Whats the best way to set up PC, PS3, Xbox

Hello,

After moving my room around and merging my office with my bedroom I now have a PS3, PC and Xbox 360s all in the same room next to each other.
My question is what's the best way to connect them to my router/Internet (currently downstairs)

Bit of info:
My router is a BT Home Hub 3 and it can’t be moved from where it is now as I have a master socket from BT in the wall with no socket upstairs or in my room to swap it too
My PC is has Gigabit port but is currently using wireless N Netgear adapter at 120 Mbps max
My PS is using wireless not sure what speed
And same goes for my Xbox

Ideally I’m thinking to use a powerline adapter from my router downstairs plugged into the gigabit port and then run it to my room and connect it some sort of splitter to which I would plug all three into something like this - [url=http://www.netgear.co.uk/home/products/hometheater/networking-for-home-theater-and-gaming/XAVB5004.aspx][/url]

Any advice would be appreciated all I want to do is get a faster connection possible as I use my ps3 to listen to vidzone, pc and Xbox for online gaming
Also is powerline any good?

Thanks
Tim

Powerline never gets anywhere near the rated speed, so if you do go that way, go with the 500megabit model and hope it works. Depends on your wiring and your luck. I just got a pair of ZyXEL PLA4205 adapters from Newegg for $80 on sale and they work pretty well on some circuit combinations.

Obviously, the fastest would be to run a CAT5e cable but that may be impractical.

Can you get a good wireless signal from the Netgear up there?

edit: if you run powerline or a cable up there connect it to an inexpensive switch or router in AP mode if you also want wireless up there.

Indeed a switch is just to make multiple connections (as you say a splitter), although each could use the full bandwidth if the others are not.

An AP is a wireless access point, which you can configure using many different brands of router.

If you are going to wire all three devices, get a switch -- they are cheaper than routers that you can configure as an AP.

Let's put it this way: if you are lucky your Powerline will exceed your wireless, if you are unlucky it will not be that good. If you have multiple electric circuits upstairs and down, try different combinations and you might get better results on one particular arrangement.

That's a good plan, no reason to be stuck with them if they won't do the job.

I generally just download a large file within my network and look at the Windows transfer speeds under the details in the transfer window or run speedtest.net on my browser from different machines to see if they deliver the same speed as the wired gateway.

There are some free tools that I've used that are okay -- LAN SPEED TEST, just don't let it install any of its other stuff; and inDDIDer, which mainly looks at signal strength for wireless, but has other useful diagnostics.

I don't think it's relevant to what you were asking for (which, unless you have a corporate or university-grade Internet connection all to yourself, wouldn't improve your experience), but I got the little wireless client bridge I mentioned before working. My thread here:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/ [...] w=0&nojs=0

Again, I think your needs are already met as good as you can get if you are playing online, without upgrading your Internet service. You aren't going to get faster Internet speeds by adding a hard line connection between your router and your devices, since your current bandwidth in your house greatly exceeds most home Internet services.

It's true... You've got a lot of headroom over a 2.4mbps bottleneck. I don't blame you for thinking a faster router or hard connection would improve your Internet gaming speeds; all the networking companies' marketing would have you think that "only high-speed, wireless N routers are suitable for gaming." Sly coyotes. But they know how the enthusiast market will freely spend money we they think we will improve our entertainment.

The only reasons for you to throw more money at the problem are if you are having range, stability, or too many devices trying to connect issues. On the bright side, it sounds like you have a great environment for LAN games or streaming media between all your devices.

P.S. I only just realized with the "New Post!" email that this is the UK & Ireland forum, lol. Hello from across the pond!

My ISP only gives me 3.2Mbps, but I need a much higher LAN bandwidth for streaming full 1080p video with HD sound. No question that it is a waste to spend money for more network than you need, but there are many instances where your LAN needs to be faster than your ISP connection.

I've been fairly disappointed with the latest crop of 500Mbps powerline devices, the best speeds I've seen within a single room (i.e. same electrical circuit -- non GFI) is around 90Mbps write and 110Mbps read using fast devices at each end (SATA 6 ssds) so that they are not the bottleneck. No where near good enough to stream 1080p. Looks like a few more CAT 5e runs coming.

Yes, you are missing something about full HD media streaming -- I am doing full HD video with HD audio streaming with little compression, playing a BluRay movie over a network, and that takes in the range of around 100 - 150 mbps minimum to avoid lag.

HERE is a good video bitrate calculator that will assist you in seeing the difference -- it is really a large amount of data. One way for you to actually test your network for this is to play a BluRay iso image on your computer from the hard drive of another network computer. That will demonstrate the point. Also note that while the BD video standard a maximum data transfer rate of 54mbps, you have to also account for additional network overhead and that increases the bandwidth you need in real life to over 100mbps in my experience.

The YouTube videos that you mention are highly compressed and can easily transfer over wireless G. It is difficult to get wireless N at any distance to do the ~ 100 - 150 mbps minimum and none of the powerline units that I've tested have proven up to the task. Gigabit wired Ethernet is about all that is adequate.