Prior to my recent move to live with my fiancée, I had my network router, Xbox, and TiVo's all on one convenient hub (well the router's hub). Sure I had my primary pc off in another room, using a wireless network card, but it worked well enough and life was pretty good.
Then everything changed. The router now sat in the office with my gaming box, my file server, the mrs.-to-be's box, and the ps2 (though I have the adapter, I've never actually used it). That left 2 orphaned TiVo's and sad and lonely XBOX. That wouldn't be so bad as I don't really use XBOX Live!, however I found a better, more productive use for XBOX networking...XBOX Media Center. This thing plays just about everything I throw at it, and does it with grace. It supports HDTV resolutions and is just a kick ass piece of software. The problem is, all of my files are on my file server (oddly enough) and that is a long way away from my un-networked XBOX.
My first reaction was to install 3rd party firmware on my spare WRT54G (the fiancée and I each had one for wireless networking convenience), thereby turning the router into a wireless bridge of sorts. The TiVo's thrived in this environment, but the XBOX baulked at being on a hacked router-turned-bridge. I could coax it into a good 15 seconds of connectivity, but it just wouldn't hold the course.
So, I have several options at this point. I can hold out and wait for newer firmware for the WRT54G, hoping that it will fix the problem. Or I could buy something. I like buying things, it's a bit of a pastime of sorts for me, so I went with plan B. Deciding that money would solve my problems, I had two more choices, I could buy a wireless bridge proper, which would cost roughly $150 (nearly twice a proper cable/dsl router, which seems stupid), or a Wireless Gaming Adapter costing $70-$100 depending on 802.11b or 11g compliance.
Based on the title of this clip, it's probably not hard to figure out I went with the Wireless-G Gaming Adapter. Why? Well it seemed like a good idea at the time. Actually it seemed like the easy solution. I just wanted my XBOX to be on the damned network.
So I get it home, connect it up to my pc so I can configure it, which is done through the supplied cd. No software is installed on your pc, it's all done directly by the setup cd, and heaven help you if you loose or break it. I did this all on my laptop, which worked well once I disabled my laptop's wireless adapter, since the cd wouldn't detect the WGA otherwise. Setup was easy, I just had to enter the basic information for my router and security and it worked just fine, I was able to surf the web on my laptop through the device and was just as successful connecting it to my XBOX.
After some trials (listening to some streamed music, viewing some pictures, streaming some video), the unit works exactly as advertised: It got my XBOX on my wireless network and did it fairly painlessly. The upside here is that it's a specific tool for a specific job: to get my XBOX on my network. The downside is that it is perhaps too specific. It will network one device and one device only (I tried to put a switch behind it, but only one device worked at a time, but the switch is pretty crappy so I may try it with a better one later). Perhaps it a little buyer's remorse, but for $50 more I could get a true wireless bridge that could handle more devices (it would still need a hub/switch though).
Overall it's a good device that does its job well. While it's designed to work with the PS2, I wouldn't recommend this model since the PS2 will never be able to take advantage of the 11g speed, so save your money and buy the 11b model. But ff you need to wirelessly connect an XBOX to a network it will do just that.
See wireless bridging part 2 for a second look and more!