Hardware Firewall

I have this router, the WRT54G, and I upgraded the firmware to a third party firmware, the DD-WRT firmware. So, I was wondering if I have the firewall on the router enabled, should I also have a software firewall on my running on my OS?

Yes, your Router has a "hardware firewall" that will provide protection for your network from "incoming" threats. Software Firewalls such as zone alarm, kerio, comodo, sygate, provide "two-way" protection, in that they alert you to any attempts from inside your machine to connect to or accept connection from locations on the Internet. This additional "two-way" support may be your best defense against threats that may sneak in with "bundled software" or apparently legitimate, but corrupted downloads. The (free) stand-alone versions of the above mentioned firewalls are all competent. No need to purchase the full/paid version unless you just want to do so. The protection is the same free/or/paid. Best Regards

ok, just needed that clarified because I was reading on the internet on how great hardware firewalls were, just needed to know if I even needed a software firewall. Oh, and since I need to install a firewall which would be the best and lightest one on my computer, I don't want it to take away system resources that I need to play games.

Zone Alarm or Windows own firewall are probably the lightest on your system resorces. Both firewalls are great, and best of all……free!

Any of those I referred to are competent. Some users find that one suites their preferences better than others. I've used ZoneAlarm for years with no problem, as has my Son on his gaming machine. The nice thing about (free) Firewall applications is that you can try them out and run them for a while, then uninstall and try another one if you want. Have only one software Firewall installed and active at a time. Note: Windows XP Firewall suffers the same "one-direction" shortcoming that hardware firewalls have. Get a software firewall, from the above list of recommendations. Best Regards