What is Xbox Live?

Xbox Live is a service from Microsoft that lets you play Xbox Live compatible games online. It also allows you to download extra content, such as new levels, characters and outfits for some games. It also gives you the ability to communicate with players using the Xbox Communicator headset and microphone.

When you buy an Xbox Live Starter Kit you get:

One year of Xbox Live service
The Xbox Communicator Headset
Playable demos of Whacked and MotoGP

The Basics

How do I get started?

To get connected to Xbox Live you need an Xbox, Xbox Live Starter Kit, Broadband connection to the internet and a credit card.

When you first sign up for Xbox Live (after buying the Starter Kit) you'll have to enter a credit card number and some basic information to build your identity (using an onscreen virtual keyboard). It's a one time process. After that, all the Xbox Live interface options will be present, just like regular Xbox options.

Xbox Live options explained

Optimatch

You can customise the types of game and players you want to play using the Optimatch mode. This means that if you only want to see a list of low skill level, deathmatch Unreal Championship games on a particular level and using a particular weapon, then that's all you will see on the list.
You can tailor Optimatch to suit your needs and choose the exact game modes you like.

Quickmatch

If you're just itching to get started on a game, Quickmatch will seek out the closest, fastest game to you and ask if you want to join. If you don't like whats offered then simply choose Quickmatch again and see what's changed.

ID and Security

Gamertag

When you sign up for the service you must choose a name for yourself, and this Gamertag ID will stick with you for as long as you are subscribed to Xbox Live. The earlier you join Xbox Live, the smaller the chance of someone else using your preferred nickname.

Portability

You can use your Xbox Live account on any Xbox, as long as you save your details to a memory unit and the other Xbox has a broadband connection.

How secure are my details?

No credit card or address details are stored in your Xbox or your memory unit. All the information you will want to keep secret is encrypted and stored securely on Microsoft's custom servers. There will be no cheating, hacking or spamming, or any of the other problems people have come to associate with online gaming.

Records and Statistics

Xbox Live stores info about a player from the moment they register for the service. Xbox Live can show how many games, races and fights you have won, your season statistics for sports games and total kills in first person shooters. Ideal for league tables and rankings

Can I keep track of my friends?

If your friends have Xbox Live you can add them to your Friends List. You do this by simply adding their GamerTag ID to your list. You can monitor when friends are online and even what games they are playing.

Cross game Invites

If you log onto Xbox Live and you see that one of your friends is playing a game which you don't own, you can challenge them to a game which you both own.
By choosing a Cross Game Invite, you send them an unobtrusive invite which they can ignore or accept. If they choose to accept they simply open their disc tray, swap game discs (for the one you have challenged them on) and then they will find you waiting there, ready to play. The Xbox Live system keeps track of the whole process, so resetting the Xbox doesn't make a difference.

Xbox Communicator

The Xbox Communicator is a single-ear headphone and microphone headset. It plugs into your Xbox controller and lets you talk live with anyone you are playing a game with.
The cart section of the communicator, which is the section which plugs into the controller, includes a volume control dial and a mute button (for muting your voice). The communicator operates independently of the game soundtrack and sound effects. Every Xbox Live title will be compatible with the communicator, and the lack of keyboard makes it an absolute requirement for communicating with other people on the service.

Voice masking

Voice masking is the ability to digitally disguise your voice. Choosing a 'style' of voice from a menu (ranging from robotic to baby voice) digitally modulates your voice, other players will hear a clear, but tweaked voice.

Ignoring other players

When the voice masking gets too much to take, or someone you are playing with is annoying you with the things they are saying, you can Mute them at any time, using your Xbox Live preferences. You won't hear them until you reactivate them. You can mute individual players, or all the people in a game. Or, if you wanted, you could simply unplug your Xbox Communicator, since the regular game soundtrack and sound effects will continue as normal.

Software Support

8 games will be available at the launch of Xbox Live, with over 50 titles being available by Christmas 2003.

The launch titles are:

NFL Fever 2003
Mechassault
Unreal Championship
MotoGP
Whacked
NFL 2k3
NBA 2k3
Ghost Recon

Notable titles which will be released in the future with Xbox Live support are Project Gotham Racing 2, Halo 2, Phantasy Star Online, True Fantasy Live Online and Counterstrike.

Questions and Answers

Why is Xbox Live broadband only?

Xbox Live is a service, and as part of that service Xbox games should play as smoothly and quickly online as their offline counterparts. High speed internet is the only way to make this possible, which is why Xbox Live will only work with a high speed connection. The fast connection enables smooth, glitch free gameplay and voice communication, with none of the latency, hiccups or stuttering which plagues 56k modems.

Xbox Live will take full advantage of the benefits offered by high speed internet connections. It will take advantage of faster networks, but it will also adjust for occasional glitches and slowdowns suffered by Internet Service Providers. Clever server technology helps compensate for the sudden drops in performance (which anyone who has broadband and plays online will tell you effects everyone occasionally)

So what precisely do I need?

You need an Xbox, a high speed connection and a connector cable. If your home broadband system goes through a hub or router then all you need is regular CAT 5 Ethernet cable (RJ45). If you are going to plug your Xbox directly into your modem, you will need either regular CAT 5 Ethernet cable (RJ45) or a crossover Ethernet cable (check to see what your DSL/Cable modem requires, and some work with both)

Connecting your xbox to the internet

So, you want to hook your Xbox up to the internet? You found the right place for some true information. First off, basic network hardware information:

What's a hub?

A hub is basically a "dumb" cable splitter, a good way to think of it is as a power strip that you plug into the wall in order to get more outlets, the downside is that all data communication is sent to all the ports, thus taking up the available bandwidth from all other ports. For example, I have 3 computers plugged into a 4 port hub. If computer 1 wants to talk to computer 2 it blasts the data out of the network card and to the hub, which in turn blasts that same data to all of the ports on the hub, so computer 3, even though it wasn't being talked to will see that data. Bottom line, the more computers you have on a hub, the slower the connection will be. That said, with only 2-3 computers on a 100mb hub, you'll never notice the slow down, especially if your only browsing the internet and/or using your xbox to share your internet connection. If you're tight on cash, buy a 100mb hub rather than a switch, 10mb would be fine too, but you may see some slow down if your downloading a large file at the same time your trying to frag online with your xbox.

What's a switch?

A switch performs the exact same function as a hub, but with some added brains. Like a hub, it will split the connection into as many ports as the switch has, but a switch contains some circity that gives every port dedicated bandwidth. Using the example from the hub description, 3 computers hooked to a switch, if computer 1 wants to talk to computer 2, computer 1 sends the data to the switch, and the switch is "smart" enough to know what port computer 2 is plugged into and send the data only to that port, computer 3 never sees that traffic. So, on a 100mb switch, all computers get 100mb of bandwidth regardless of what all the other computers are doing on the switch.

What's a router (linksys reference)?

A router is the next evolution in data transmision. A router IS NOT A SWITCH OR HUB!! It basically has some software in it that can be altered to "route" traffic based on the needs of the owner. It is used to control the flow of data between networks or computers. For example, if I want all of my data to be transmitted on port 1245 I would program my router to do that with all traffic that comes into it, and have it sent out of it on that port. Or, it can be used as a firewall to block all traffic on port 54321 etc. In the case of the comsumer brand Linksys router, most models have a built in switch that allows you to plug computers directly into it. With some other models, you have to hook a hub/switch into the one port in order to connect multiple computers. Again, routers, switches and hubs are all seperate hardware, the manufacture has just combined 2 of them to make it easier for novice users to use. The router then directs all traffic out the Wan connection, or cable/DSL connection, thus sharing the internet connection between all of the computers connected to it.

Cat 5 cable info

I have noticed that people get confused about cables sometimes, whether to use a crossover cable or a straight through cable. First off, there are only 2 types of cables that you need to be concerned about, crossover and straight through. If a cable is not labelled crossover in the store, then it is a straight through cable. The difference in the cables is that in a straight through cable, all the pins line up on both ends of cable, ie. pin 1 on one end goes to pin 1 on the other end, just like an IDE ribbon that connects hard drives to your motherboard. In a crossover cable, the pins do not go straight through (hence the name). When data is going through a cat5 cable, only 4 wires are used; 1,2,3 and 6 out of 8. In a crossover cable, pin 1 connects to pin 3 and pin 2 connects to pin 6 on the other end.

Also, do not get hung up on the 350mhz cable or other premium cables, it's just a waste of your money to purchase them. With comsumer level products, you will never notice a speed difference between the high end stuff and the premium stuff.

Reason for crossover

In an ethernet connection, there are send and receive wires that match up with the send and receive pins on your network card. So if you want to hook 2 computers directly to each other, you can't use a straight through cable because you would be hooking a send to a send and a receive to a receive on the network cards. So you use a crossover cable, that connects send to receive and send to receive; makes perfect sense, huh?

You also need a cross connection when hooking 2 switches or hubs together. Let's say that you need 5 computers hooked up, but only have two 4-port hubs. You can connect the hubs together and essentialy create one larger hub. The line that connects the hubs has to be crossed somewhere, whether you connect a crossover cable to 2 standard ports on each hub, or you use a straight through and plug it into an uplink port on one of the hubs and a regular port on the other hub. Do not hook a cable to the uplink port on both hubs. Also, do not connect a computer to an uplink port. The uplink port is used only for connecting multiple hubs/switches together. I know someone out there knows how to make it work, but for simplicity, and standards, just don't do it.

Hooking things up:

PC to PC connections can be done in 2 ways, directly with a crossover cable, or through a hub that only requires 2 straight through cables plugged into 2 ports in a hub, no crossover required.

To hook a pc to a hub, or a switch you do not need a crossover cable!

If you want to share your internet connection with another computer or an Xbox, you will need something to provide a link to all of the devices, like a hub, and something to route the internet traffic to and from each device, like a router. The perfect solution to this problem is a Linksys router or similar product, or a computer running some type of internet sharing program. My experience with programs that run on a PC are either not as easy to setup, or do not work as well as a linksys type device. View the diagrams and descriptions below to match your setup.

DHCP:

DHCP is used to automaticly assign computers or other devices IP address information that it will need to communicate on the network. If you're a newbie, then I would use this option, it will make things much easier. I believe that Linksys by default will do this. So, if your computer's network card is set to automaticly obtain an IP address:

then as soon as you plug your computer into a numbered port on the Linksys, it will pull an IP address, and you will be able to communicate with it by typing "http://192.168.1.1" into your web browser and putting in the default password of "admin", no username.

Basic PC hookup, showing that you need a crossover cable to accomplish this

PC to PC via hub connection, only straight through cables are needed.

Hooking up 2 PCs to the internet via a Linksys router. Notice: you must have an IP address that is on the same subnet as the Linksys in order to communicate with it. See the image below for example. The first 3 sets of numbers in an IP address have to be the same on all devices and the last number has to be between 1 and 254.

Hooking up the Xbox and more info about using the Linksys. All cables are straight through, the modem is hooked to the WAN port of the Linksys, all other devices are hooked to the numbered switch ports, the LAN port on the Linksys is not used in this illustration.

Troubleshooting

Whilst broadband connections are varied, complex and often problematic, Xbox Live has a built-in troubleshooting. If it doesn't work first time, the chances are that its built-in network troubleshooter will point you in the right direction with clear and accurate instructions in easy to understand language.