The best antivirus/firewall program to use while gaming!?!

[brunkke]

I just started to use norton internet security and i keep it turned on when i play. I think that i has caused me a higher ping while playing online. Is that possible? I didnt have this problem with norton 2k4. On the servers i use to have 20-40 ping i have now like 140 and its very unstable! Please help me or give me an example of a good program i could use instead!

 

[Nodsu]

Norton products are very demanding. Almost anything else will be faster than Norton.

You could make it go faster if you disable some of the features of the firewall.

 

[brunkke]

what program would you sugest?

 

[Nodsu]

I said anything else..

You get free personal firewalls from Zone Labs, Sygate, Kerio, Outpost and others. You should try them and find which one you like and works for you.

Also, you should uninstall Norton to see if it is the firewall that is the problem at all. When you uninstall, remember to remove the Norton drivers from Device Manager too.

 

[brunkke]

I dont wanna be a bother but how do i get it removed from the device manager?

 

[present]

hey,

i don't do much gaming right now, but when i was, ZA seemed to hurt ping times and system resources. Sygate seemed ok, but recently i have had some problems with it crashing on windows boxes i have installed it on (especially w2k, with SP3, not sure if SP4 fixes the problem).

i would suggest trying Tiny Personal Firewall. the small footprint should help with resources... then check your ping times against a fairly stable server (try google, or a computer on your lan, or one of your ISP's computers). record average pings with and without the firewall(s) and you should quickly find the best ones.

to check gaming performance, i would head over to mad onion forums, and download their benchmarking program designed to test gaming systems. run it to see what kind of score you get with your firewall on, then run it again without, to see what kind of score you get with it off.

ping with/without firewall on, and benchmark with/without firewall on, should give you a good indication which firewall will be best for your situation.

oh ya, and software is added/removed by clicking Start-Control Panel-Add/Remove Programs-<Program Name>-Add/Remove

good luck

 

[Secondgunman]

Reg. Norton Internet security

I have run alot of firewalls and norton does not seen to hur ping on any of my sysems that are AMD but I have noticed the it will for some reason hurt ping on my P4. I have every thing shut off but the firewall and antivirus on both PCs I use on a day to day basis. I have not tried it my self but for Intel based PCs I have be told by more then one tech in my feild that McAfee's apps are real smoth on Intel computers. I have found you get what you pay for, eg. Over priced you get over crowed, Low cost you get low end proraming and All free software is striped down "trial ware" when something is free unlimited use and is "trial ware" it means the programers have made a change and need to do a wide scale test of it your PC is the lab rat... or lab mouse where I live as for no reason is a live rat allowed into the province of Alberta Canada Rats are killed on site, I think this should go for spyware programers aswell. but that would be for a diffrent forum. :knock:

 

[fishhookz]

Some hardcore gamers don't use software firewalls, instead, they set up the router to forward the port that the game uses to the specific IP the computer uses.

 

[leon phelps]

As a general rule, I like to recommend hardware firewalls instead of software firewalls. This way the system is not slowed up by the processor running fairly demanding programs to monitor ports. The hardware firewall will have a processor that will do all of this for you. You can even open up the specific ports that the game uses, thus locking the rest of the stuff out that would be harmful.

 

[brunkke]

How cheap can i get a hardware firewall that is good and good for gaming?

 

[Nodsu]

You have to keep in mind that the "hardware" firewall is really an embedded computer running some firewall software. And you can bet that if you get a very cheap one then there won't be much CPU power in there.

I suppose the best way would be to try it out and see how your ping is with the router and without one.

 

[leon phelps]

Routers...

A cheap router with firewall is about $40. A more expensive one (Watchguard) can be up to $200.

Like was said, you get what you pay for.

 

[tbrunt3]

I use Kapersky antihacker and kapersky Antivirus both very good! I would not recommend a hardware firewall at all espicallly if you play fast moving games some times if you open the port it still cause lag. But two each its own

 

[Secondgunman]

Thats what happens when you buy junk.

This is what happens when you buy junk. Get a Dlink Router/Modem for ADSL or Cable, if they are all one unit you don't have this problem. As far and software, software is never trusted as a single security layer, because for a softwae firewall to work the intruder must already be in the system with a hard ware firewall they can't find the system. Also a router will clean up your line noise, echos and other such clouding of your comunitacions making you have a cleaner broadcast. I used to have a ADSL modem and a Dlink router my ping latency in TFC "Team Fortress CLassic" was avrage of 62 on the server I normaly played on and it was the 70 if I unpluged the router and lined directly into the modem... Ferther-more Some AKA alot of softwar firewalls will slow you down in gaming and high bandwidth use because of the clouding and added junk it uses to keep your Transmitions "safe" if a hacker knows the protcols it use then the software firewall is no good anymore.