Networks ADSL

I'm trial testing this service for the company I work for and want to know what the best equipment, setup and general helpful information you can pass on to me.

I'm using an Alcatel Ethernet modem and find game play weird and poor for such a high-speed connection.

My Connection: 256kb up 512kb down with a 50/1 contention ratio.

I have the option of putting business cases forward to the project team for hardware alternatives but need proof of its ability and benefits.

At the moment I see the service as being good but not ideal for gamers and need to back this up with some evidence.

 

Cool

First off, what games have you tested the service with?

Unless you've got a heap of other users already on ADSL over there, I wouldnt have thought that the contention ratio would really mean jack.. I've been on ADSL for quite a number of months now, and I've never experienced a slow down.

 

My mainstay games are ones of the Half-Life genre, Team Fortress and to a lesser degree now Counter-Strike.

I trust whatever the game your playing, you've adjusted the ingame settings to accomodate the new connection?

 

Games Played

Like you said Moose the contention ratio isn't an issue.

Played Q3 & Tribes 2 at the moment. Just seems a bit laggy the connection speeds for the game have been optimised for the right connection. Tribes 2 seems better then Q3, in Q3 it skips every 10 seconds and gives me a headache after a while. I will try other games, I wouldn’t mind trying some of the big RPG's

Having difficulty setting up the connection through my LAN.

Need to get the books out on Internet connection sharing tried the default settings and used it on my Win2K box, no joy?

Everybody can make a connection, but individually.

I basically need to set up for part of my testing a typical scenario of a home with a small network using ADSL as the Internet connection.

It obviously has the benefit of some of the lads coming round and playing on line through the LAN.

 

Tribes2 ?!?!?!?! gah dont you just love the new patch : and the fact Sierra will probebly leave T2 like that now

Anyway back to the point Q3 might be skipping due to some of the console settings, try searching for it in google tho I think serveral people have suffered like that with Q3 and Q3 based games.

But saying that I could be Win2k

 

Cheers for the update

The new T2 patch seems ok for me, but its been buggy from the start. It a shame it will die a slow death through lack of support.

Any good ADSL sites for tips?
Forums?

Thanks for the post lads keep them coming

 

http://www.adslguide.org.uk is about the most complete website you could need for any ADSL problems/tips etc - they're forums are very comprehensive.

Out of interest, if you trace route your connection to the game server, what does it look like? Any hops that are laggier than others?

Whatcha mean when you say "Everybody can make a connection, but individually. " btw? You can only share the connection serving web pages(the internet) one at a time - or the actual game (tribes)?

Off the top of my head, perhaps tribes *must* use one specific port, and isnt capable of using a multitude of ports, like Half-Life is. I.e. HL is per default port 27005 for clients, however if the game cant use that port, it'll try something else - generally my client side port is 63xxx or so. This is no way affects the server being on port 27015 or whatever.

You say you have the alcatel ethernet modem? Black jobby, with ports in the back? If so, that's all you need to share the connection really, if I recall it has DHCP capability, and even if it dosent, you can still set it up as the default gateway - or, do you have a green thing that looks like a manta ray whatsit?

 

BT claims that their ADSL service does not support Internet Connection sharing, but this is known not to be true

They don't want you to do it though. I think it breaches their T&C or something too.

Linux is the best platform for sharing an internet connection, Smoothwall as Fly keeps going on about is probably a good choice, or set up you own custom solution if you have the know how.

As far as sharign connections for games goes, a lot of games use protocols which are not by default supported by Linux's IP Masquerade, but there are kernel add ons which will allow you to use them on a shared network.

If you need help setting up linux to share the connection talk to me or Fly...

Fly, step in here and give spawny some more info....

 

alternatively, you can buy cable / dsl routers - I think koolvin has one, or at least he knows about them.....netgear make some nice ones.....

 

BT ADSL will not support sharing of the connection if you have the USB green thing, so if you ask them for help, they'll tell you to go away...

 

BTopenworld will also not support Linux users as I found out, soon I expect BT to tell me what browser I can use and who in my household is allowed to use it..


Back to the matter at hand...

As pveale has already mentioned, and yes I do hark on about it, Smoothwall is a perfect solution for sharing. It also protects you quite well as a firewall. Two nights ago I got myself DDoS attacked and SW simply disconnected and reconnected straight away. Total offline time 2 seconds. My wife, who was on her pc talking to her friend was totally oblivious to what shennanigens I was up to.

As for the hardware ADSL sharing solution with no setup requirements you could try www.draytek.co.uk for the router, course you would have to have 180 quid to spare...


Fly

 

Well, I hope GT have a supply of p100's to be selling to the users of ADSL who want to share the connection then, if you go down that road

For the most part, the USB ADSL (green fish) is pretty robust, with the ethernet (black thing) being even more so.

Got 'ne questions, ask away

Interested to see your responce to the previous questions as it happens Spawn

 

I have all the variations of hardware to test. Including the pro version.

Including the green sperm.

I have an 8-port 10/100 3com switch
1 x Win2K box (The Juno p6 1Ghz @ 1266Ghz
1 x Win98 box (Dragon 900Mhz std)
1 x laptop (PII 266Mhz low spec)

Got our ISP guru round tonight to check my config will update tomorrow.

Moose:

I know whom you know as to what company I work for; please keep to abbreviation, as most posters will not be interested. A have permission to post as long as it is related to my concerns and not of the company I work for. I'm just trying to see how I can make it work better for me and the gamers.

 

Wow, sounds like leagal talk there

Yea, np. Hope things go well this evening!

 

Cheers M.

Well we came up with a solution but had problems.

Solution:

2 Network cards in the Win2K box.

1 - connected to the LAN
1 - connected to the ADSL Modem

Share the ADSL connection and set all machines to auto IP address.

Problem conflict of hardware somewhere?

Kept locking

Both network cards were different, will try again over the weekend with two the same.

 

can we move this thread to networking & comms ?

 

Try to limit irq's shared and such like - shouldnt have too much trouble with two in a machine, I never did in the past.

Running routing software on the machine then im guessing? Winroute is pretty good, I can say from personal experience, I've heard good things about wingate amongst others too.

Phil, good idea, I'll move this - if anyone has any objects, feel free to bite my head off

 

I have some objects, look, I'm waving them. there's a desk lamp, a pair of scissors, and a mouse...wooooo

 

Tell me how it goes as i had simlar sort of problems with cable internet sharing and 2 network cards of the same make sorted that out. So id be intrested to know if it also helps with yours.

 

The latest from the Rock!

Wells still had lock up with identical cards?

I have the Alcatel SpeedNet Pro, which has a four-port hub and firewall. With some configuration of the modem this will work but it was not what I had in mind.

I'm currently drawing up a paper on this modem.

I've also got the stingray (sperm looking) USB one as well.

One of the tests I did manage on my list was that while I'm connected via ADSL I could still use my dial up modem. No real purpose other than proving it works.

Note:

This was removed out of the machine when I was trying out the two nic cards.