Sounds familiar?

If you have ever played games online, you would know what I’m talking about. Either you have experienced it yourself or you have witnessed a fellow comrade going through the struggles of it.

It could be an Internet Service Provider tweaking their network. It could be an overloaded game server. More often than not, lag is caused by something within your local network like your wife / sister/ brother / parents / kids downloading something while you are playing.

Why does this happen when you have all that bandwidth?

You can have the best video card, the biggest monitor, the most sensitive mouse, and the fattest internet connection. But those advantages won’t do you any good in online games if your router is not up to the snuff.

If you want to eliminate lag in your online games but you share an internet connection with a bandwidth hog, the D-Link DGL-4300 Wireless 108G Gaming Router may just be the solution for you.

Out-of-the-box, the DGL-4300 is aesthetically pleasing to the eye. Completely different from the usual D-Link blue/grey motif, the unit is all-matte-black with bright-blue LED indicators. The package includes the standard bundle one would expect to have with any router: a CAT5 ethernet cable, power adapter, mounting kit, vertical stand, manual, and installation guide cd.

Thanks to a web-based configuration interface, setting-up the DGL-4300 is actually the easiest experience to date I have had installing any router solution in my home network. Just enter the router’s IP address into a browser and use the various tabs to access the multitude of options.

If you have never setup a router before, D-Link comes to the rescue with easy to use built-in wizards for configuring both the LAN and Wireless connection. All that is required is to follow the prompts and answer a few easy questions. Based on your response the router will configure itself to your personal preference.

Help documentation is integrated into the interface for easy reference, and a complete glossary is included, allowing beginners to quickly look up unfamiliar terms.

Aside from the now-standard features like built-in firewall, access control, static and dynamic routing, and WPA and WEP security, the DGL-4300 supports an impressive array of cutting-edge features. It has a four-port Gigabit (yes, Gigabit as in 1000Mbps!) Ethernet hub for blazing-fast transfers over a wired network. It uses a high-gain antenna which provides greater coverage and the fastest possible wireless transfer rates (up to a theoretical maximum of 108 Mbps if used with other D-Link products that incorporate the company’s Xtreme G technology). It also works with older and more common 802.11b hardware but at much slower data-transfer rates (up to 11Mbps).

The highlight of the DGL-4300 is the inclusion of D-Link’s GameFuel technology. It is a built-in engine which gives top network-traffic priority to predefined games such as Counter-Strike over other programs like email, chat clients, and web browsers. Advanced users can also tweak the DGL-4300 to prioritize programs other than games. It can also be configured to follow specific network rules that will give priority to a single or multiple PC’s.

By default, D-Link has provided a comprehensive list of some of the more known titles such as Quake 3, Unreal Tournament, Halo, and Doom 3. Other games can be added manually or thru a firmware live update.

To test if GameFuel is just a marketing ploy, I tried out some online games (Counter-Strike and Unreal Tournament 2004) and some file-sharing programs (Bit Torrent and Limewire) using my regular router and then the DGL-4300.

There was no noticeable difference when I ran only 1 game using either router even with GameFuel turned-on in the DGL-4300. When I ran the file-sharing programs while playing the games, predictably, I experienced lag on both routers. But when I turned GameFuel on, the games ran as smoothly as they did when there were no other programs running. Impressive!

I normally transfer large files between my desktop pc and my laptop. A 4.3 GB file normally takes me around 5 minutes to transfer with my regular router. With the DGL-4300 and with only my desktop pc equipped with a 1-Gigabit connection, the same file was transferred in just a minute!

As impressed as I am with the features mentioned so far, I am greatly disappointed with its wireless capability. In spite of using a compatible D-link 802.11g wireless adapter at distance of less than 2 meters, the internet connection kept dropping at a rate of around once every 10 minutes. 30 feet and two concrete walls away, the signal strength was already at the minimum. I have experienced better signal strength, coverage, and stability with other routers using MIMO technology.

Overall, it you are a gamer and your primary concern is speed and performance, the D-Link DGL-4300 is a very slick unit that is absolutely perfect for the gamer who can’t get enough bandwidth. (Jojo Perlas)