I'm considering upgrading my dial up account to ADSL but could use some advice WRT the various ADSL modem/router options available. From what I've discovered so far, it seems that USB modems hog the CPU and can cause an FPS reduction of 10% or more in games, as well as packet loss. So this leaves either a PCI card or an Ethernet router.
Is there likely to be any difference in CPU, bus or memory usage between either PCI or Ethernet equipment?
Some PCI cards have no onboard memory cache, so presumably they use system memory for this. This would be a bad thing, correct?
Mine is a standalone PC, so if I went for Ethernet I'd need a network card too. Are there any good or bad ones to look out for?
I'd prefer a hardware firewall, are there any firewalls out there which won't let me block ports 2000-3000 for AH?
Are there any other issues I should look out for WRT AH compatibility, either hardware or ISP related? My PC is an Athlon 1400 with an Asus A7M266 MB running Windows 98SE.
Finally, does anyone have any good or bad experiences of particular ADSL hardware? Thanks in advance for any advice.
