xbox 360 live questions

[Daniel]

never played xbox live but have a few questions so hope these are quick to answer

1. do ms host all/any servers or can users just host games themselves
2. how do individual server addresses become known to other users? if users host games, do they send a server ip to a master list so others can see it
3. if i setup a server can it be password protected or invite only or something
4. what kind of pings/lag do most people get?
5. best guess what kind of performance would a 12mb down/2mb up connection get - although in practice down works out at 2mb/s on torrents, and just under 1mb/s on uploads.

thanks for any help

[EvilBoris]

1.Most games are Peer to peer and are hosted by the players, although there
Some games choose it automatically based upon network conditions, some are hosted by whoever starts the game initially.
2. Some games you can look at a partial list of available games, but most games now feature matchmaking which basically connects you to a game of players of a similar skill (which is calculated by the complex truskill equation) or allows you to filter certain game requirements (mode,map etc)
3. Most games will allow you to make the game invite only
4.It really depends on who is hosting the game there is a high proportion of US users on LIVE, so if you are in the UK and end up in one of their games you can end up with the expected amount of latency for someone hosting a game that far away. Obviously you do get morons who are downloading at the same time as playing and adversely affecting the game.
5. 1MB upload is more than enough to host a decent amount of players in any game.