Suggest a Router For Gaming

DezoLord

Hello.

I have Eircom broadband (dl - 2mbps) and I want to get rid of the Eircom router Zyxel because I am sick of it d/c all the time + crappy firewall.

So could anybody suggest a good router for gaming and with a good firewall? It has to be ADSL too since the Eircom BB goes through the phone line.

Thanks in advance.

Dcully

DezoLord wrote: »

Hello.

I have Eircom broadband (dl - 2mbps) and I want to get rid of the Eircom router Zyxel because I am sick of it d/c all the time + crappy firewall.

So could anybody suggest a good router for gaming and with a good firewall? It has to be ADSL too since the Eircom BB goes through the phone line.

Thanks in advance.

I had similar issues with my Zyxel router until an eircom rep over on the eircom forum provided me a link to proper firmware and ive had no issues since.

DezoLord

Dcully wrote: »

I had similar issues with my Zyxel router until an eircom rep over on the eircom forum provided me a link to proper firmware and ive had no issues since.

Do you still have the link?

Omg, the router keeps d/c 3-5 times every hour for the past few days. Today it d/c like 10 times in 2 hours. WTH!? It's driving me crazy!!! Is it the router or Eircom people messing with the cables in the area?!

DezoLord

Can anybody help? I want to replace the P-660HW-T1 v3 Eircom router to a better one... I heard Linksys and Netgear are good.

A+-Guru

best router by a mile is the billion 7800n, it even lets you lower the snr and get better speeds.. bit dear but well worth it and excellent for gaming, i use it myself.

PogMoThoin

A+-Guru wrote: »

best router by a mile is the billion 7800n, it even lets you lower the snr and get better speeds.. bit dear but well worth it and excellent for gaming, i use it myself.

Eh, No. This one is 1Watt output power: http://routerboard.com/RB751G-2HnD
The Billion is only a puny 25mW

http://www.ebay.ie/itm/MIKROTIK-Routerboard-RB751G-2HnD-WIRELESS-5xPORT-GIGABIT-ROUTER-RB-751G-2HnD-/200712003798?pt=COMP_EN_Routers&hash=item2ebb5e20d6#ht_4290wt_1037

A+-Guru

your talking for wifi?

who uses wifi anymore ? thats bad for gaming, better off using a powerline adapter much better than wifi.

and I was refering to adsl speeds, this is the best router out there for this,

DezoLord

Yes, the Eircom broadband runs through the phone line (DSL).

Thanks for your suggestions.

A+-Guru

i too had disconnections from eircom with the zyxel router. with the billion i get no more drops and its rock stable even at over 1 meg more than the line can handle. do some research on it yourself and will see for yourself how good it is for people with issues like us.

glad to help

Cheerful Spring

I have billion bipac 7800n there very expensive i paid 150 euros for mine and for some reason the speed i get with eircom is worse when i use this modem/router.

I use a netgear modem now was about 80 euros in PC world, and its great. Its great for gaming for some reason, even though my internet is pretty crappy (6down 312kb up)

A+-Guru

the reason you get less speed is because you need to tweak the snr, thats accessed via a hidden menu, eg 192.168.1.254/snr.cgi , i use a setting of 25 which gives me a sync of 3995kbps.

out of the box the billion gave me less sync (3024) than the eircom router (3536), but i get no drops at all even after the tweaking of snr, with eircom router i got alot of drops at the 3536 sync.

A+-Guru

http://www.increasebroadbandspeed.co.uk/billion-7800n this should help you figure out your snr values,

a snr of 2 (setting of 25) give me my speed and stability.

PogMoThoin

A+-Guru wrote: »

your talking for wifi?

who uses wifi anymore ? thats bad for gaming, better off using a powerline adapter much better than wifi.

and I was refering to adsl speeds, this is the best router out there for this,

Trust me, the Mikrotik is miles ahead. It's an enterprise router, it just doesn't have an expensive Cisco label on it
http://gregsowell.com/?p=815

I don't recommend homeplugs, like wireless they're also half-duplex. Much better to run a cable

DezoLord

The "192.168.1.254/snr.cgi" doesn't work for some reason. It says "Object Not Found".

A+-Guru

what is your routers gateway address? heres a screenshot of mine, also what firmware are you running? if older version than 1.05 update to the latest 1.06g

A+-Guru

sorry dezo, this is only for the billion 7800n, its the only router that will let you tweak the snr.

A+-Guru

looks like a good router too, id like to know if it has snr tweaking ?

the 7800n is also a soho router..and is widely recognised for its supior ability to even hang onto a line that is as low as 0.5db.

PogMoThoin wrote: »

Trust me, the Mikrotik is miles ahead. It's an enterprise router, it just doesn't have an expensive Cisco label on it
http://gregsowell.com/?p=815

I don't recommend homeplugs, like wireless they're also half-duplex. Much better to run a cable

PogMoThoin

A+-Guru wrote: »

looks like a good router too, id like to know if it has snr tweaking ?

the 7800n is also a soho router..and is widely recognised for its supior ability to even hang onto a line that is as low as 0.5db.

SNR tweaking is pointless. It is in effect forcing a slightly higher speed but accepting more errors. Errors will mean the resending of packets which is a false economy, especially when we mostly use TCP connections.

DezoLord

A+-Guru wrote: »

sorry dezo, this is only for the billion 7800n, its the only router that will let you tweak the snr.

Ah, I see. What about Netgear and Linksys routers? Which has a better firewall and protection against DDoS?

Can anybody explain to me what these things mean?

PogMoThoin

DezoLord wrote: »

Ah, I see. What about Netgear and Linksys routers? Which has a better firewall and protection against DDoS?

No router is prevent this, it's unlikely it will ever happen (unless you have done something to really upset Anonymous), usually only servers get DDoS'd
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/D/DDoS_attack.html

DezoLord wrote: »

Can anybody explain to me what these things mean?

http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/linestats.htm

A+-Guru

sorry i do not agree with your statement,

I speak from experience, I have monitored the crc and los errors accordingly and tweaked to get the max while getting no errors. I have monitored this via routerstats. there is always room for improvement.

ISP sets a target snr usually of 6db which is what your router will sync at, lowering the snr allows a higher sync rate, the trade off is around 3db for maximum stability, some lines however can go much lower depending on line quality, type of copper used etc.

you are correct in your point that if you are receiving crc and los errors that is a different story and you would need to higher snr which would mean lower sync speeds to acheive stability.

my line is a perfect example of a BAD line, i live over 5kms from the exchange and have a high line attuanation of 61-62.5db, i was able to tweak the snr down from 6db - 2db while maintaining no errors, monitored over a period of a week.

see attached pic for sync speeds.

the eircom router was terriable for me as i live so far from the exchange, i was getting regualar disconnects, the billion 7800n is a diamond, have not had any line drops and was able to get higher sync speeds.

PogMoThoin wrote: »

SNR tweaking is pointless. It is in effect forcing a slightly higher speed but accepting more errors. Errors will mean the resending of packets which is a false economy, especially when we mostly use TCP connections.

Cheerful Spring

A+-Guru wrote: »

the reason you get less speed is because you need to tweak the snr, thats accessed via a hidden menu, eg 192.168.1.254/snr.cgi , i use a setting of 25 which gives me a sync of 3995kbps.

out of the box the billion gave me less sync (3024) than the eircom router (3536), but i get no drops at all even after the tweaking of snr, with eircom router i got alot of drops at the 3536 sync.

I think its because i am close to my local exchange or something or its just that modem/router is having problems?

Yes, i have tried all that in the past. The modem was giving me the right speed before, but now its dodgy.

I've got two other modems they give me a great speed

My package with Eircom is 7meg down and 312kb up

I get 6.6 of that and 310kb up

areyawell

It doesn't matter what router you use for gaming. If you don't have stable pings then there is no point. If you have 24MB broadband and get download speeds of 2.5 megs a second and your pings are in the 100's your connection is crap for gaming.

Ring Eircom and get them to send you the motorola router and ask them to stabalize the line for gaming. It might lower your broadband speed a small bit but you might be able to get stable pings. If your ages away from the exchange then there is nothing you can do until eircom improve the exchange in your area.

Also there could be a short in your phone line which can cause it to restart every so often. Eircom will send out an engineer to check your phone if its constantly restarting, if its the router, they will give you a new one.

Some amount of nonsense been spoken in this thread. A new expensive router can not magically give you a better connection but those zyxel ones are dodgy.


99% of the problems are with eircom and their exchange. The exchange needs updated as it is congested but Eircom won't bother doing it unless they get a lot of complaints in the area. They don't have the funds to update. A lot of Eircom exchages are running off technology from the nineties

Cheerful Spring

areyawell wrote: »

It doesn't matter what router you use for gaming. If you don't have stable pings then there is no point. If you have 24MB broadband and get download speeds of 2.5 megs a second and your pings are in the 100's your connection is crap for gaming.

Ring Eircom and get them to send you the motorola router and ask them to stabalize the line for gaming. It might lower your broadband speed a small bit but you might be able to get stable pings. If your ages away from the exchange then there is nothing you can do until eircom improve the exchange in your area.

Also there could be a short in your phone line which can cause it to restart every so often.

A high ping is really 60 -70 especially if you're playing high end visual games with lots of stuff happening on the screen.

Important also is the 'jitter this is the noise level on your line. Also check packet loss ( anything above ) 0% is bad.

If you want a better gaming experience buy a wired controller (wireless is good, but not as good as wired one.

Also purchase a 22 to 25 inch gaming monitor ( best ones have 2ms response time) benefits of this type of monitor is, you are able to respond to situations much faster than someone who's gaming on big hd tv.

DezoLord

Why should I ask them for a new Motorola router if they will send me the exact same one? The problem is in the router. My next door neighbour replaced the Motorola one with a TP-Link and he says that it's much better.

Look, I would like to buy a new router, that's all. I just need a little help with choosing the right one for Eircom broadband (DSL). The cables in my area, are getting replaced with Fibre ones and that means we will have a better internet soon but I don't want to use the crappy Zyxel router for it. I'd prefer something better and updated like Netgear or Linksys. Plus I've read that the Zyxel routers can easily get hacked through. Btw, my pings ingame are 'ok'. I usually get from 30-90.

demanufactured

DezoLord wrote: »

Why should I ask them for a new Motorola router if they will send me the exact same one? The problem is in the router. My next door neighbour replaced the Motorola one with a TP-Link and he says that it's much better.

Look, I would like to buy a new router, that's all. I just need a little help with choosing the right one for Eircom broadband (DSL). The cables in my area, are getting replaced with Fibre ones and that means we will have a better internet soon but I don't want to use the crappy Zyxel router for it. I'd prefer something better and updated like Netgear or Linksys. Plus I've read that the Zyxel routers can easily get hacked through. Btw, my pings ingame are 'ok'. I usually get from 30-90.

Anything below 90ms on a DSL line is good.
Where are the servers your playing on?

A+-Guru

the only person talking nonsense is you.

has the op posted that his pings are of a high rate? no.

if you ring eircom and ask them to stabilize your connection all that is doing is they will set a higher snr profile which you can tune yourself to get stability.

I do agree with your point of pings are critical to online gaming though, but most dsl is around 30-50ms which is fine by all means.

a router is as just important bit of hardware as the exchange itself, some of the chipsets in cheap routers that eircom and other isp's use are of a low quality and cannot sync with the exchange properly when there is high noise which is why you get line drops.

there are some other things you can do to get a better quality line and lower attuanation.

firstly you can check your master socket and remove the ring wires, white/orange, these are no longer needed and when connected can make your house wiring act as an attenna and add noise to your line.

if your on old eircom master socket, you can ask for a new NTU which comes in 2 parts, a test socket and a faceplate which has adsl filter port and phone port.

if you are only using the master socket you can disconnect the rest of the house extensions from the master socket, this will lower line noise again.

all you need to have connected in this case is L1/L2

also the billion 7800n is fibre compatable so you can use this when your line gets upgraded to fibre.

areyawell wrote: »

It doesn't matter what router you use for gaming. If you don't have stable pings then there is no point. If you have 24MB broadband and get download speeds of 2.5 megs a second and your pings are in the 100's your connection is crap for gaming.

Ring Eircom and get them to send you the motorola router and ask them to stabalize the line for gaming. It might lower your broadband speed a small bit but you might be able to get stable pings. If your ages away from the exchange then there is nothing you can do until eircom improve the exchange in your area.

Also there could be a short in your phone line which can cause it to restart every so often. Eircom will send out an engineer to check your phone if its constantly restarting, if its the router, they will give you a new one.

Some amount of nonsense been spoken in this thread. A new expensive router can not magically give you a better connection but those zyxel ones are dodgy.


99% of the problems are with eircom and their exchange. The exchange needs updated as it is congested but Eircom won't bother doing it unless they get a lot of complaints in the area. They don't have the funds to update. A lot of Eircom exchages are running off technology from the nineties