LAN part network help

[Marche]

Hi
I am hosting a LAN party soon. I have 2 switches a 24port, and a 16port both are 100mbs. The problem I have is i have nothing with DHCP to hand out ips. I was thinking of using a broadband router, which has DHCP. The router has 4 switched ports built in, so i could connect the other switches to it and the game server as well. would this work? or it would it be slow as there is only a 100mbs between the switches and the game server.any other ideas?
thanks

[Fightingpiper]

A 100mbps is a lot of bandwidth.....you should be fine using the router as your dhcp........

[su root]

For games, 100Mbps should be no problem. It will clog up when doing any file sharing around a network, especially if most of those ports are filled.

Ideally, you will want all the switches to connect to a central switch, and in that central switch is the game server. That way, it is mostly equal.

If it gets laggy, tell everyone to stop downloading files from other people during games. The only way to get around this bottleneck is to use gigabit between switches, but then you need to have switches that support gigabit, and a gigabit switch as a central switch.

Another way to do it is to configure a DHCP server on the game server, but if you have no experience doing that, then a router is a better idea.

[Marche]

what if someone is playing a game on the 24 port switch with another person on the 16 port switch, the data has to go through the router aswell
what is the best way to set this stuff up

router port1- 24port switch
router port2- 16port switch
router port4- game server

Or should i uplink the switches and the just run them both to port 1 of the router?

[su root]

I would do it:
Router port 1 = 24 port switch
Router port 2 = 24 port switch
Router port 3 = 16 port switch
Router port 4 = game server

That way, everyone is atleast 2 switches away. I would not daisy-chain them.

That would be the best setup for it, with the given hardware.

If there is a file transfer between a guy on a 24 port switch, and the 16 port switch, that may lag people that are on their two switches, because the trunk between the router and the the switches could be highly saturated by the transfer.