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Networking Hardware

Router Built for Gamers 374

Posted by samzenpus from the kill-the-lag-beast dept.
VL writes "Ping times suck? Too much lag? If your loved ones are hogging all your bandwidth with P2P and torrents, you'll want to check out the D-Link DGL-4300 Wireless 108G Gaming Router. This is a router designed for gamers that also happens to be a great router for regular folks."
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Router Built for Gamers More

Router Built for Gamers

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  • Overpriced (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 11, 2005 @10:03AM (#12199965)
    $120? What makes this router so special? In fact, what the heck IS a gaming router? My $20 Netgear wireless router with logging and access control works fine and it's $100 less. It might not have glowing blue lights and make a front page Slashvertisement, but it works fine for me.

    • Re:Overpriced (Score:4, Funny)

      by LiquidCoooled ( 634315 ) on Monday April 11, 2005 @10:04AM (#12199981) Homepage Journal
      Gaming routers come with a Firewallhack built in.

      They are also decked out in l33t colours for the
      gamers.

      • Re:Overpriced (Score:3, Funny)

        by Atrax ( 249401 )
        They are also decked out in l33t colours for the
        gamers.

        forget firewallhack. I think the colours are the entire strategy.

    • Re:Overpriced (Score:5, Informative)

      by geminidomino ( 614729 ) * on Monday April 11, 2005 @10:05AM (#12199992) Journal
      This one has what appears to be pre-programmed and user-definable QoS to make sure your games get priority use of available bandwidth.

      • Re:Overpriced (Score:5, Informative)

        by Gentlewhisper ( 759800 ) on Monday April 11, 2005 @10:07AM (#12200003)
        This one has what appears to be pre-programmed and user-definable QoS to make sure your games get priority use of available bandwidth.

        You can get a Linksys.. buy the Sveasoft linux fireware.. and QoS too!

        For a lot less!

        • Re:Overpriced (Score:5, Informative)

          by geminidomino ( 614729 ) * on Monday April 11, 2005 @10:11AM (#12200046) Journal
          I'll never buy another linksys again. After getting 2 BEFW11S4 Wireless routers+switches that had bad switches (connections randomly die, the router needs to be reooted) and then not being able to get any support from the Indian Tech Support because I run linux (despite the fact that the damn router management is accessed via HTT-Fricki-P!), I've decided that I've wasted more than too much money on them.

          • Re:Overpriced (Score:5, Insightful)

            by andreyw ( 798182 ) on Monday April 11, 2005 @10:21AM (#12200139) Homepage
            Reconsider your strategy when dealing with Tech Support.

            As far as they care -
            1) You /don't/ run Linux. Only Windows XP with the latest and greatest service packs.
            2) You /don't/ only have one computer where the problem manifests itself. In fact you have 10 - you're a small business.
            3) The problem /doesn't/ occasionally happen. It happens all the time.

            Basically [-
            a) Tell them you conform to hw/sw requirements so that they actually help you instead of hanging up.
            b) Over-exaggerate the problem.
            • ACtually, the only thing under "As far as they care" that is NOT true is the "running windows" part. It DOES happen all the time, and it DOES effect multiple boxen.
            • I use the opposite theory. I tell 'em I'm using a old Mosaic browser on Win 3.11... then a few minutes later when they confirm, I mention that I'm using QNX, or Be, or OS/2 or whatever the hell I can think of... eventually they realize its just a router and a web page, and the OS doesn't really matter.

              • Re:Overpriced (Score:3, Insightful)

                by AviLazar ( 741826 )
                See I go a different route (maybe the Soviet route) and tell them what the problems is, that they are wrong to think it is one of my multiple computers, running Irix and Windows (depending on the computer) and that I have multiple browsers. After throwing in a couple of choice techie words they realize that I know a couple of things about networking (i.e. I probably already did the reboot of modem, router, computer) and that they need to forward me to tier 2 tech support.

                In Soviet Russia, tech support

                • Re:Overpriced (Score:3, Interesting)

                  by clymere ( 605769 )
                  I actually work tech support, for a company that installs internet in hotels.

                  There is a reason why many tech support people don't just take you at your word when you claim to know what the problem is. And that is because 99% of the time the person who says this just flat out does not.

                  I get plenty of calls from MCSE's telling me that our DHCP server is down, our internet connection is down because they can't ping outside of the gateway, etc. etc....and they didn't take 5 seconds to read the card in the

            • So are you really happy spending your hard-earned money on that kind of "support"?

            • Re:Overpriced (Score:5, Informative)

              by acidrain69 ( 632468 ) on Monday April 11, 2005 @11:09AM (#12200583) Journal
              I work in tech support. Let me add/correct the parent poster.

              1) Yes, but make sure that you are FAMILIAR with the layout and intricacies of winXP, they may try to trip you up and make you sound like you don't have winXP. Know the version number of winXP
              2) Some places do not support networks, they will tell you it is unsupported. This depends highly on where you are calling. I suppose for the purpose of this article, we are talking about a router, so they will support it. Keep in mind that in general, wherever you call will only focus on what they offer, they have to stay inside their scope of support, or else they have an easy way to get you off the phone.
              3) WRONG! This will make them get you connected once and send you away! They will say they fixed it, with no regard to wether it is an ongoing, intermittent problem. If they try to tell you to just reset it all the time, tell them that is unacceptable, speak to a manager if you have to.

              Basically
              A) yes
              B) No, be realistic or you are just going to make things harder on you and the person you speak to.

            • Re:Overpriced (Score:3, Interesting)

              by morcego ( 260031 )
              I usually use a more agressive strategy.
              I tell them I have tried with Windows 2000, Windows XP, Linux (2 flavors) and a Mac. I also tell them I tested (when web based) with at least 5 different browsers (add a text-based browser, like Lynx, for extra flavor), and the problem is always the same.

              If that doesn't get me to tier 2 support, I start quoting protocol numbers and RFC numbers.

              But that is rarely needed. Usually only mentioning some IP numbers is enough to get throught.

              I remember I used to have the
          • Obviously if a device is accessible though a web browser, then don't let them know you're running whatever OS you're running. If they tell you they need you to check your connection settings, then do that, all the while saying "Uh-huh. Right. Click on okay?" to playcate their script.

            Obviously networking hardware operates independantly of the operating systems installed on the computers on either side of the device. You know this, I know this, most people know this, and in all logic, Linksys tech support sh
            • Exactly, and given that Linksys tech support DOESN'T know this, I *highly* doubt they'll be any more useful in fixing my problem than a condom in a convent.
          • I have a revision 1 of the BEFW11S4 that worked beautifully for about 3 years. Never hung, never needed a reboot. That being said, the last two places I've lived have had a rev. 2 and a rev. 4 version of these things. And they needed rebooting once every few days. Where I currently live, I don't have access to the router (rented basement, no physical or admin access to it), but it's become such a problem that the owner put it on a cheap timer so that it gets reset every night. If it wonks out during the eve

          • Re:Overpriced (Score:5, Informative)

            by illumin8 ( 148082 ) on Monday April 11, 2005 @12:30PM (#12201606) Journal
            I'll never buy another linksys again. After getting 2 BEFW11S4 Wireless routers+switches that had bad switches (connections randomly die, the router needs to be reooted) and then not being able to get any support from the Indian Tech Support because I run linux (despite the fact that the damn router management is accessed via HTT-Fricki-P!), I've decided that I've wasted more than too much money on them.

            You should rethink your anti-Linksys strategy. I know the routers you speak of. I had a BEFSR11 router and it sucked. Had to be rebooted every few days just to stay stable. But I'm here to tell you that Linksys has changed... drastically. Since they were acquired by Cisco they've actually started putting out products that don't suck. When the WRT54G was released, running all Linux as it's OS, it opened up the hardware to a whole bunch of hackers that are modifying it. The Sveasoft firmware on a Linksys WRT54G has more functionality than almost any other router out there. You can do things like:

            Increase the power output by 900%

            Setup QoS, even using layer 7 packet inspection to determine QoS priority.

            Run an Asterisk PBX on your router.

            Setup a wireless hotspot (which stores billing data in a back-end SQL database).

            Setup a wireless mesh network.

            This is just a few. I firmly believe that the merger with Cisco brought the high-end technology down to the mass-market. Take a look at their SRW2016 switch... 16 gigabit copper ports, plus two Gigabit fibre ports, with QoS support, for less than $400. That is enterprise level hardware at consumer level prices.

            I'll agree with you that Linksys hardware used to suck in the past, but you should try them again now. They've improved quite a bit.

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion

          • Re:Overpriced (Score:2, Informative)

            by Jeff DeMaagd ( 2015 )
            I need you to back up that violence claim. The people at Sveasoft seem to be pretty nice, and this is the first time I've heard of anyone say this. The only thing that happens is that they cancel your support if they find you redistributing the package. That's hardly violence.

            Supposedly RMS himself has said that the Sveasoft terms comply with the terms of GPL.

            • Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)

              by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday April 11, 2005 @10:44AM (#12200347)
              Comment removed based on user account deletion
            • Sveasoft will revoke your paid acces to their site (& ban your IP) if you redistribute beta versions of their alchemy firmware. I'd have absolutely no problems with this if they would deliver a non beta alchemy build back into the public domain. Alchemy has been in beta for over 9 months.

              I'm not a Sveasoft subscriber yet as I'm will not to pay 20$ to someone who will not contribute willingly back to the community. Once Alchemy is freely distributable, my check will be in the mail (unless it take him so

        • Re:Overpriced (Score:3, Informative)

          by doublebackslash ( 702979 )
          Linux on an old (FREE! =) computer that I got from a friend running iptables and tc (Traffic control) is the best combo of stability, manageability, and QOS I've ever seen in a home router. It runs @ 266 MHZ w/ a Pentium 2 on it and 128M of ram. It was the biggest POS I could find and I still think its overkill.

    • Re:Overpriced (Score:5, Informative)

      by delta_avi_delta ( 813412 ) <dave.murphy@g m a i l.com> on Monday April 11, 2005 @10:09AM (#12200023)
      What makes this router so special

      Maybe if you'd RTFA, you'd have noticed that it provides both automatic and configurable packet prioritization, meaning you ping to the server remains pretty much constant whether or not others on your WAN are uploading, downloading, or both.

      That is what makes is so special.
      • >>>> What makes this router so special

        >>that it provides both automatic and configurable packet prioritization,

        I wonder what penalty is incurred by the packet inspection overhead? I betthings run better with a plain-jane nat router and NO filters or rules to slow things down..

        >> Maybe if you'd RTFA, you'd have noticed

        Oh, yeah. good luck Reading TFA - it's timed out on the second page for me...
        • >>I wonder what penalty is incurred by the packet inspection overhead? I betthings run better with a plain-jane nat router and NO filters or rules to slow things down..

          That is an inarguably good point, sir.

        • Re:Overpriced (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Retric ( 704075 ) on Monday April 11, 2005 @10:55AM (#12200464)
          As a gamer I must say it's not the minimum ping time that makes a difference but the maximum av ping time. I don't care if 1/2 the packets get there in 25ms if 5% of the time they're timing out then most games are not playable.

          As most games are fairly low bandwidth there is little advantage to going past 100kb/s but cutting 100kb/s out of a 786kb pipe shared with 3 people can take a 40-120ms ping and drop it into a 42- 60ms ping. Now if your not sharing your pipe with anyone then it's not a big deal but if you want to let people use bit torrent while getting a good av ping time then traffic shaping really helps out.

          Yes, it reduces your total bandwidth a little and adds a little overhead, which is not always needed, but if it means you can leave BT on 24/7 while your roommates are AIMing and surfing the web then it's a net win.

        • Re:Overpriced (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Andy Dodd ( 701 ) <atd7NO@SPAMcornell.edu> on Monday April 11, 2005 @10:59AM (#12200502) Homepage
          "I wonder what penalty is incurred by the packet inspection overhead? I betthings run better with a plain-jane nat router and NO filters or rules to slow things down.. "

          Not when some moron user forgets to set an upload cap on their BitTorrent/KaZaA/Blubster/etc client.

          Then your whole connection goes down the tubes unless you're running some sort of packet prioritization scheme.
          • We have a cheaper solution for that. Our router tends to have problems with the buffer; especially filesharing apps with large upload/connection limits tend to cause overflows, which cause the router to go down, which causes someone to walk to the other end of the house to power-cycle it.

            It's a simple deterrent scheme: Either you run filesharing with low upload and connection limits or you have to power-cycle the damn router every two-or-so hours. It works even better when the only people who are (constan

      • Re:Overpriced (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Ryan Amos ( 16972 )
        So it has QoS? While I agree this is a great feature and unique among routers marketed to home users, it's nothing new. QoS is essential for any network accessing the internet with more than about 10 users on it. There's always going to be some joker running BitTorrent and sucking up all the upstream, so just knock BT/Kazaa to the lowest priority and suddenly everyone else can use the internet again.

        Also this generally only works with outgoing traffic, if your downstream is saturated you still get shitty p
    • I have yet to see any router that stands up to heavy loads like the current U.S.Robotics range which sell for half the price (Sureconnect 8054, 9105, 9106) - to the extent that users of heavy-duty filesharing software like eMule recommend them above all else.

      D-Link have a pretty good reputation but some niggles such as crashing under extreme load and the tendency of the DSL 5**T series to make a whining noise while running mean I'll still be steering clear of them

    • Re:Overpriced (Score:2, Insightful)

      by crypto55 ( 864220 )
      From what I've heard, it's actually pretty good. It's best if you have a lot of different people on the network, or else it really doesn't do much. The router optomizes the stream to a certain computer that's playing a high-speed game, while reprioritizing other computers so that the primary one gets the majority of the bandwidth.
      On the other hand, it's very expensive, and doesn't really seem to offer that much more that would make it that worth the high price tag. But it would be good if you have maybe 5 c

    • Re:Overpriced (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Luddite ( 808273 ) on Monday April 11, 2005 @10:24AM (#12200166)
      >> $120? What makes this router so special?

      ummm I'm thinking the extra $100 bucks is cuz its a 'GAMING' router. Good thing they didn't add the word 'INDUSTRIAL' or it would be an extra $2000...

      Someone in marketing gets a bonus for this I bet...

    • Re:Overpriced (Score:5, Insightful)

      by JaF893 ( 745419 ) on Monday April 11, 2005 @10:43AM (#12200333) Journal
      I would like to know where you can get a $20 router with:
      1. Up to 108Mbps* 802.11g Wireless Connectivity.
      2. 4 Gigabit Ethernet Ports.
      Yes, it is overpriced but have you even read TFA?

    • Re:Overpriced (Score:3, Informative)

      by major.morgan ( 696734 )
      I think what might make it special (and worth $120 perhaps) is the 4 Ports of GigEthernet, WPA Personal/WPA Enterprise, SPI firewall, QoS with apps predefined. It's a lot out of the box, and probably worth it to a lot of people. I am guessing that you won't find comparable features (hardware especially) in anything under $100.

      Me personally, I am happier with a $70 Linksys WRT54GS running OpenWRT http://www.openwrt.org/ [openwrt.org] I can load QoS, VPN, different firewall options, VoIP, ....... as needed. It's probably

  • Ok, come on now. The submission is just the ad (Score:3, Insightful)

    by geminidomino ( 614729 ) * on Monday April 11, 2005 @10:03AM (#12199969) Journal
    blurb from TFA? How lazy can you get?

    More Slashdot commercials... tho I hate to admit it, this one looks niiice.

  • ExtremeTech (Score:5, Informative)

    by elid ( 672471 ) <.moc.liamg. .ta. .dopi.ile.> on Monday April 11, 2005 @10:04AM (#12199975)
    had a review of the D-Link a while ago [extremetech.com]

  • Sounds like... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ajiva ( 156759 ) on Monday April 11, 2005 @10:05AM (#12199989)
    To me it just seems like a normal router with some fancy lights and colors and some QoS software built into the router (most other routers have QoS as well, at least the Linksys ones do). To me though, it doesn't seem all that interesting.

  • Slashdot: Press Releases for Nerds (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    8dimensional.com posted about this almost two weeks ago.

    Not to be flip, but if one of the reasons you come to Slashdot is to hear about neat hardware and read the articles, go to 8dimensional.com first. If the follow-up discussions matter, then ok, yeah, keep coming here. But what the heck is going to be said here that couldn't be predicted anyway?

  • Content of the FTA (Score:4, Informative)

    by AwaxSlashdot ( 600672 ) on Monday April 11, 2005 @10:06AM (#12199996) Homepage Journal
    A router with QoS already defined for well know games and a easy setup to add new games.

  • DLink (Score:5, Interesting)

    by derphilipp ( 745164 ) on Monday April 11, 2005 @10:06AM (#12199997) Homepage
    I am sceptical about D-Link products - Even though a relatives WLAN Access Point works pretty well, I have made quite bad expiriences with them. Even their USB 2.0 HUB didn't work as promised with my G5 (anyone same experience?) - it only worked in USB 1.0 Mode (although USB 2.0 devices were attached).... So sounds kind of vaporvare to me... But thats just my humble opinion...
    • What a nice anecdote.

      All of my d-link products - 2 AP/bridges, 1 AP, 1 AP/Router/Printserver, and 4 wireless network cards - have worked from day 1 without a hitch.

      Consider your anecdote negated.

  • Pimped up router (Score:3, Funny)

    by imipak ( 254310 ) on Monday April 11, 2005 @10:07AM (#12200001) Journal
    "Okay, now you're a judge, how do you know when someone's guilty? Let's say.. let's have this scenario: You've got a guy there, nineteen year old, driving around in top of the range router with the lights and everything, leather seats, bitches in the front, bitches in the back [google.com], sitting on the woofer speakers, gold tooth, UV light underneath, big drum and bass coming out, the guy never done any work in his life. Is he a gamer or is he a dealer? considering he never touched any joystick or held a fire button ever in his life? Are you going to send this man down?"
  • "sales in a slump? Got some free time at work? Cull your product tag-lines onto /. and profit! The editors no longer care!"

    Since everyone's just shamelessly plugging stuff, maybe I can get an "art" category on /. and a story because I updated my art website this morning.

  • Stating the obvious (chimera analogy included) (Score:4, Funny)

    by Sheepdot ( 211478 ) on Monday April 11, 2005 @10:08AM (#12200014) Journal
    This is a router designed for gamers that also happens to be a great router for regular folks.

    You're stating the obvious.

    Gamer : Regular Folk :: Military-Grade : Civilian.

  • Seeing as how TFA is /.-ed (Score:4, Informative)

    by UnderScan ( 470605 ) <jjp6893&netscape,net> on Monday April 11, 2005 @10:09AM (#12200029)
    Seeing as how TFA is /.-ed
    Here is a review of the D-Link DGL-4300 Gaming router [phoronix.com]. They even test the unit with PCs running Fedora Core 3.

  • So it's useless then? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Darren Winsper ( 136155 ) on Monday April 11, 2005 @10:09AM (#12200032)
    According to the ExtremeTech review, the ping times are around 300-400ms when the connection is being heavily utilised. Well, that's useless for the target market. Alex Clouter's QoS scripts did a lot better 2 years ago:
    http://www.digriz.org.uk/jdg-qos-script/ [digriz.org.uk]
    • Consistantly, and to any server, or is that is worst case scenario with a poor server? TFA's worst ping times were about 110, which isn't great, but 300 is going to make you cannonfodder. I'd be angered to the point of murderous rage if I spent a bundle of bills on this kind of server, and got that kind of performance.
      • Your ping time means sweet FA. I can show you situations where a 130 ping is unplayable due to momentary spikes in latency. On top of it all, in FiringSquad's review, you lose a massive amount of bandwidth with "GameFuel" enabled (in some situations, 50% of your download disappears), which doesn't happen with Alex's scripts.
        • Actually, I'm more interested in which game. A game which becomes unplayable at 130ms nowadays is a piss-poorly written game. Even without server-side compensation for lag in the hit-detection (and god knows that no game has an excuse to lack that nowadays, but even without it) you'd usually just lose accuracy at long ranges on a 130ms ping. To actually become unplayable, IMHO you'd need something pretty extreme, like syncing every frame to the game server.

          So if any game falls in that category, I sincerely
          • Counterstrike, while playable at 130 MS, is choppy and will net you death quickly vs your opponents who are at 30-45 MS. At 130 MS you will be skipping around. At 200 MS many servers will auto-kick you off.
          • If your ping is not consistent, you'll get annoying jittering and server-side compensation will suffer. If you can get a 130ms constant ping, that's OK (to a certain extent), but a ping that varies between 50 and 130ms will lead to issues.

            As for the games it happens in, I've had issues with CS:S and UT2004. I don't really play any other FPS games over the internet, so I don't know how other games perform.

  • Well.. (Score:5, Informative)

    by IversenX ( 713302 ) on Monday April 11, 2005 @10:11AM (#12200050) Homepage
    This is certainly overrated - at least it's slashdotted for sure :-)

    The key to good ping times is to have 2 things:

    1) A stable, low-latency connection to your ISP
    2) Short TX queues.

    In essence, 1) is recursively defined by having 2) at your ISP, but ISPs aren't too keen on having minimal TX queues, because that will limit the throughput slightly. Since people behave ridiculous if they get 53 KB/s instead of 55 KB/s, it's a hard compromise between latency and throughput.

    Since there is nothing you can do if your ISP isn't up to snuff, I don't see how this router can anything important. If you ping 200, how can that be fixed by carving off something like 10ms?

    (yes, I did read as much as possible of the article, which was only page 1 I'm afraid..)
    • I knew a family once who had a 2nd cable connection for their kid just so their casual web browsing and email wouldn't affect his ping times.

      What's that quote about a fool and his money?

      As long as we measure ourselves with what we have, there will be fools ready to spend lots of money on the impression that they're better than anyone else.

    • Re:Well.. outbound is the problem. (Score:5, Informative)

      by redelm ( 54142 ) on Monday April 11, 2005 @11:17AM (#12200660) Homepage
      You cannot do much about your inbound stream unless your ISP is unusually clueful. But it isn't the inbound that causes trouble -- there's usually lots of download bandwidth, TCP throttling and other packets will fit in nicely.

      Your upload is the usual problem. It has less bandwidth and worse, there's an outbound buffer you have to work through. This buffer (often in modem hardware) is horrible (2+ sec), and the only solution short of queue jumping is to keep it drained by throttling the sources.

  • These more complex routers drive me nuts (Score:5, Informative)

    by Concern ( 819622 ) * on Monday April 11, 2005 @10:12AM (#12200056) Journal
    I spent a long time trying to get a sister product, the DI-624, to work.

    First of all, I never tried their MIMO gear, but the range and power on all the previous XG gear I tried was shockingly less than I expected. You felt lucky to penetrate two walls, or go 30 feet. Yes, of course, this is all construction materials and background noise and so forth. But in general the way these devices are marketed you do not realize how unlikely you are to see the performance numbers they claim, or potentially even use the device in a meaningful way at all.

    For the first YEAR I owned this product, the firmware was unusuable! The device would work, sure, but gradually you would see latencies and packet loss creep up over a 24-48 hour period until the network was unusable. Some kind of resource leaking... And then you would also see occasional random lockups. Only power cycling the router would help.

    Can you picture a cron job that wget's the router reboot URL? Now you are getting the picture. And I know from the forums that earlier DLink adopters had it worse, in many cases much worse. DLink, of course, was just in no hurry at all to fix the problem. AN ENTIRE YEAR. Imagine my amazement when they finally fixed it at all.

    I actually tried a competing Linksys product. It was worse, both in terms of analog performance, and also that it would lose 40% of its speed with WPA encryption enabled. Pathetic. The biggest draw there is a GPL firmware you can fix yourself. But don't get me started on the whole Sveasoft evilness. [slashdot.org] But in general GPL firmware is the way to go, and it's what we need to encourage. It just kills me the Linksys hardware is under-powered.

    Of course, none of these chipset manufacturers can be bothered to cooperate on a high speed standard, so you are throwing in your lot with either Atheros or Broadcomm. The DLink XTreme G's are Atheros. So, if you bought in, you didn't just get the router, you got a bunch of cards, too, and you are locked in if you want to realize their high-speed modes.

    And don't get me started on the Linux support. There is no GPL driver for these products. None. You can use MadWifi, which is a GPL wrapper around a binary, closed-source "HAL." This disables all the "Xtreme-ness" of the network, and MadWifi, according to their faq, is in no hurry at all to fix that. However, this is the ONLY stable linux driver solution I have found for the newer Atheros chips. You can use NDISWrapper or DriverLoader, however, neither is stable.

    Overall 802.11g and derivatives are an ugly, ill-supported, overpromised nightmare, and in hindsight I would never have gotten within 100 yards of one. My advice, stay away unless you have no other choice, and just absolutely love troubleshooting.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • I experimented with increasing the power on that Linksys model. All that ever happened when I did it is the signal strength measured by the other nodes would decrease. Who knows, I probably did it wrong.

        I got the impression the 624+ was somehow internally quite different from the 624, but I don't remember how.

        I did experiment with better antennas as well. This was especially disappointing. The 5% to 10% gains I saw were not solving my problems, certainly not worth the money. Although again, maybe I am not

  • Sites down. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Tibe ( 444675 ) on Monday April 11, 2005 @10:12AM (#12200063)
    Viperlair.com, after reviewing thier weblogs, recently decided Cisco may have been a better choice for their routers.

    Mirrordot [mirrordot.com]

  • No password, no SSL. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by frostman ( 302143 ) on Monday April 11, 2005 @10:13AM (#12200071) Homepage Journal
    According to TFA, this router comes with no password and also lets you get at the admin tools via http rather than https.

    OK, most routers are utterly insecure in their default configs, but for something relatively high-end I don't see why they don't require a password. (Not to mention the SSL bit, which is standard on my much older D-Link).

    It's not that hard. All you have to do is only allow access to the admin tools until a decent password has been set, and have a hardware reset button that gets you back to that state in case you forget your password.

    I suppose you could have an option for a completely open wireless network, but you'd want to require a few confirmation clicks with big fat warnings.

    Am I missing something? Is that really so hard?

    (And yes, I know people don't normally associate "high-end" with "D-Link" but hey, mine cost $30 and works just fine.)

  • This uses some terrific new technology (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    That examines the gaming packets and makes them go faster using the same technology Lucy Ricardo used when she was working in the bonbon factory.

  • Quit Advertising! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Quit fucking advertising shit marketed to people who don't know a thing about networking that no respectable slashdotter would ever buy.

  • Just an Ad (Score:5, Insightful)

    by i-neo ( 176120 ) on Monday April 11, 2005 @10:15AM (#12200090)
    It's a shame to have an Ad article like that...
    If only it was something new. The only new thing is the marketing concept, the features are not.

    I hope not to see such kind of articles anymore on Slashdot.

    i-neo
    PS: Fortunately they'll be slashdotted ;)

  • Apparently not slashdot proof (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Demo Evaluation Unit - $0
    Low Cost Web Hosting for your evaluation site - $100/month
    Having your demo unit melted to slag trying to route a good slashdotting - priceless

    There are few sites a little bit of traffic can't DDoS, for everything else there's Slashdot.

  • Gig me up (Score:5, Informative)

    by spyrochaete ( 707033 ) on Monday April 11, 2005 @10:17AM (#12200110) Homepage Journal
    I'm very interested in this router and may purchase it (or the nicer 4600) in the near future. I don't play online games but I'm interested in VoIP, P2P, and Shoutcast hosting. Any combination of these things was impossible in the past but this router sounds like the answer. It got a great review in Computer Power User (CPU) magazine [computerpoweruser.com] which I believe to be a very reputable source.

    I'm a little wary of the claim of better ping times though. This may be a statement concerning QoS packet scheduling because I've heard from a few sources (including Jonathan "Fatal1ty" Wendel) that 1000baseT has higher latency than 10/100. However, D-Link boasts that the router's onboard processor is much faster than most, allowing many more simultaneous connections, so perhaps it can direct packets more quickly than comparable products.

    I should mention here that Linksys has absolutely abhorrent customer support and that I highly recommend supporting the competitive companies. I'm on my 2nd (non-consecutive) Linksys router and it's been very unreliable from the get go. Their tech support advised me to wait a while before calling back, and when I did they told me my 1 month replacement window had expired. 8 days ago after MUCH frustration with 3 techs and a manager they finally agreed to send me a replacement (shipped at my expense) in 3 working days and I've recieved no such thing.

    Linksys is riding on its laurels. Hopefully they'll get the message when people start buying imaginative new products from competitors.

  • Score another one for gaming culture (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Datamonstar ( 845886 ) on Monday April 11, 2005 @10:18AM (#12200116)
    It's mainstream now, so expect these type of products hitting the market more and more in the near future. It's like video cards. There was a time when a video card didn't have to come with a flashy 3D collage on the box, but now, thanks to the mainstream culture, video cards have to look cool before they're even out of the box.
    And now that joe six pack is playing multiplayer games more and more we see routers and other gear that was once only found in the domain of the geek eeking their way onto the plates of the masses.
    It's not a bad thing, just something that happens every time something becomes popular. Companies try separating products for specialised tasks, even if the variance between these products is rather insignificant.

  • Previous D-Link Woes (Score:5, Informative)

    by nurb432 ( 527695 ) on Monday April 11, 2005 @10:28AM (#12200206) Homepage Journal
    So far, every D-link router product I have had has suffered from 'resetting' under heavy load. D-link's tech support was dismal and their end suggestion was to reduce the speed of the ports to 10mb, and reduce the broadband side to 2mb.. and 'don't put it under such a heavy load'.. What sort of garbage suggestion is that? They expect me to just surf web pages and not get any work done? No thanks.

    Needless to say ay I no longer buy ANY D-link product and avidly recommend against them.

    Will this new device suffer from the same defects, regardless of their promotion of 'features' ? Or have they finally got a clue and want to produce a useable product?
    • Sometimes it helps if you add a larger heatsink, or disable WiFi stuff.

      I do see your point though, I'm not particularly likely to get consumer-wares from DLink again.

  • Is it X-treme? (Score:4, Funny)

    by stratjakt ( 596332 ) on Monday April 11, 2005 @10:31AM (#12200225) Journal
    That is, just paying more money for something with a decal on it?

    I could see them preloading it to know about and priortize some traffic (XBox Live, and a handful of the top PC titles), but I bet it's just the same old router with an X-Treme GamAr sticker and a 100 dollar higher price tag.

    If you go to EB you'll see "XBox Lan Party" kits, with a simple 4 port 100mbit hub (not a switch) and a few patchcords, and they sell for upwards of 100 bucks.

    Or an "XBox link cable" (read crossover cable) sells in the gamerz section of Best Buy for 40 bucks, whereas a regular x-over cable in the comp section will be about 10.

    Go Go Gamer Rip-off!!

    (I have an actual gaming router, linux based, that does prioritize xbox live, xbconnect, etc, and works great even when I'm bittorrenting the hell out of the connection).
    • "(I have an actual gaming router, linux based, that does prioritize xbox live, xbconnect, etc, and works great even when I'm bittorrenting the hell out of the connection)"

      I'd be interested in seeing the specs or a guide on the configuration of such a device.

      It would make a great ask-slashdot. How did you put the router together?

  • And since... (Score:5, Informative)

    by web_boyo_in_sac ( 805076 ) on Monday April 11, 2005 @10:33AM (#12200246)
    it's a D-Link, it'll SAY it has all sorts of useful and great features on the box, but when you plug it in and go to configure it you'll find out those features don't actually WORK, like D-Link's PPTP Client feature of some of their routers, it WILL connect to a PPTP server, but it's only a client for the router itself, not anyone behind the router, so it's not really all that bloody useful as a PPTP client now is it? I HATE D-Link, had 3 products from them, 1 had a meltdown turning a 10/100 switch into a 1Kb switch, 1 print server that fried after a year causing endless line feeds, and a VPN router that couldn't ACTUALLY be used for either end of a VPN connection. 3 strikes, they're out, screw D-Link!

    • Re:And since... (Score:4, Informative)

      by Dalroth ( 85450 ) on Monday April 11, 2005 @11:41AM (#12200978) Homepage Journal
      Well, I actually own this thing and have had mine for a few months now. This is the first D-Link product I have owned (and I've owned and returned quite a few by now) that truly doesn't suck.

      Is it perfect? Hell no, but it does do what it's advertised to do. I can play a nice lag free game of World of Warcraft while my roomie downloads video and my computer saturates a bit torrent network.

      It's the only D-Link product I would recommend.

      Bryan

  • If your loved ones are hogging... (Score:5, Funny)

    by NTvision ( 583482 ) on Monday April 11, 2005 @10:41AM (#12200317)
    If your loved ones are hogging all your bandwidth... Unplug them! That's what I do when it's game time. "Sorry guys, the Internet is down again."

  • Nothing beats... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Jakeypants ( 860350 ) on Monday April 11, 2005 @10:44AM (#12200350)
    Nothing beats playing my favorite EA games [ea.com] over my SBC Yahoo! DSL connection [yahoo.com] using my D-Link DGL-4300 Wireless 108G Gaming Router [viperlair.com] with a cool, refreshing Pepsi [pepsi.com] in one hand, my Logitech [logitech.com] mouse in the other, wearing my Nike [nike.com] clothes and blasting a ClearChannel [clearchannel.com] affiliate, my source for great new hits from 50 Cent [50cent.com] and A Simple Plan [simpleplan.com].

    Whoops, I meant to post that as an article.

  • gigabit (Score:3, Informative)

    by thebdj ( 768618 ) on Monday April 11, 2005 @10:45AM (#12200359) Journal
    I didn't see anyone mention this, but a BIG difference is gigabit enabled on the LAN ports. So not only do they have QoS preset for gaming, but you have the benefits of faster transfer speeds within the network while getting to keep the router and wireless together. You guys price a gigabit switch and a g-router then see how ridiculous this is (or is not).

  • yes but.... (Score:4, Funny)

    by y2dt ( 184562 ) on Monday April 11, 2005 @11:05AM (#12200545)
    does it have a Hemi?

  • niche marketing is facinating (Score:5, Interesting)

    by potus98 ( 741836 ) on Monday April 11, 2005 @11:15AM (#12200637) Journal

    I enjoy wathcing the creativity of marketing types. Take a product with modest success, turn on one software bit, and re-market the product to a whole new "specialized" audience.

    Bean bag chair + appropriate logo = cool gamer's chair

    Regular mouse + extra teflon sticker = cool gamer's mouse

    Regular router + traffic prioritization flag = cool gamer's router

    Regular PC + $3.00 of stencils and stickers = cool teenager PCs!

    Regular mouse + retractable cord = cool travel mouse!

    BTW: I'm not bashing the niche marketing, I really am facinated by it. It's great to see how certain products are re-branded or re-marketed and find huge success despite the fact that the underlying product is 99.9% identical as before. Of course, it's really entertaining to watch nich-marketing fall flat on its face.

  • Build your own? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by lidocaineus ( 661282 ) on Monday April 11, 2005 @12:14PM (#12201409)
    I'm just curious as to how many people do the 'roll your own' route and use an old box like a P2 or K6-2 or something, put two $10 ethernet adapters in there, and use iptables with QOS to do almost the same thing? Now I realize that that is much more involved, and there is definite worth in purchasing a consumer level "router" and dropping it into place (not to mention the actual learning curve involved in setting up your own router), but I find it's given me so much flexibility (and it rarely runs into weird firmware problems, random freezes, and the amount of connections it can hold have never been a problem - this with seven PC's, running and seeding torrents) that I'm surprised when people get excited about routers like this, especially on slashdot.

    Note that with that many torrents running, QOS is very important, and I seem to have it down pretty well - we've had four people playing online with the previous mentioned torrents running, and our pings still hold steady in the 30-70 range (yes, we have a nice set of data lines, but QOS is still important at keeping the torrents under control ).

    The gigabit ports are nice, of course.

  • QOS Question (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bill_kress ( 99356 ) on Monday April 11, 2005 @02:00PM (#12202865)
    QOS seems kind of useless to me in a home setup. Last time I checked you can't control what your provider is sending you.

    Your router can obviously ensure that your precious northbound game bandwidth is being preserved, but how can it keep updating your status steadily if your wife is in the next room downloading all last weeks Days of our Lives episodes?

    Has this changed and you can assume that providers will support some kind of QOS protocol now?

  • Why wasn't this commercial post suppressed? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by cyberhenge ( 785021 ) on Monday April 11, 2005 @08:00PM (#12206935)
    This is a quote of the complete contents of the site it points to. It's a lame sales site without any further information. I had to Google the product name to get a different site where there were any product specs. This post is nothing but an advertisement for an advertisement. Maybe the product is worthwhile; if it is the poster should have sent us to a site that had something to say.

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