JBELL
01-01-2003, 11:34 PM
Getting Routers and Games to Play Nice Together
The vast majority of you in Xbox Live land are currently enjoying a killer online experience. And yet, it could be even better. So, because "gamers care about gamers" and we'd like to see everyone get hooked up right so that Xbox Live attains the transcendent status it so richly deserves, we dug in to find out exactly what was going on.
You may have seen stuff like a random person dropped from a game, a phantom bike left at the starting line, or people not being able to see or talk to everyone in a lobby—call it random funkiness in games. When we asked some of our best Xbox Live gamer testers to dig into the funkiness game by game, we discovered a bunch of things related to different routers having issues with each other.
If you want to check out your router, consult our Router List. This is the latest and greatest list of compatible routers, workarounds, and routers that just don't work with Xbox Live.
To help diagnose what's going on for each game, we started by asking, "Can I get in the game if there is an issue related to a router?" The short answer is yes and no. It's different from one game to the next. Check out the answers for your favorite Xbox Live games.
Ghost Recon
Q: Does this game allow me to play with other folks on Xbox Live when someone in the game has router issues?
A: Yes. But because of the way Ghost Recon handles network traffic, it will be a little more difficult to tell who has the router with issues, you or someone else in the game. Some things to look for:
You receive an invite from a Friend, and when you try to join you receive all of the following messages:
* "Network conditions may affect this game. Do you wish to join this game?"
* "Connection to session terminated."
* "The session you wish to join is no longer available."
If this happens, you are very likely the one with the router issue.
You receive an invite from a Friend, and when you try to join you receive the following message:
* "Connection to session terminated."
If this happens to you consistently when trying to connect to the same Friend, your friend is most likely the one with the router issue.
One thing to keep in mind: Currently Ghost Recon is the only Xbox Live title that requires you to hit the white button to talk, like talking to your platoon over a walkie-talkie. Because of the way Ghost Recon is designed to interact with Xbox Live, it's a good bet that voice problems are related to using (or not using) the white button.
The vast majority of you in Xbox Live land are currently enjoying a killer online experience. And yet, it could be even better. So, because "gamers care about gamers" and we'd like to see everyone get hooked up right so that Xbox Live attains the transcendent status it so richly deserves, we dug in to find out exactly what was going on.
You may have seen stuff like a random person dropped from a game, a phantom bike left at the starting line, or people not being able to see or talk to everyone in a lobby—call it random funkiness in games. When we asked some of our best Xbox Live gamer testers to dig into the funkiness game by game, we discovered a bunch of things related to different routers having issues with each other.
If you want to check out your router, consult our Router List. This is the latest and greatest list of compatible routers, workarounds, and routers that just don't work with Xbox Live.
To help diagnose what's going on for each game, we started by asking, "Can I get in the game if there is an issue related to a router?" The short answer is yes and no. It's different from one game to the next. Check out the answers for your favorite Xbox Live games.
Ghost Recon
Q: Does this game allow me to play with other folks on Xbox Live when someone in the game has router issues?
A: Yes. But because of the way Ghost Recon handles network traffic, it will be a little more difficult to tell who has the router with issues, you or someone else in the game. Some things to look for:
You receive an invite from a Friend, and when you try to join you receive all of the following messages:
* "Network conditions may affect this game. Do you wish to join this game?"
* "Connection to session terminated."
* "The session you wish to join is no longer available."
If this happens, you are very likely the one with the router issue.
You receive an invite from a Friend, and when you try to join you receive the following message:
* "Connection to session terminated."
If this happens to you consistently when trying to connect to the same Friend, your friend is most likely the one with the router issue.
One thing to keep in mind: Currently Ghost Recon is the only Xbox Live title that requires you to hit the white button to talk, like talking to your platoon over a walkie-talkie. Because of the way Ghost Recon is designed to interact with Xbox Live, it's a good bet that voice problems are related to using (or not using) the white button.