Network firewall/gateway woes

My Netgear WGT624 WiFi access point and NAT gateway worked fine when my partner was playing SL using the Mac client. But when I started playing using the Windows client it started to crash. Using the '-port' command line option reduces the number of crashes that happen when we are both in-world. But it still crashes sometimes even when I am the only one playing in the house. It just doesn't seem to like the Windows client (1.6.7 through 1.6.12).

I have found that Netgear has a very bad reputation and that their NAT algorithm is not P2P or game friendly. So I am resolved to change my NAT gateway. But which one to get? If you have more than one SL user behind a firewall/gateway then please respond and tell me what equipment you have and how well it works. Thanks.

Well, based on your crash logs, you're also using a CPU below our minimum system requirements (600MHz). Your graphics drivers are also significantly out of date. Since it's a mobile system, you may need to update to third-party drivers such as the Omega Drivers.

How accurate are those crash logs. My CPU is 1.8GHz, and I have the max performance profile enabled. My CPU can't go below 600MHz even when it is idle. I admit that my video drivers were a year old. I now have drivers from May '05. But would that cause the Netgear to crash?

For a second there, I was getting scared by the Lindens. Then I realized, they're wrong!

Anyways, you might find some useful reviews here Wireless Reviews

The problem with relying on reviews like that is that SecondLife exercises routers differently from how home broadband routers are typically used. Wireless Reviews gives a high rating to Linksys routers but SL users have problems with the Linksys NAT algorithm. That is why I am more interested in the experiences of SL users with broadband routers.

The crash log is as accurate as Windows is, as it's doing a direct profile of your drivers courtesy DirectX. Here's the snippet in question:



Is that actually an ATI FireMV graphics chipset? The FireMV is designed as a 2D graphics accelerator; I'm not sure it's compatible with Second Life. If that's not what you're running, you might need to investigate what drivers are installed.

My system is a Dell Inspiron 600M with a 1.8GHz PentiumM processor and Windows XP SP2. Specifically it is a Dothan processor, which is 0.090µ not 0.130µ. But otherwise, it is not that inaccurate to call it a Pentium III. It may have been at 600MHz at the time the crash log occured due to SpeedStep and a lack of activity, but normally it runs at 1.8GHz. The graphics chip is an ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 with 64MB of local memory. The system has 512MB of system memory.

I updated to the latest versions of the graphics and network drivers from Dell, as you suggested, and the Netgear gateway has stopped crashing. Oddly enough, the SL client now complains at startup that my graphics is in PCI mode, which it didn't do with the old drivers. The drivers claim to be in AGP mode and the performance is great, so I ignore this message.

I still occasionally get periods of time where my network bandwidth to LL drops to <100kb/s for a minute or so, but it bounces back without crashing. My Mac mini can be running SL at the same time with no network issues.