Networking Requirements for PC Gaming

Networking Requirements for PC Gaming
Gaming PCs might (but don’t have to) have some different innards than regular
PCs, but their networking requirements don’t differ in any appreciable
way from the PC that you use for Web browsing, e-mail, or anything else. So
you shouldn’t be surprised to hear that connecting a gaming PC to your wireless
network is no different than connecting any PC.
You’ll need some sort of wireless network adapter connected to your gaming
PC to get it up and running on your home network (just like you need a wireless
network adapter connected to any PC running on your network, as we
discuss in Chapter 5). These adapters can fit in the PC Card slot (of a laptop
computer, for example) or connect to a USB or Ethernet port of a desktop
computer. If you have a Mac that you’re using for gaming, you’ll probably use
one of the Apple AirPort or AirPort Extreme cards (which we discuss in
Chapter 8). There’s nothing special that you need to do, hardware-wise, with
a gaming PC.
When it comes to actually playing online games, you might need to do some
tweaking to your home network’s router — which might be a standalone
device or might be part of your access point. In the upcoming sections
“Dealing with Router Configurations” and “Setting Up a Demilitarized Zone
(DMZ),” we discuss these steps in further detail.
Depending upon which games you’re playing, you might not need to do any
special configuring at all. Some games play just fine without any special
router configurations — particularly if your PC isn’t acting as the server
(meaning that other people aren’t connecting to your PC from remote locations
on the Internet).