Wireless Home Networking - Index of

Chapter 11: Gaming Over a Wireless Home Network
Don’t sweat it, though. It’s usually not all that hard to get gaming set up, and
it’s getting easier every day because the companies that make wireless LAN
equipment and home routers realize that gaming is a growth industry for
them. They know that they can sell more equipment if they can help people
get devices such as game consoles online.
You need to accomplish two things to get your online gaming — well, we can’t
think of a better term — online:
1. Get an Internet Protocol (IP) address.
Your access point needs to recognize your gaming PC’s or console’s network
adapter and your console’s wireless Ethernet bridge, if you have
one in your network configuration. If you have WEP or, better yet, WPA
configured (refer to Chapter 9), your game machine needs to provide the
proper passphrase or key. Your router (whether it’s in the access point
or separate) needs to provide an IP address to your gaming machine.
2. Get through your router’s firewall.
The part that takes some time is configuring the firewall feature of your
router to allow gaming programs to function properly.
Getting your router optimized for gaming
A few vendors have begun to sell wireless
routers (or gateways, depending on their terminology)
tweaked to support gaming. A wireless
router manufacturer can do two things to
ensure that gaming works well:
� Make it easier to support online game play:
Routers can be designed to work specifically
with online gaming applications. For
example, a router may include more built-in
game application support in its Web configuration,
so you can easily “turn on” game
support in the firewall and NAT routing
functionality, without having to go through
lots of trouble setting up port forwarding
and DMZs (discussed in the final two sections
of this chapter). Many gaming-specific
routers support Universal Plug and Play
(UPNP), also discussed in those sections,
which makes the configuration of game
applications automatic.
� Provide prioritization to game applications:
For the ultimate in gaming experience,
some routers prioritize gaming applications
over other traffic flowing through the router.
Therefore, if two (or more) different applications
are trying to send traffic through
your router at the same time (such as your
game and your spouse’s e-mail application
sending a work document to the server), the
router makes sure that the gaming data
gets through to the Internet first. This concept
can reduce the latency (or delay) you
experience in playing online games and
make the experience better (you can blow
up the other guy faster!).
An example of this kind of wireless router is
the D-Link DGL-4500 Wireless Gaming Router
(http://games.dlink.com/products/?pid=643,
$199.99). This router includes the D-Link Game-
Fuel prioritization technology, an 802.11n draft
AP (promising raw speeds, when used with D-
Link’s own adapters, of up to 300 Mbps), and a
wired switch supporting Gigabit (1000BaseT)
connections for your wired PCs and consoles.
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