Will this work for a network system

[snkbit]

Hey,
Me and a bud are gonna be/try to host a lan party. we were wondering what type of network configuration we sould run. probably around 100-300 people.

could we just run a main router with something like 10 ports then run a bunch of hubs under it? will that work or is thier a better way to set it up.

Thanks For the Advise!
Mark

Poor mans surround sound all the way!

 

[sturm]

You would be better to run all switches as the hubs would add to much traffic going to computers that dont need the info for the other computers.
Youll also need more than one router as you are planning on possibly having more than 256 people.
With that many people you also might consider running gigabit to the main switches than 100 bit to each computer.
What are you planning on using for the main server(s)?
I would talk to some people in your area that have done something like this.

 

[bum_jcrules]

Where are you going to have it? Location?

Maybe some of us could make it there.



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[riser]

I wouldn't attempt to do a LAN party on a 70 dollar router either. If you're going to do this, you're going to need to invest in better equipment. Your 10 port router might work fine for a handful of people, but 200 people connecting to a router that doesn't expect to see that much traffic at once is going to bog down. Don't expect to keep daisy chaining switches on switches with cross-over cables to get enough connections. To run good you'll want to have the least amount of equipment between their computer and the server. My suggestion would be from their computer, connect into a switch, which connects into the router. I would recommend at LEAST 2 routers, each router connecting 24 port switches until you reach the amount connections needed. Depending on what games you plan on playing, gigabit ethernet might be a better investment. If you're playing Team Fortess 100Mbit would cover it. If you're playing newer games, Gigabit probably would benefit you, but isn't needed.
Since you're completely new I'll say this: You're stepping into something you originally thought would probably be simple and not very expensive... It'll cost you some money to get what you need and it's going to give you headaches.

 

[Dev]

I would rent a serious switch. A high end Cisco or Extreme properly configured should easily take a load of that size. Naturally, you should segment with additional switches below in a layered model (Cisco's Collapsed Core model seems ideal).
I see no reason why you would need a router for this. Routers separate networks, and I see no reason for this unless you plan to host several different games where each game has a separate network.
One big caveat are switching loops, but that is negated if you run swithces Spanning Tree Protocol ability. You *could* do this with daisychained cheap switches, but that would be a major headache.

Dev

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[Rob423]

YES deff NO HUBS... that would create a beautiful Collision environment... SWITCH will allow the maximum throughput and no collisions..

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1 GB Corsair XMS PC3200 Cas2<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Rob423 on 02/01/04 03:36 PM.</EM></FONT></P>