The Lamer Gamer

I’ve been rocking a Netgear draft-N type router for the last few years and it’s time that I replaced it.  While the gaming performance is bad, my main reason for replacing it is that it’s miserably broken.  Despite having the most up-to-date firmware and making many tweaks it constantly drops packets, has DNS issues, and generally performs poorly, notably in gaming.  Generally rebooting fixes the problems, temporarily anyway.

A few things I’d like to see with the new router:

• Better stability for the Wii’s wireless connection
• Prioritization for Xbox Live traffic, probably standard QOS is fine
• G, preferably N wireless
• Standard port forwarding

I’m heavily researching a few models, some are specifically labeled as “Gaming” routers (e.g. DLINK DGL-4500), but from what I can see, they don’t really offer much beyond some extra QOS that only kicks in when you’re otherwise taxing your connection (big download), which seems unnecessary, since I could just avoid doing that.  Additionally most offer some port presets for certain games that A) I don’t own, and B) could configure myself.

I’m wondering if the Linux firmwares for the Linksys WRT54GL would be any good.  I like the idea of an OSS based firmware, since I’ve never thought any vendor did a particularly awesome job updating their own products and fixing bugs.

So far I’m split between the DLINK DIR-655 and an older Linksys WRT54.  I don’t actually have any N equipment, but probably will in the next year or so.

Mostly I just want it to be stable.  The payoff from not dropping my XBL connection during a game would be phenomenally better than any amount of other tweaking I could do.

Why the hell doesn’t Square Enix release Dragon Warrior on the Virtual Console?

This was probably the first RPG I was ever into, and I sucked at it for that matter.  I’m pretty sure I still have the original NES cartidge, but no working NES. I’d gladly hand over the 500 points to load it up on the Wii.  Rumor is that Square Enix isn’t willing to publish this and other ancient titles for that low low price, and wants more like $30 a copy, like PSP Final Fantasy I.  Considering that they’ve beaten this to death a number of times with GameBoy and mobile phone versions, you’d think they’d be willing to let this one drop for $5.  Guess not.