandwidth for downloads and other high bandwidth apps, and low latency applications at the same time. By keeping packet queues on the router side, rather than the modem side. Users are able to achive great pings in online games, while fully using their download bandwidth. This is a great alternitive to expensive gaming routers on the market today."
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FreeBSD Based Gaming Router More

FreeBSD Based Gaming Router

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  • Double standard (Score:3, Interesting)

    by xintegerx ( 557455 ) on Sunday July 31, 2005 @10:05PM (#13210822) Homepage
    "This is a great alternitive to expensive gaming routers on the market today."

    Yes, this is exactly what the gaming world has been waiting for. The funny thing is that when somebody tries to create a product that is designed for USERS, they complain. However, when you design something so obscure out of your own whim that might never be used by anybody else, that is considered cool. Discuss. :)

    • Re:Double standard (Score:5, Informative)

      by KnightMB ( 823876 ) on Sunday July 31, 2005 @10:11PM (#13210852)
      Gaming routers are under $100, so unless you already have an old PC, it's cheaper just to get the gaming router and not have to worry about building your own. Plus, what about wireless access? That seems to come with every gaming router today, so even the hardware cost kind of outweigh this approach. I'll stick with my D-Link DGL-4300 router, it's small, uses less power, no noise, has wireless access, and a ton of other features that I'll never use.

    • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday July 31, 2005 @10:38PM (#13210980)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • So... a person that really has a need for such a 'gaming router' is just gonna pick up bunch of parts and slap a freebsd box together.

    Yhea right! ;)

    Save themselves and their techy friends some trouble and have them go buy that router :)
    • Have you actually read the article? They're using m0n0wall - self-contained bootable CD.

      Actually this may be a good idea to implement for my brother, who's always complaining his Xbox Live sessions are interrupted by my downloads. And it so happens I have an old P166 Laptop that has 2 PCMCIA slots, and 2 NICs...
    • Absolutely right. when I needed to build a router to allow me to download and play games online, I found 2 cheap Sun boxes and installed OpenBSD and utilized carp.

      Gamers installing FreeBSD on a router, thats just crazy.
    • So... a person that really has a need for such a 'gaming router' is just gonna pick up bunch of parts and slap a freebsd box together.

      Well, I did this half a decade ago. Setting up so-called "pipes" connected to packet queues in FreeBSD is really simple. Back when I first setup this "router" I had a 802.11a radio pointed at a mountain top seven miles away; one must rate limit such connections lest all the other users get really angry. Later, while using ISDL (128kbps ISDN repackaged) I used rate limits t

  • FreeBSD? (Score:4, Funny)

    by TripMaster Monkey ( 862126 ) * on Sunday July 31, 2005 @10:09PM (#13210843)

    Interesting, but I don't know how well this is going to work, given FreeBSD's crappy TCP-IP stack [slashdot.org]. ^_^
    • It uses the firewall, which won't even touch the network stack.

    • More to the point, and actually seriously... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jd ( 1658 ) <imipak@ y a hoo.com> on Monday August 01, 2005 @12:42AM (#13211417) Homepage Journal
      ....they use the standard FreeBSD network code. This means that they don't get any of the benefits or bugfixes in recent versions of ALTQ (the *BSD QoS stuff) or the enhancements or bugfixes of KAME (the *BSD IPv6 stack).


      It's important, because although FreeBSD does have SOME of ALTQ, and SOME of KAME, it does not have the most recent code and (certainly in the case of KAME) not even all of the older code.


      Some people mentioned crashes with sessions, in other posts. I couldn't prove these were due to things like ALTQ or KAME, but it is entirely plausible that it is due to something of that sort. The *BSD folk have some of the most complete, not to mention some of the most powerful, networking code out there. The problems arise when it remains out there and doesn't get merged in.


      (Linux isn't much better. USAGI - an alternative IPv6 stack - is not included. SGI's STP was never really looked at. GAMMA - an excellent network layer for clusters, a common use for Linux, is barely known outside of a cult following. Same for ABISS. Web100 - a neat instrumentation layer for Linux' network code - also hasn't gone very far.)


      In this day and age, there is really no excuse for poor networking code. The patches exist. The validators and instrumentation exist. The extensions and refinements all exist.


      I'm one of the first to take issue with Windows folks who don't patch their systems - whether for security or for capability - and damnit, I'm not going to be any slower just because I happen to like both Linux and the *BSDs. If anything, I'm going to be faster on the draw, precisely because I do care and want these systems to really show what they're capable of.


      Why do you think I ran the FOLK project for the 2.4 kernels? Because I like pain? No, it's because of the sheer volume of unknown and neglected code that could make a huge difference. The FOLK patch was getting close to the size of the kernel itself! And that was just extensions, I had very few of the maintenance patches included - some of the -ac stuff, but almost nothing from the -aa series.


      If there was a chance in hell of being paid for it, I'd be happy to invest the time and effort to get either the Linux or the *BSD network code absolutely right. Someone needs to.

      • ALTQ and PF come from OpenBSD. If you want them, either run OpenBSD or run Net/FreeBSD and get a slightly older one. The KAME stuff usually makes it into all three trees once it has undergone some testing (although OpenBSD disables the 6to4 stuff over security concerns at the protocol level).

  • Easier... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by fimbulvetr ( 598306 ) on Sunday July 31, 2005 @10:11PM (#13210853)
    You can do this with a wrt54g and the sveasoft firmware, too. I prefer that way, so you don't have to worry about another machine that sucks a lot of power lying about. IIRC, you can get the sveasoft firmware at alternate locations, just google for it. I broke down and bought it ($20/year), and got my money's worth.
    You might even be able to do it with the free wrt54g firmware, openwrt, but I've never tried it.
    This little box is extemely reliable, has very low power consumption, it's cheap and it's small. Plus, it does wireless (WPA, etc).
    • Slashdot's own TheIndividual [slashdot.org] makes Sveasoft firmware widely available for all. Please, don't give the Sveasoft criminals any more money.

      DD-WRT [dd-wrt.com] is most likely a much better choice; the new R23 will blow away Sveasoft's crap.

      • You can buy a 'subscription' to their 'members-only' forum for $.01 . . . dunno if they fixed that yet or not :)
      • Slashdot's own TheIndividual [slashdot.org] makes Sveasoft firmware widely available for all.

        Well, I just upgraded my WRT54Gv2 to the latest software available at the link you provided...it took me about 2 hours to set it back to the way I had it(since the instructions call for resetting to factory defaults all of my configuration information was gone. Maybe it's deleted on upgrade too not sure.)

        Anyhow, the QoS isn't working.

        I set the QoS as follows:
        1) P2P at bulk rate by MAC
        2) Game machine at premium r
      • Sveasoft invests time and effort into extending the Linksys firmware. They charge a minor amount for a year of access to their beta work. Their finished work is freely available.

        TheInduhvidual takes their protected beta work, hacks out the protection, and gives it away. Now who exactly is the criminal in this scenario?

    • Don't give money to those assholes.

      http://wrt54g.serwer.net/#readingpleasure [serwer.net]

    • Sveasoft - AARGH (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Animats ( 122034 )
      We have three Linksys boxes running the Sveasoft firmware (for which we paid). The things clobber TCP packets whenever there are more than about three in flight at one time. We've actually put a packet sniffer on both sides to check this. I think their firewall is rewriting packets, and badly, even when it's supposedly turned off.

      Want to drive yourself nuts? Put a pair of Sveasoft-hacked Linksys WiFi units between a PC and a server, and try to do something intensive like a CVS checkout. The thing work

    • But instead of paying for the firmware, just get bsd and possible use that old machine for something that needs... I don't know, storage?

      Using an old or semi-old PC allows you/me/us to build a machine that sucks down power but it worth every second. Plus, usually normal slashdotters get spare PC's for free once a year and can put them to good use without spending $60-$70 just for the initial hardware/software investment. In fact it allows me to spend money on say: Wireless cards, or even the games I'm likel

      • But instead of paying for the firmware, just get bsd and possible use that old machine for something that needs... I don't know, storage?

        Because he's not talking about any old PC. Take a ook at this page [batbox.org]. See the little box next to tux? That's no PC, it's a Linksys wrt54g wireless router. I still wouldn't recommend buying the firmware though. The Sveasoft guy has proven to be a real arsehole, trying to force people to pay for his firmware based on Linux and other open-source software.

  • Gaming routers look pretty small, quiet and cheap (Score:5, Interesting)

    by putko ( 753330 ) on Sunday July 31, 2005 @10:14PM (#13210863) Homepage Journal
    Such routers seem to be under $100.

    http://froogle.google.com/froogle?q=gaming+router& btnG=Search+Froogle [google.com]

    I don't see how a loud, hot old PC is necessarily better. And if you want an embedded system, those are normally quite pricey.

    I'm not convinced that using an old PC is the best way to go here. Hacking a WRT* might seem more reasonable -- but a lot trickier.

    I really don't like having lots of big boxes around, humming. But then I don't like games either.
    • I don't see how a loud, hot old PC is necessarily better.

      Not to mention power consumption is certainly worse.
      • Now that I think of it, my modem/firewall generates neglible heat. The damn PC -- way too much.

        My goddamn PC is too hot already. When I turn on the other ones in the same room, it gets very warm. So I put one out in the hall if I need it.

        That's plain annoying. I'd love to have more hardware, but the heat it generates drives me up the wall. Even in Winter I just don't want so much heat.

        If I'm going to have a machine on, I want it doing work that is proportional to the heat it generates. An ARM-based router,
        • You can do lots of things to cool those PCs down though. Sleep (Suspend to RAM) or Hiberation (Suspend to Disk) are always good options if you aren't using the computer when it's not around. Personally, I use my computer 24/7 to do something, but you can still negate a lot of heat:

          - If you are using an Athlon 64, use the Cool'n'Quiet tech to dynamically clock your system down to as little as 800Mhz -- it sips power at that speed. To be fair, Pentium 4 Prescott owners also have a similar feature, but it can
        • In the winter close the vents in your computer room. The problem you are having is you are getting the amount of heat that is required to keep the room/hall with the thermostat in it warm; you have computers producing heat so you don't need it. Likewise in the warm months close your other vents slightly and leave the vent in that room wide open.
    • Remember back when Tom's Hardware pulled off the heatsink from a Pentium 4 CPU while it was running? The CPU scaled back its clock automatically. Up against the Athlon, well, the Athlon fried. Of course, there were several things wrong with using the results to judge the CPU's that were subsequently pointed out, but that's really another story.

      If someone had an older, slower P4 lying around collecting dust, it could serve the function of a silent router with no noise at all. I don't suggest running the P4 w
    • I couldn't find the article I read that did a comprehensive comparison of these gaming routers but here's something I found with a quick google:

      http://www.gamingillustrated.com/dgl4300.php [gamingillustrated.com]

      quote:
      Specifically, with the network heavily populated, the latency in and around 650-750ms without GameFuel turned on. Once the technology was active, the latency was reduced to around 440-500ms

      So it went from totally unplayable to too shit to even consider playing.

      I haven't read the article yet but I hope they show some

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • The main advantage of a old PC over special router hardware is the harddrive. Once you get used to it it can be extremly convenient to start all huge downloads on the router-PC instead of your PC and then just letting them run overnight. In addition to that it can also function as a simple fileserver in your LAN and do basically whatever you want 24/7. With special router hardware on the other side you still have to do all the downloading part on your PC, which can be a bit annoying when it comes to game de

  • Unlikely use of time and effort, better solutions. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Sv-Manowar ( 772313 ) on Sunday July 31, 2005 @10:14PM (#13210865) Homepage Journal

    Gamers aren't likely to spend time they could be gaming with installing, configuring and maintaining a router setup. It's far more sensible, in today's age of commodity broadband routers, to pick up a Linksys WRT54G or similar from a local supplier and use that instead, a simple and out-of-the box solution that should require fairly little maintainance after installation and won't require an entire machine sitting humming away in the corner just to route packets. The WRT54G specifically makes a great case for this, because it can be flashed with different open source firmware to improve its flexibility and stability.

    In other situations, the dedicated machine would probably have a numerous array of other uses, making it a more useful overall package, but since this article focuses on gaming the box running FreeBSD is unlikely to be able to be used for gameplay, so its pretty much relegated to packet routing and other miscellaneous duties. That, to me, seems like a complete waste in this instance

  • I made a QoS Linux router two years ago; it's nothing special. Just set a bandwidth restriction via iptables on your net connection slightly lower than the max. Then use some sort of QoS scheme to prioritize certain packets in the internal queue. There are plenty of howtos and pre-rolled scripts for this; if you're operating a Linux router then you probably already have the tools (maybe you'll have to recompile a kernel if you're using an old kernel.) FYI this system made a business cable connection work in

  • Gaming routers allow users to use their full bandwidth for downloads and other high bandwidth apps, and low latency applications at the same time. By keeping packet queues on the router side, rather than the modem side. Users are able to achive great pings in online games, while fully using their download bandwidth. This is a great alternitive to expensive gaming routers on the market today.

    Paying no mind to grammar and spelling of the original post (go /. editors!), and the ever-present-death and cheez

  • m0n0wall (Score:5, Informative)

    by tymbow ( 725036 ) on Sunday July 31, 2005 @10:35PM (#13210964)
    Guys (and the few but very welcome gals), before we all start flaming about how hard it is to set up OpenBSD/FreeBSD and a firewall for a newbie, please take a look at the m0n0wall site. m0n0wall is completely self contained and is very easy to set up. It is completely web interface driven and is managed in much the same way as a consumer broadband router is. m0n0wall is, in my humble opinion having used it for a number of years and loveing it, and excellent firewall product and is very capable. If you have not seen it, grab a copy and have a look. Cheers, Tim.
    • I got an embedded device to run m0n0wall on. A friend convinced me because the feature set was better than even Cisco's PIX firewalls, and the hardware was less than a PIX 501, even with my discount. The one thing it has that I really wanted was filtered bridging.

      Ok so get the m0n0wall, set it up and it's golden... Sorta. Everything works great but every few days it crashes. Just stops passing packets and responding to input, needs a reboot. Ok so I take the web servers out from behind it until I can work i

  • No content article, why posted? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by batkiwi ( 137781 ) on Sunday July 31, 2005 @10:35PM (#13210966)
    Basically it tells you to install m0n0wall, activate the shaper, and they'll post again sometime on how to make rules for specific games.

    Why was this posted now, instead of in a few weeks when there's some actual content?

  • distro? (Score:2, Funny)

    by becauseiamgod ( 559722 )
    argh reading "FreeBSD distro" sounded so, so wrong to me.
  • I'm going to set up a traffic shaping firewall with (OpenBSD's) "pf" on FreeBSD to prevent having to slap my kid brother when he wants to download something his MSN friends want him to download.

    I'm guessing that building my own rules for pf will teach me the most.

    Of course I'm going to do my own research but I think it's only smart to ask experts for advice as well.

    My question, how does the traffic shaper choose which packets to prioritize? Of course UDP will be put at the front of the queue and TCP will be
  • Wow! Finally! Just what I always wanted! A router that can play games!

    Oh, and why do they suggest a hub? That ruins the point of a good router. Get a switch.

  • Why not use a switch? (Score:3, Informative)

    by raistphrk ( 203742 ) on Sunday July 31, 2005 @11:05PM (#13211087)
    While I'm all about the FreeBSD solution here (m0n0wall is a great package), the idea of using a hub instead of a switch is just asinine. In a gaming environment, where bandwidth is critical and having delays in play can make the difference between a frag and getting fragged, having seperate collision domains is a must. A gaming network should use switches to ensure that collisions won't affect gameplay.
    • A switch is just a switched hub. It doesn't matter if you use a switch, they are just stating minimum requirments for this thing to be useful. Sure, a switch would be better, but if you're sharing a connection around the home, and your packets are being prioritized, it doesn't make much a difference.
  • I was wondering about using 2 USB thumbdrives instead of a cd/floppy combo. Simply put one drive in write protect, and store the config on it. The second thumbdrive could be used for logging purposes.

    I also wonder what would be a low power (in Watts) video card to use. I couldn't find anything on google in a brief search.

    • Strictly speaking, you don't need a monitor on a box that isn't going to be used for anything other than routing. As long as you can set the BIOS to not error on no monitor, you can set the box up initially using a video card and then power down after first successful boot, remove the card, and reboot.

      Just remember to run an SSH daemon for remote admin, and perhaps stick something like Webmin on there if you're not too good with the command line, so that you can modify what the box does without even need

    • Well, it works well with a CF disk instead of a hard drive, so I'd suggest that as the way to go. This is mostly designed for it's ues with embedded hardware, but it would work fine on a PC.

      As for the video card, well, after you answer the first question in the config you don't need a video card any more - everything is done via a web GUI - so pull it out on the first reboot and you're using no power at all.

  • didn't know that I had a gaming router (Score:3, Interesting)

    by bullterror ( 412884 ) on Sunday July 31, 2005 @11:27PM (#13211173)
    I've been using monowall for probably almost a year now, for a couple different routers. Here's why I like it. Put 3 net cards in a computer. 1 for the diesel modem, 1 for the LAN, and one for the wireless access point. Block all traffic from wireless to LAN, and then allow only VPN traffic in. You have free unencrypted wi-fi for friends and neighbors, and encryption for yourself far superior to WEP.
  • For this project, I recommend no less than a 486DX2 133Mhz processor with 64 megs of ram

    Because there sure is a lot wrong with asking for a 486 DX2 133MHz. Ain't no such thing exist.

    First, saying that the chip is a DX2 implies that the motherboard opperated at a 66MHz bus speed, which no 486 had the blessing to experience (66MHz bus speeds didn't happen until the Pentium line). The 2 in DX2 implied that the CPU operated at a frequency twice that of the bus speed (DX2 66MHz = 33MHz bus speed). There wer
    • Actually I'm still running several AMD DX4's, with various versions of FreeBSD. A DX4 133 is about the same speed as a Pentium 100 and allowed many to upgrade their CPU speed without changing their motherboard, so actually there was a decent market for them, for a while anyways. AMD made 486's that could be clocked to 40Mhz bus speeds, and so the DX4 was actually capable of 160Mhz, which generally beat out Pentium 100's for many things (except floating point). Such machines have plenty of horsepower to run

  • Nice, but... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by hecian ( 828253 ) on Sunday July 31, 2005 @11:43PM (#13211227)
    Correct me if I'm wrong, but :

    Traffic shaping only affects UPSTREAM data.

    There's unfortunatly no 100% effective way a simple user could get rid of the queues at the ISP side during heavy downloads. ICMP Source Quench were supposed to be an answer to this, but the potential exploits lead many admins to simply filter them out. IMHO, 'gaming firewalls' could ease a bit latency on assymetric lines (ADSL mostly), but true QoS can only be achieved if _both_ ends do shape their traffic (the above applies to IPv4).

    As far as I've seen by experimenting myself, the benefit of such an assymetric setup is to prevent excessive pings (several seconds). Playing a FPS during heavy use is still a no go as it implies irregular ping, and an average of 100-150 ms. However, it's quite a nice setup if you plan to play some MMORPG or want to get connected through SSH.

    Regards.

    • Well, you're right AND you're wrong.

      For udp traffic, you're completely correct. No about of incoming shaping on inbound udp traffic will allow you to throttle the data rate. This is because udp traffic is connectionless and basically "fire and forget". With tcp traffic, though, especially with well-behaved applications, inbound traffic shaping is quite effective.

      I run pf on an openbsd bridge that sits inbetween my dsl hardware and my network and it shapes my inbound traffic very effectively. I can flood

    • Re:Nice, but... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by adrianmonk ( 890071 )

      Correct me if I'm wrong, but : Traffic shaping only affects UPSTREAM data.

      Well, not necessarily. The crux of the idea is this: TCP adjusts the rate it sends based on whether (and when) it receives ACKs back for things it sent. And, two things can affect whether it receives ACKs: packet loss in the direction it's sending, or packet loss in the direction the ACKs are going.

      To make this more concrete, let's imagine a scenario. You are at home, you have ADSL, and you're downloading an ISO of your f

    • Traffic shaping only affects UPSTREAM data.

      So what? I'm always running into the upload cap on my cable. If I want to play some CS I have to pause one of the torrents I'm seeding to free up a little chunk of the 256kb. Download speed is never an issue. I would have to work at it to saturate 3Mb down.

      A router that will automatically slow down the uploads (evenly) when I want to pwn some noobs is very appealing. It also means no more getting 20 minutes away from home before remembering that I forgot

    • That's my experience as well. It does *help* but if you think for one minute that your ping will be 'playable' during heavy use then you're sadly mistaken. I've found SSH sessions benefit greatly, though.

      I guess the best way would be to buy a second dedicated gaming connection, say 512Kbps DSL.
    • I'm always interested by these routers that give better ping times - if the ping is indeed an ICMP echo packet, then these can easily be prioritised by the router.

      I've often thought that shaving 50ms off a ping time probably doesn't make that much difference especially if you're actually trying to shape non ICMP traffic. Unless of course the "pings" are traces of packet time for actual ingame packets over UDP or TCP, in which case I'd appreciate knowing a bit more about that.

      Note : a quicker ICMP respon

  • The Real Issue.. (Score:2, Informative)

    by jmilezy ( 904134 )
    The real issue with these kinds of routers is the fact that the cable/dsl modems themselves are not interactive once their data queue becomes filled. Sure, traffic shapers are execellent and I've read http://lartc.org/howto/ [lartc.org] which has great information for linux. Cable/DSL connections are asymetrical, and when you send data from your pc to the actual cable modem, you send it at 10/100megbit (whatever speed the nic in your pc and cable modem agree on) Your ISP will limit you to 512kBit upload for example.

  • It seems like no "gaming router" would be complete without the ability to run an XLink Kai [teamxlink.co.uk] server.

    Unfortunately, XLink Kai won't run on FreeBSD...

  • I've been wondering if something like this is possible with Linux and iptables. I've asked questions about it in a couple places, but never got anything approaching a real answer.

  • Well, that'd be a pretty short contest.

  • Real math about the expense of gaming routers (Score:3, Interesting)

    by stuartkahler ( 569400 ) on Monday August 01, 2005 @01:01AM (#13211475)
    So lets say you happen to have an old PC laying around unused and two NICs to stick in it. Let's then say you downclock the FSB and CPU to conserve power so that the machine only uses about 100W average. And let's say that the reason you need this type of router is to have good throughput on gaming and websurfing and still maximize your throughput on P2P apps that are flooding your connextion.

    So you're running a PC at 100W 24/7. At 8 cents per kwh, that comes to $5.76/month. Of course, your power probably costs 12-15 cents per kwh, and your old PC probably takes 150-200W power, so you're probably using more like $8+/month. Also add in extra air conditioning costs in the summer to offset heat from the extra PC you have running.

    I built a PC based router back when basic standalone units cost $250. Once they hit the $50 mark (two years ago, I probably paid more like $30 AR), I decided I was long overdue to buy one. I recouped my entire cost in less than 6 months. Unless there's something a $50 (now) Linksys WRT54g can't be modified to do, you shouldn't be bothering with a PC based solution.

    The only way the PC router solution makes any sense is if you also happen to be using it as a print and file server, or a PC jukebox or running ftp/http services.
    • Let's then say you downclock the FSB and CPU to conserve power so that the machine only uses about 100W average.

      your old PC probably takes 150-200W power

      Where the hell do you get these numbers? Did you actually measure some of those claims? My P4/2600 desktop uses 90W when idle. An old P1/90 uses 30W.
    • My experience is that dedicated routers usually have severe limitations in what you can do.
      It will not be important for many, but I have a complicated networking setup including several tunnels, some with IPsec and some without, and lots of iptables filter lines. There are two different routing tables with policy routing.

      When your PC uses too much power (I would first make an actual measurement before reading the power supply rating as the power consumption, an often made mistake), you can always use a pow

  • Please stop posting about gaming routers!! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Sark666 ( 756464 ) on Monday August 01, 2005 @01:09AM (#13211496)
    I was looking to get a gaming router, and I can't find the reviews right now, but there was a good roundup on anandtech or one of those sites.

    They did their benchmarks using various p2p apps and games. They'd launch the games when the p2p apps were maxing the bandwidth.

    Basically the benchmarks went like this for all of them:

    Without 'super duper bandwidth adjuster thingie' average game ping 600

    With super thingie: 450

    So they all went from totally unplayable to totally unplayable.

    I want to set up a box for gaming and voip, a linux box can be dedicated for this but I've read it's tricky to get it all working. But in the end it actually works unlike every gaming router I've read about.

    If your personal experience is different, please post, but I've read the reviews for about 6 of em, and none of them were up to the job. Sure they knocked off 100 milliseconds, but not near enough to make it actually worth it to get a gaming router.
  • I love monowall, but the interface for doing traffic shaping/QoS is, well, non existent. Their GUI (at least for this function) is less than intuitive.

    Anyone know of any docs? Or perhaps might post a mini-how-to here?

    jh
  • I think it's interesting how the gaming community have their own terminology when referring to traditional things.

    My pet peeve is "ping". What the hell is a "great ping"? Is it a new implementation that allows more control over what packets are sent? Nope, apparently they are referring to "low latency".

    Another one is "router". When the gamers refers toa router, they really mean either a "firewall" or something that provides a NAT service, and usually both.

    I've given up on pointing out the mistakes

  • "Lan Game Reviews has posted an article on how to use an old computer and FreeBSD distro m0n0wall to create a gaming router.

    Actually, no they haven't. They've posted the FIRST PART of an article on how to do this. Right now, it's just how to setup a basic router with m0n0wall.

    From the article:
    When you are ready to really squeeze the best performance from your router, you will want to add your own traffic shaping rules to the configuration. Next week will bring the Lan Game Reviews tutorial on how to set t

  • gaming router? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by stinky wizzleteats ( 552063 ) on Monday August 01, 2005 @09:10AM (#13213179) Homepage Journal
    I've been doing this with tc on Linux for several years now, and never knew it was something so grandiose as a "gaming router".

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