Sharing cable connection

[Bikewer]

Perhaps related to H3ll's question:

I've been running my rig on cable since I got it (Charter), since I do a fair bit of online gaming.

My wife has hers on dial-up, she's addicted to AOL, and all her buddies are on AOL as well. She too plays a lot of the AOL-sponsored online games, cards and such for the most part. Both are XP rigs.

We've been talking about networking the two, since that saves a few bucks (you get AOL at a reduced rate with Charter's "bring your own ISP" service.)

But I'm worried about the bandwidth issue, and wonder about the possibility of both being online at the same time.
Her games don't require much bandwidth, being flash-based, but I play flightsims and WWII online, which require high pings.

 

[cesium]

If you get a good router, this should be easy to set up, and shouldnt affect your games too much.

Just get a router-firewall combination, the linksys models tend to be best, and connect your cable modem to the internet connection.

I would try to avoid connecting the cable modem to one computer and running a cable to the other computer. You NEED both computers to be behind a firewall.

 

[a_unique_person]

Here's a free tip for you mister Bikey, try going for a low ping instead. That's ok, no need to thank me.

As for the rest, what the previous guy said. There is more than enough bandwidth to go around if you set it up properly, and you are using internet over cable.

 

[TillEulenspiegel]

Ya , a firewall/router works great, I've got a linksys and 2 puters connected . I game (EQ) and the wife futzes around...hotmail, search engines, low bandwidth stuff.
Most people don't realize that AOL is NOT the net but a shell where most of the online stuff takes place. Internet is ported. Most of the games take place in the AOL shell, flash games load the program and just pass variables between users. You should not see any lag, but a question..... why do you want to pay two charges for one service. If her games have a net Addy then you can dump AOL and still play those flash games.

 

[Bikewer]

I have gently pointed out on numerous occasions that AOL is not worth the money, and everything available from them is available elsewhere for free.
But she likes the simplicity of the thing; all her buddies are on AOL, etc.
To their credit, they are trying to compete with some of the lower-price ISPs by throwing in free virus protection (McAfee)
Spybot stoppers, and so forth, but all that stuff is free as well...
In thirty years, I've learned where not to battle.