Gaming on-line with 3 PC's trough one connection?

[druga runda]

Ok... as it all turned out I have finished with 3 PC's in my possesion :D... so what I would like to do is buy a basic £50 router, hook them up and perhaps some of my mates could come and we could all play on-line.

I was thinking something like this:
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=27647



Now I know that in theory I should be able to play on all three together, but does anyone here do that, and is it any good? I have a 600k down, and 128k up connection.

Can it support 3 PC's trough a router gaming at the same time so that pings are still low, or at least decent, and that the game is smooth or at least playable and how does it go in general about the bandwidth sharing, as I assume that every PC will want a bit of the available bandwidth.

Furthermore how would it go if one of the PC's is downloading at ~ 50% of available bandwidth, would that be derimental to gaming on another one? Any experiences with P2P problems in general...


Just want to ask before I buy, or perhaps skip buying, as I have no previous experience with routers and such.

[saturnotaku]

Just to clarify - are you going to be gaming with your friends and only your friends or would you be gaming together against opponents on the web?

If you're doing the former, all you need is a simple hub. That's what my friends and I do when they bring their PC's over to my house.

But for the latter, I have no idea because I have no experience with stuff like that. :)

[druga runda]

I was thinking for the latter ;)... against opponenets on the web.

Anyway thanks.

[Gehenna_CA]

I've done it with 2. Both my buddy and I have played CS through my Linksys on the same server before. Worked great and my connection only gets about 300k down and much less up. I don't see why three would be any different.

[thcdru2k]

yeah 3 computers is overkill. using netspeed, most online fps typically use 5k/s for download and upload at a time. 128k upload is something like 12-14/k per second. not enough for online play. two computer should be fine though.

[g0at]

3 computers should work, but don't expect to have your normal ping...

2 would be fine, but 3 might slow things down.

as for DLing, I wouldn't suggest doing ANYTHING else while all 3 pcs are online!

[druga runda]

OK...

Thanks guys... ok so three maybe, two OK... I mean as long ping is not from the 40's-50's into beyond 200... it should still be playable.
And for downloading, I was just thinking did anyone try 1 PC using 1/2 of pipe and the other one gaming. Can that work, OK or not?

[thcdru2k]

unless you have a way to cap the download on a computer (download manager), because a router doesn't divide the bandwidth among the computers. using a download manager and having say download capped at 50/55k than it should be fine to play games on the other ones.

[Cloudy]

yea, it's because routers are "smart" networking devices.

woot cisco.

If you have 1 of the 3 people downloading something while the other 2 are online gaming, you will lag a lot; A lot less than if all 3 were playing a game.

Save bandwidth!

I split a 1.5mb down and 256k up connection all the time with my friends. About 15 people, and I still get around 150-250k down. That's good enough to game.

[druga runda]

:cool:

[Smokey]

I just use a hub myself. If you are using the other 2 pcs on ur network via the hub, the other 2 should connect to you pc via LAN if you are hosting. If not then you still should be able to connect all pcs to the server. Ive done this with two pcs on my LAN, though it should be the samething for more than two.