Does anyone know what a good data tranfer speed is for online gaming and general purpose. I was planning on mating a wireless adapter add on card but most offer "up to 300mbps but how much is really needed. do I need more? Or is this fine?
Well first things first, you must ask if they're using MegaBits per second or MegaBytes. Its most likely in Mega Bits since that's usually the standard (but often depends on manufacturer). And it also depends on how many devices are going to be routed through that router at once. And lastly it depends on how much bandwidth you have and how much you want to take advantage of. Say if you have a 500mbps line to your house, and you get that 300mbps router, you're losing a total of 200mbps potentially. Now if you have slow internet, say 5 mbps, 300mbps router will be fine. haha.
Online gaming mostly depends on ping. You want to aim at least for less than 100ms of ping. I play on a 0.5 Mbps connection. It's plenty fast for games like Battlefield 3. My ping is usually around 40-60. The only time I experience lag is when others are using the Internet on my network. During those times, my ping will shoot up to anywhere from 200-1000.