roommates, bandwidth, and gaming

[Trypt]

Hi everyone, I have a bit of a situation at my house and I'm hoping to get some help. I have 5Mbit/512Kbit cable connected to a Belkin wireless router. There are three people in the house (including myself, all university students), it is usually my desktop connected via ethernet and 2 laptops via wireless, sometimes it would be 2 wired + 1 wireless, or 1 wired + 3 wireless.

Here's the problem: when playing online fps games (very ping sensitive) I keep getting spikes which I can only assume are the result of my roommates doing whatever (they're not computer gamers). What can I do to limit their usage or somehow make my packets have higher priority? I'm running NetLimiter 2 Pro on my computer, but all our comps aren't in a workgroup so I guess I can't sneakily use that to limit them?

Please help!

 

[amdskip]

You should check into a gaming router. People seem to like this dlink: http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16833127158

 

[Aarondeep]

Which model belkin router you have? Look into something called QoS. Your router may already support it. If not you might be able to install something like dd-wrt firmware on it.
http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Supported_Devices

 

[Trypt]

Thanks for the tips. I had thought about getting a gaming router, but was hoping for a cheaper solution. My router is Belkin Wireless G Plus. F5D7231-4

I checked out the dd-wrt, sounds useful I'll definitely give it a go.

 

[Tarrant64]

Originally posted by: amdskip
You should check into a gaming router. People seem to like this dlink: http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16833127158

:thumbsup:

This is what I've used, and still do. It is expensive though. I pretty much had my friend buy it for me though as repayment for staying at my place for a few weeks while he was looking for a place to live. I figured the latest gaming router at the time was good enough payment for me. 🙂