Streaming/file sharing and switch interaction?

[sterlingr]

Hello all,

I currently have my PC and xbox/ theater room downstairs on wireless. For obvious reasons this is not ideal so I am taking on the project of running cat5 from my upstairs router down to a switch (in a supply closet downstairs) then to my PC and my theater room.

 

My question is, if I plan on utilizing media streaming from my PC as well as xbox remote play from my xbox to my PC, will that happen through the switch or will all that go back through the router? If if goes through the switch, would this work well? Is there a certain switch feature I should look for?

If it goes back through the router, is that a problem?

 

Thanks all!

[UL_42L]

I would assume that such things would try to go through the switch, and can't see why that would be an issue. However, if it did go back through the router, I also can't see why that would cause trouble, save perhaps a little more delay.

[RazorStorm]

As long as your PC Network and Sharing Center are set to allow sharing through the network. It should default to the fastest connection, in this case ethernet through the switch. If you have issues with it defaulting to wireless, you could try disconnecting wireless and using an ethernet cable to connect your router and switch (this will give you internet over Ethernet).

[Apathetik]

I currently have a few 8 port Linksys gbit 'smart' switches on my network. In my experience PC to PC can communicate directly through the switch if both are plugged into it. But I don't have any consoles at all. So I don't know how this would work between a PC and Xbox. Generally though, as long as the switch itself can handle the throughput ( 1gbit switches are pretty cheap these days unless you need a massive one), and your cat5 runs aren't too long (the longer the runs, the more the signal degrades). You should be fine regardless of it goes through just the switch. Or all the way back through the router. 

[sterlingr]

2 minutes ago, RazorStorm said:

As long as your PC Network and Sharing Center are set to allow sharing through the network. It should default to the fastest connection, in this case ethernet through the switch. If you have issues with it defaulting to wireless, you could try disconnecting wireless and using an ethernet cable to connect your router and switch (this will give you internet over Ethernet).

Sorry if I was unclear, my plan is to have wireless disabled on all my mentioned devices, only having wired ethernet! 

 

Router> switch> pc and theater room

 

I was asking if streaming between the pc and theater room would go through the switch back to the router to connect, or connect right at the switch. Hope that helps

[sterlingr]

24 minutes ago, Apathetik said:

I currently have a few 8 port Linksys gbit 'smart' switches on my network. In my experience PC to PC can communicate directly through the switch if both are plugged into it. But I don't have any consoles at all. So I don't know how this would work between a PC and Xbox. Generally though, as long as the switch itself can handle the throughput ( 1gbit switches are pretty cheap these days unless you need a massive one), and your cat5 runs aren't too long (the longer the runs, the more the signal degrades). You should be fine regardless of it goes through just the switch. Or all the way back through the router. 

Should it preform well enough to do game streaming? (A 50ft ethernet run and a 20ft one connecting the xbox to the switch and pc to the switch)

[UL_42L]

1 minute ago, sterlingr said:

Should it preform well enough to do game streaming? (A 50ft ethernet run and a 20ft one connecting the xbox to the switch and pc to the switch)

I would assume it's still going to be faster than wireless, so yes.

[Apathetik]

5 minutes ago, sterlingr said:

Should it preform well enough to do game streaming? (A 50ft ethernet run and a 20ft one connecting the xbox to the switch and pc to the switch)

Yeah, that should be fine. I think the limit for cat5 runs is somewhere around 300ft per uninterrupted run.You're well below that. You shouldn't see any issues with signal degradation. Your ping should also be just fine regardless of how it routes with that short of a run. 

[dzonidev]

If your PC is on the switch as well as the devices that will communicate with the PC, everything will go through the switch.