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I'm interested in trying out this Xbox to Windows 10 streaming thing. Right now my setup is that my Xbox is on its own powerline ethernet switch, as is my PC, and the router is on a 3rd one. The network is fast enough for Plex, but I hear you have to have a very hefty network for game streaming, and I don't want to jump to Windows 10 just yet, so I can't just test it myself.

The distance between my Xbox and my PC mean that it's just about doable to run an ethernet cable from both of them to a switch, then run that into a powerline adapter, to the router. If I do this will the network traffic still have to go via the router, or will a switch be smart enough to route directly from the PC to the Xbox and vice versa?

Are there any potential downsides to doing this, besides the small expense of the cable?

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1) Game streaming

Game streaming does not require a "very hefty" network. The ability to deliver 50Mbps more than enough, typically it uses 20-30Mbps, or a little more than a maximum quality Plex stream. However the half-duplex nature and low consistency of powerline could be a bigger issue.

2) The switch

A switch will do fine in this situation. It will do exactly what you want. Traffic on the local network is never routed anyway, only traffic to the internet goes via the 'router'. Technically, if you were to connect both the PC and Xbox directly to the 'router', the traffic actually goes between them using the internal switch and doesn't reach the actual 'router' - so what you're doing is practically the same.

3) Downsides

None really. This provides the fastest and most reliable connection between the Xbox and the PC and gives them the same Powerline/internet connectivity as before.

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  • Thanks, that pretty much solves everything, but what do you mean by powerline being half duplex? I wasn't aware that was the case, and my PC reports the network running at gigabit full duplex. My powerline network is AV1000 standard if that matters
    – Gunrun247
    Commented Jul 29, 2015 at 16:09
  • @Gunrun247: Half duplex means a device can only transmit or receive but cannot do both at the same time. In fact not only is it half duplex but it's also a single collision domain. Ultimately you just have to understand it functions pretty much like WiFi. It doesn't matter what your PC reports its connection to the powerline as, it's the connection between the powerline adapters that's half duplex.
    – qasdfdsaq
    Commented Jul 30, 2015 at 8:56

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