Which router will suit me best?

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2006-01-03 09:29pm

My friends and I are getting an appartment, and we're all sharing the same cable connection. I play games, and they torrent, all day, all night. My experiences at home have always been that if someone is torrenting, everyone else in the house can't play games. It's pretty bad, and I know that my friends are not going to pause their downloadings in order that I might be able to play games at my leisure. I've looked around, and the best option I've seen so far is the D-Link gaming router which is supposed to have a lot of features to improve gaming quality, but I read a review earlier in the afternoon which showed that while helpful, when lots of p2p activity is going on the router just isn't good enough to keep the pings under 100 (under 400 even), the other problem is this device is $125 and has to be rebooted after any changes.

At home I use a regular linksys wrt54g router, and aside from the torrent problem, it works well, thought it has very little in the way of real quality of service settings, and it has a limited number of port fowarding options, which I don't like.

I've also heard the suggestion of an Edimax router, which from report and a look through the manual, seems to have some pretty advanced Quality of Service features, including bandwith gaurntees. But I can't find any reviews on the thing, and I'm not even sure just how helpful that will be when we're dealing with the kind of network usage that comes with torrents.

So, does anyone have a suggestion on what router and/or proper settings?

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2006-01-03 09:32pm

The WRT54G has various third-party firmwares available which may greatly improve performance for you.

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2006-01-03 09:54pm

Do you know of any which improve the quality of service and port forwarding options? I dislike the word 'may'.

Einhander Sn0m4n · Post by **Einhander Sn0m4n** » 2006-01-03 10:51pm

Hijack: Router Question: Are there good performance-enhancing third-party firmwares for a Linksys BEFSR41? Also, if I flash it/reset it, will the computers be able to use it to get to the internet (cough*Iwanttogetbittorrentworking*cough)?

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2006-01-04 12:15am

Put your computer on the DMZ, or set all ports to forward to the computer you want to Torrent from. No need to be shy, you just want an uhm... wow patch, ya that's it

Kind of a brute force way of doing it... heh

Faram · Post by **Faram** » 2006-01-04 02:08am

Do not get the DI-624 the wireless part recently crapped out on me, wired still works so I am not in a hurry to get a new one.

But if I where to get a new router, the Linkless WRT54G would be my choice.

Kamakazie Sith · Post by **Kamakazie Sith** » 2006-01-04 02:34am

I own the D-Link 4300 and I stand by the router. The only problem I've had is the latest firmware seems to have a problem maintaining DHCP, however, this problem does not apply to everyone so I wonder if it's the firmware combined with something else that is causing the problem.

Sorry, anyway the gaming routers are excellent routers and the newer firmware versions don't force you to re-boot for minor changes.

Pu-239 · Post by **Pu-239** » 2006-01-04 02:55am

Try the sveasoft firmwares for the WRT54G. Do not attempt to install custom firmware if your WRT54G is a v5 or above- those have been neutered and are not compatible (and flaky at that). If you buy a new WRT54G, make sure it is v4 or below, or a GL or GS model.

I'm using a WRT54Gv4.

Ein: Just forward ports 6881 UDP and TCP to your torrent downloading computer and you should be set.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2006-01-04 08:26am

Sveasoft can be unstable at times, though

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2006-01-04 10:23am

Pu-239 wrote:Ein: Just forward ports 6881 UDP and TCP to your torrent downloading computer and you should be set.

There are two computers needing this torrent support.

Pu-239 · Post by **Pu-239** » 2006-01-04 01:34pm

phongn wrote:Sveasoft can be unstable at times, though

I use OpenWRT myself- the UI is pretty crappy though (default webui is useless for configuring firewall, since they completely disposed of the linksys one), so one has to go to the shell to get anything done, and you used it, so I thought it might be suitable. OpenWRT is also unstable, thought that has been less of a problem since I used the overclocking stability fix (OCed the router to 216MHz using 'nvram set wl0_clk=216'). Instability I've experienced only applies to wireless though... This probably can be done on the Sveasoft firmware too... (though you may brick it...)

IBS: Then forward 6882 to the other computer, and change the torrent client's settings appropriately. Really, any arbitrary port will do, provided you tell the client.

Vertigo1 · Post by **Vertigo1** » 2006-01-04 06:55pm

phongn wrote:The WRT54G has various third-party firmwares available which may greatly improve performance for you.

Just be aware that there are different versions of this router out there. Version 5 does NOT support these third-party firmwares because it runs a different OS. Version 5 runs vXworks, NOT a flavor of linux.

http://www.broadbandreports.com/faq/lin ... T54G#12772