Gaming nerd needs switch advice

[jp03hplayer]

Hello. I recently moved into a house with two roomates. I currently have a cable internet connection with modem->My computer. I am considering purchasing a switch to share the connection with them, and then they would each pay 1/3 of the internet fee. Niether of them are heavy internet users. This would be nice for me because my internet price would go down, and I would make them pay for the switch. However I dont want to do it if the switch will slow down connection for gaming and torrents and such. Do you think the switch will slow me down much. Any advice on which switch. It should prolly have gigabit speed and it wouldn't need more than four ports....Thanks

 

[burn-e86]

if you get a switch then you will have to ensure that the you sort the ports out for Bittorrent. Its not that different from sorting out your firewall ports. It shouldnt slow down the internet that much for you since they are lite users, though low and behold should they ever discover bittorrent.
another thing that you can do is ensure that they either disable automatic updates which can stiffle a connection and you should also sort out the QoS,
btw....if your not too sure on the terms check out www.google.com
then type in the word your not sure on and click search

 

[jp03hplayer]

I was more concerned with the latency assosciated with the switch, and not so much with its throughput capacity. However I have been told now I must have multiple ips to use a switch directly to my modem?

 

[burn-e86]

from my experience there have never been any real problems with lag, me and 3 other mates often do a LAN session at his house, with 4 of us all on the same server the lag rarely goes over 60 (thats with bF2). thats also with a 1 mg connection with ^load at 364Kb. dont know about the multiple IP thing...
what happens is that the Switch gets its IP from the ISP dependent on how that is set up depends on the ISP.
mine uses PPPoE in HK and Direct Connection in UK. Anywho the Switch/router then gives out an internal IP address to the rest of the computers on the network. rather then your normal IP address which you might get from the ISP such as 213.182.4.51 (those are just random numbers btw to anyone who wants to hack ) to 192.168.x.xxx
the number will always have 192.168 at the beginning.
anywho i can never remember the terminology

 

[Madwand]

You probably need a router, not just a switch, and most of these will have some impact on heavy BT. Check Tom's router charts for more.

http://www.tomsnetworking.com/2006/04/19/which_router_for_p2p/

A D-Link DGL-4100 might be what you're looking for. You might need to turn off SPI for heavy BT usage.

An alternative for heavy BT usage is a Linux box running as a router.

 

[xiii]

If you do prefer to use a switch, make sure your ISP will give you enough IP addresses because what you heard is true, using a switch will require all the PC's connected to it to have an IP address to be on the internet. Calling customer support should clear that up.

 

[fredweston]

You can go one of two ways. You can either keep the modem connected directly to your PC, get a second network card and a switch, and then run Internet Connection Sharing on your computer. Or, you could get a router, connect the router to the modem and connect each PC to the router. You could also just connect the modem directly to the switch, and then connect the PCs to the switch, but you will need an IP address from your ISP for each PC in that scenario.

The router is probably the best solution, although as said earlier in the thread, a router can impact your torrent performance, and you will need to open some ports for BT to work efficiently. It's not a big deal, but it's critical that you get a "good" router if you use BT heavily. Tom's apparently has a review of several routers, but I personally haven't read it. You probably don't need gigabit if your roommates aren't heavy computer users. Also, you haven't mentioned the speed of your Internet connection. That can also play a role in determining what router you should purchase.