Xbox Live Ban Updates

[NeoRio]

I just found out about Xlink Kai today for the first time. It sounds very interesting. Does anybody here use it? Is it the poor-man's solution for playing multiplayer games with a banned 360?

[CoFree]

you have to have a very fast ping time to get on there.
most cant get on because of that

[NeoRio]

I get about 25ms ping...is that good enough?

[sccrbrandon4788]

the think about xlink is that they dont have a lot of games though, or at least thats how it was with xbconnect.
Cofree, whats the news on banning right now? i played through system link yesterday but you have to be signed in so i was a little worried, but nothing happened so i guess im still ok.

[CoFree]

im not sure what it is

i think sadalius knows

i know you use the system link to get on.
give it a try and see if you can get on

[sadalius]

Playing sys-link games on the 360 requires 30 ms or less ping times. The thing is, you might have the required ping times, but the person your playing against may not, or the ping times between you and the other players may not be up to snuff, if any one of the group drops their ping times, it's not just the player that drops out, the whole game drops out. It's not a very good live replacement because of this.

[NeoRio]

I see. Thanks for the answer. Before we got the 360 my son played COD on the PC and you could feel the ping time issue kicking in with response times, etc...but you'd never drop out of the game because of it, it was just your reaction time that would slow down and cause you to do worse at the game.

[sadalius]

well, see thats the difference between playing it on the PC or xbox live versus xlink kia. The PC game or playing on live has no ping limitation. There was no ping limitation on the gen1 xbox either, but Microsoft being Microsoft, when they saw that alot of people were using their consoles on kia, they created the 360 with the ping timer on system link games that way you would have a hard time playing unless you were actually system linked, like two 360's playing COD4 in the same house on the same network.

[NeoRio]

My guess is that the Live outages we've been having are related to the recent Live bans. Here's some commentary on Gate's address to the subject of Live "hiccups":

Actually we're not entirely sure what he says. He seems to start speaking tongues halfway into his whole reliability-issue-was-a-hiccup comment. He says something about downloading curve, or something about him, or maybe he mentions peanuts, it's hard to say. This is what I got:

"Xbox live, which was immensely risky, we hadn't been in the hardware business. We even had a hiccup in terms of ahhhhh... me not downloading curve... on that one reliability issue we ran into it. But Xbox alone has been fantastic success. A huge asset for the company."

[NeoRio]

Oh shucks...looks like this year the Diamond Live membership won't be free anymore.

If you're familiar with the Xbox Live Diamond Card program, then you know that membership in it entitles you to all kinds of deals from a bunch of online retailers as well as retailers in your neighborhood.

Starting in March, Microsoft's program partner Passport Unlimited will be taking complete control over the Diamond program and will begin charging an annual fee. $6.95 a year to be exact. Registration is closed until the transfer is complete and current members will keep their membership free of charge until their 2008 expiration date when Passport Unlimited will require payment to renew.

[sadalius]

Yeah, I read about that earlier today. Doesn't make much difference to me on that. With my geographical location, I can't use a lot of the coupons anyway. But at least I have the cool looking card!

[NeoRio]

sadalius wrote: As far as the router goes, the wrt-54g is ok, but the later revisions doesn't have as much RAM as the version 2 or older, plus they can be a pain to install dd-wrt. I would get a buffalo WHR-G125. It's easy to install the full version of DD-WRT onto, unlike the wrt-54g from Linksys that will only accept the micro version and costs about the same, and I've found it cheaper on some sites.

I really want a Buffalo WHR-G125, but they're selling for too much on eBay (the only place you can find them now)...I've been outbid on a few and I'm not really feeling like spending $80-$100 on a used one. Is there another router that would work for the job...something that connect well with my Linksys WRT-54G (version 4)...and that has enough memory to hold the whole DD-WRT, not the micro version?--and that is relatively cheap?

Thanks

[sadalius]

I know there are other routers out there that are compatible with dd-wrt, but which ones have enough memory to install the full version of it, I'm not sure. I've only installed it on the two brands that we've been talking about, the Linksys wrt-54g and the buffalo whr-125g. The linksys 54g, even if you get a v3 or higher that you can only use micro on will accomplish most of what a person wants to do. The biggest dfference that I've noticed in the 54g and the 125g besides the 125g being more sensitive at longer ranges than the 54g, is the faster processor. The 125g can handle big bandwidth demands. dd-wrt is a little easier to install on the 125g too.

But like I said the 54g is still pretty good. And if you can't find a 125g for a decent price, then I would probably consider the 54g, especially if you already have one.

[NeoRio]

OK, thanks for that answer. I have a Version WRT54G 4.0, what version(s) can I buy that will work best to flash with DD-WRT?--I'm guessing Versions 2.0, 2.1, 2.2, 3.0, 3.1 or 4.0 are OK? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WRT54G) Also, would it be good to flash my current WRT54G with DD-WRT also?--so both routers will be running DD-WRT?

P.S. I have a D-Link (wired) router in my audio studio that is connected to my main home WRT54G that carries the internet signal out to my studio. I use this D-Link because I need a 1 Gbps network connection between my 2 studio computers to use an application called FX-Teleport to transmit audio related communication faster. Should this interfere at all with having DD-WRT installed on the 2 other LInksys WRT54Gs?

[sadalius]

The other routers and the operating systems they run shouldn't affect the d-link, unless you make specific changes in the setup. If you can find a version 1 or 2, they have more memory and can hold the full version of dd-wrt, the V3 and up will hold the micro version, but work for general purposes just as good as the full version. Might look at the dd-wrt wiki to compare the full vs. the micro to see if the micro has all the features you need and if it will, you can find a v3 or higher much easier, in fact, walmart carries the wrt-54g's but they are the newer versions.