Add private wifi netrowk to pc

gazz · 22 Oct 2018 at 12:42

My gaming PC is connected to the main house router via a (40 meter) lan cable,

I have one of those wifi boosters that work over the power lines with the 2 mains plugs... one at the router end, and the other in the room the laptop is in, and use that to connect the laptop to the home network and thus internet.

I want a seperate private wifi network that is not connected to the internet, and does not involve all the hops back to the home router and that....

this is to connect 4 x android tablets plus my phone (and later some controls) over wifi to the gaming pc, where i run a little program that extracts data from the game (TS2019) and sends it via wifi to the tablets, they then display this data mimicking the displays in the game... giving me a total immersion control desk of a train basically.

So, i want a wifi card i can put in the PC, that i can set up so it does not connect to the internet, but works as a private wifi hub so to speak, where i can connect the tablets to it, and they will only see the private network... no internet.. so no bloomin updates every 5 minutes for apps i never use.

How can i do this? can i even do this using a PCIe wifi card? or do i need a usb wifi router?
as you can tell, i am a noob at this wifi set up stuff.... i'll need telling what to change and where to set this up.

The software on the PC, i just set the network address i want to use, i.e. 192.168.1.2, and port: 47812, and do the same on the tablets,
Then start the server program on the PC then the game, and start the apps on the tablets, and they talk to eachother over the wifi... only ATM with lots of annoying lag which causes the flasthing lights to go out of sync with the ones in the game.

bremen1874 · 22 Oct 2018 at 13:13

I'd try using an additional wireless router configured as access point. Connect it between the end of your 40 meter cable and the PC.

If you want to use the PC instead do some research on 'windows internet connection sharing'. The PC would need to have wireless (USB or an internal card).

Blocking the tablets from the internet could probably be achieved by configuring them with static IPs and leaving the gateway addresses blank.

gazz · 22 Oct 2018 at 16:03

Cheers,

i've ordered a PCIe wifi card, i basically want my own little private wifi network that is only used to send the data from the game to the tablets, with nothing else interfeering with it... there's a ton of data (tho only text really) updated every few milliseconds, and i notice lag and stutters when using the wifi that is also the internet connection.

Avalon · 22 Oct 2018 at 17:46

You could create an adhoc network, an AP would likely work better, but latency is always going to be an issue on Wi-fi compared to wired, that is the nature of the beast.

bremen1874 · 22 Oct 2018 at 17:48

I was wondering if the OP could connect the tablets using OTG Ethernet adapters.

gazz · 23 Oct 2018 at 23:20

that's how i had the tablets connected to the laptop... using the usb ethernet thing. but one of the tablets runs kitkat.. android 4 and needs manually putting into that mode every time i start it.

I'd like to have this private wifi network using the wifi card in my pc... the pc is connected to the net via lan, and that wifi card will justbe there to send the tcp stuff between the TS_bridge to the TS_MFA... which is the thing that sends the data from the game over tcp, to the tablets that run the app and respond to the tcp stuff... you can tell im out of my depth here cant you

gazz · 25 Oct 2018 at 14:12

i found "Virtual Router Manager' and it does what i want it seems (to get it from the person who wrote it https://archive.codeplex.com/?p=virtualrouter i think you need to build the program somehow... no idea how to do that, so i got the ready to use version from 'softronic' i imagine it's had little bits added to it to capture what goes over the network... but if it has, they will soon get bored as all that will go over it will be strings of text relating to train gauges and lights being on or off)...

Only down side so far, it needs manually starting every time i start the main pc... but i've been told there's some kind of macro's or something that can start up a specific set of programs upon startup,

i've put windows 8.1 on the new desktop build... just so all my computers are running the same version of windows... then found out 8.1 is missing something that allows ad-hoc networks to be made unless you do it via the command line. hence the use of virtual router.