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Let's say I want to set up a SMALL LAN party...

I

Ichigo

Platinum Member
How would the networking be setup? Should I setup a machine as a dedicated server? How would I go daisychaining the routers? Any annoying ports to forward or any other special settings I have to set?
 
With my (albeit limited) experience, you'd be better off purchasing a switch and hooking that into your router. That way you don't have to worry about conflicting DHCP servers. But, if you're not looking to purchase hardware, then you can daisy-chain the routers, but you have to decide which router will be the master router (i.e. has DHCP enabled), and then dumb-down every other router's settings so that they don't lease IPs. You probably have to put every computer attached to the slave routers into the DMZ as well, just so you don't have a port-forwarding nightmare. I could be wrong, though--I've never tried to daisy-chain routers myself, so I may be making it more complicated than it really is.
 
the switch advice is the best..

really, a 4 port SOHO router can be dumbed down (and you don't have to DMZ stuff) by turning off DHCP, and plugging from LAN to LAN port, so each router is effectivly good for 3 stations.

check on ebay, I got a decent 24 port 10/100 switch for 6 bucks (with shipping)
 
How does a switch work? Do you just connect it to the router and the rest of the systems to the switch? What about the server?
 
Exactly. You connect the switch to the router, and then connect everything else to the switch, including the server. All the switch does is add a lot of ports--you don't need to look at any hardware that does packet-shaping or VLAN-ing or any of that good stuff. As far as you're concerned, it's like a power strip, but for ethernet.
 
Originally posted by: TrueWisdom
Exactly. You connect the switch to the router, and then connect everything else to the switch, including the server. All the switch does is add a lot of ports--you don't need to look at any hardware that does packet-shaping or VLAN-ing or any of that good stuff. As far as you're concerned, it's like a power strip, but for ethernet.
Click to expand...

Yep, the router will do all of the dirty work like DHCP if you have it enabled, port forwarding, etc.
 
technically, you don't need a router for a LAN party (internal game server). although, you'd have to set up the IP address manually unless you also have a DCHP server in your network. in that case, a router would be much easier since it has a built in DHCP server.
 
Originally posted by: InlineFour
technically, you don't need a router for a LAN party (internal game server). although, you'd have to set up the IP address manually unless you also have a DCHP server in your network. in that case, a router would be much easier since it has a built in DHCP server.
Click to expand...

Technically you're right, but I'm sure they are probably going to want to connect to the internet too, and the router would be the quickest/easiest way. 😛
 
If you get one off ebay, watch out for a older unit. They will work fine in your case, but some of the older ones require either a cross-over cable or a button pushed to work in the manner that you will want it to do. Try to find one that does auto sensing for an uplink, so you won't have to worry about anything like that. (I have an old switch about 6-ish years old, that requires me to push in a button that turns one of the ports from a regular one to a uplink port, not terribly complicated, but something to keep in mind)
 
you probably don't even need a server depending on what games you are playing. the lans that karsten hosts here usually just have one of us host a game and the rest connect. there are usually around 10 or so playing one game at a time (like cod2, hl2dm, css or graw), maybe more maybe less and it seems to work fine.
 
sorry to bump this old thread, ( about 2 months.)
but i have another question...

now is it possible to have a lan party w/o the router or any internet connection?

me and my 7 other friends want to set up a small network at my house to play some starcraft..

i already have a 8port swithc 10/100 from linksys.

is that all you need?
 
Originally posted by: frank84
sorry to bump this old thread, ( about 2 months.)
but i have another question...

now is it possible to have a lan party w/o the router or any internet connection?

me and my 7 other friends want to set up a small network at my house to play some starcraft..

i already have a 8port swithc 10/100 from linksys.

is that all you need?
Click to expand...

Yes, it's very possible. I'm pretty sure StarCraft will let you play in LAN mode like other Blizzard games without an Internet connection. You'd have to try that as I'm not sure about the game but I'd be willing to bet you can.

As far as the equipment goes, as mentioned earlier, if you don't have a DHCP server, you'll have to set static IPs on each system. You could probably even use Windows Automatic Private IP addressing (starts with 169.254.x.x). I'd feel more confident with static or DHCP IPs however. If you use static, make sure they're in the same network and keep track of what people use (or assign them) so you won't have any conflict headaches.

If you have an old router laying around, you can even hook it to the switch via a LAN port and not even connect it to an Internet connection. That way it would lease IPs to the clients from the routers builtin DHCP.
 
Originally posted by: frank84
now, setting up the DHCP sounds new to me... can anyone explain for me?

setting up static IP ... ??

-frank
Click to expand...

If you have a router laying around, you shouldn't need to do anything to use it's DHCP server. If you are setting it up in Windows Server, well, that's a little more difficult if you are already unsure how to set a static IP.

To set a static IP, see:
http://corz.org/comms/hardware/router/static.ip.address.php
(scroll down to the Windows part and mostly ignore the rest)

But, as mweaver mentioned (and I forgot), StarCraft LAN play uses the IPX protocol. You would most likely have to install the IPX/SPX protocol on each system.
See:
http://www.practicallynetworked.com/sharing/xp/network_protocols.htm
http://www.dewassoc.com/support/networking/netgames.htm
or
http://www.enigmasoftwaredevelopments.com/ipx.html
 
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