[quote author=Ladna link=topic=146.msg1270#msg1270 date=1260768200]<br />[quote author=Beast link=topic=146.msg1267#msg1267 date=1260663323]<br />shaping of packets is usually handled by some robust appliance<br />[/quote]<br /><br />Actually lots and lots of stuff handles packet shaping, from the networking stack in your OS to the ethernet card in your computer to your router/modem/CO, etc.&nbsp; I don&#039;t mean to imply that all these things do shape your packets, but any of them certainly [b]can.[/b][/quote]<br /><br />[b]*Usually*[/b] is the keyword here and when I was speaking of packet shaping I was referring to it at the application layer not the networking layer<br /><br />[quote author=Beast link=topic=146.msg1267#msg1267 date=1260663323]<br />In most cases when playing video games at home you would want to adjust your router to handle you gaming app. As stated Doom doesn&#039;t use much space packet wise but this wont prevent the packet from going through unless your ISP is gay. When a packet doesn&#039;t reach the minimal allowed size to get bagged and tagged it gets filled with fluff aka 0&#039;s.<br /><br /><br />I assume you&#039;re talking about Nagle&#039;s algorithm, which applies to TCP networking, and this is incorrect.&nbsp; The problem with TCP is that there&#039;s a lot of overhead to sending a packet, so if you&#039;re sending a lot of small packets, some software/hardware along the way sticks the payloads of those packets together, thus minimizing the impact of overhead.<br /><br />I probably confused you when I referred to it in my post, during which I also apparently was confused!<br /><br />The only thing zero-padding is ever used for is trying to fool sniffers for various reasons.&nbsp; Otherwise (unless you&#039;re using compression... which is pretty rare and incurs a noticeable impact on CPU usage) it just bloats your packets for no reason.[/quote]<br /><br /><br />[quote author=Beast link=topic=146.msg1267#msg1267 date=1260663323]<br />Simply add your game box to the DMZ for full throughput of data, if your not comfortable with this you can port forward a range and let udp packets fly around in it for you game box. <br />[/quote]<br /><br />Throughput generally refers to bandwidth, whereas placing a machine in a router&#039;s DMZ just bypasses NAT.&nbsp; The two are unrelated.&nbsp; Also SYN/ACK is all TCP, there&#039;s nothing of the kind for UDP.<br />[/quote]<br /><br />If your machine is in the DMZ on your router that means all packets/data get forwarded it to it unless the packet is addressed to go to another machine behind the router. When I say throughput which is another term for bandwidth I was refering to the machines destination or in other terms the internet and devices on it have full access to bombard the machine with all sorts of packets, yet of course this is limited to the &#039;bandwidth&#039; of the link.<br /><br />lol all &#039;initial&#039; packets use syn/ack, once the connection for UDP is made that is no longer applicable<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />