IP Cop, smoothwall? do they reduce latency?

[servin247365]

ok, so i have a lan coming up, last time i had one to router did not seem to handle the online gaming. will running ip cop or smoothwall reduce latency(ping). there will be about 15 pcs

Thanks,

 

[spyordie007]

Adding in something like IP Cop, Smoothwall, etc. is going to add some latency, especially if you are pushing a lot of traffic through it and/or the hardware is slow enough that it causes an issue.

That said it's likely not going to add enough latency to be an issue, if you're using hardware <5 years old I'd be surprised to see more than 1-5ms additional latency (which is not an issue for gaming).

If you're overly concerned run some tests, put it in place, and test again.

Erik

 

[acaeti]

That said, a router running ipcop or smoothwall may work better than a garbage linksys router handling 15pcs of traffic. Linksys-type routers lock up sometimes when you run a lot of bittorrent connections through them, for example.

 

[spyordie007]

Originally posted by: acaeti
That said, a router running ipcop or smoothwall may work better than a garbage linksys router handling 15pcs of traffic. Linksys-type routers lock up sometimes when you run a lot of bittorrent connections through them, for example.

It depends on the hardware. Purpose built routers route in hardware and can be very fast, granted most of the consumer hardware does not fall into this bucket.

 

[Modelworks]

I have used pfsense for a long time and it handles all the traffic I can throw at it, without adding much latency, about 5ms.
Compared to a consumer product, it blows them away in features and performance.
Ran it on a P2-400 for 4 pcs, and a p3-600 for 8 pcs and it never dropped a packet in over 6 months.

You can also do things like network storage, use programs like squid and snort, and run anti-virus software , all on the same pc.