Mr eel
Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection
Getting totally thrashed on Mario Kart DS via the interwebs is annoying, but that’s ok. It just makes me wanna polish my kart racing skills.
Even though Nintendo’s Wi-Fi Connection works seamlessly in-game, configuring it is a little more tricky.
Firstly, as far as I can tell, the DS uses 108.11b for Wi-Fi. If you have a newer router that supports 108.11g, make sure you enable B as well.
Secondly, the DS doesn’t like hidden SSIDs. Which seems really stupid when you manually input the SSID and it still doesn’t find it. I could only connect to my router when I stopped hiding it. Annoying coz I’m trying to maintain at least some minimal security on my network.
I would like to use WPA encryption, but I have no idea if the DS supports it. For now I’m just using WEP encryption.
Since the DS complies to the Wi-Fi standard it does have a MAC address, so luckily I associate it to the router. A bit more security. Be buggered if I’ll run an access point without at least that. I don’t actually want to share my interwebs with the neighbors 
Bottom line is this, if you have an open access-point it’s dead easy to set up. You’re DS can automatically set up a connection. If you have even minimal security on your AP, get ready for a bit of fiddling. In the end not all that much, but if you’re doing it trial and error like me, it might take a bit of time.
I’m not blaming Nintendo here. I think their choice to use Wi-Fi rather than some proprietary protocol is really paying off, but it illustrates how shit Wi-Fi is in terms of ease-of-configuration. This is not technology for your average punter.
Comments