Would a 10mbit hub work for a lan party?

[Blueacid]

OK, so in mid february, me and some friends are having a lan.
We've already got location sorted, and everything like that - trouble is, we have no useable network in that location.

As a result, i'm bringing my network hub. It's only 10mbit (all it gets used for here is to link our computers, so they can all use the web, and occasionally print to the printer - so there's no point in upgrading it), but do you think it would manage okay at a lan of 8 people (9 computers - we're running a dedicated server)

The games would be fairly new - UT2004, Call of Duty and the like, and will therefore probably need to send and recieve more data than quake 2 perhaps would have needed.

So - can we expect fairly low pings from this thing, or will we end up with pings in the 500's, and rediculous packet loss (there will be no file-trading on the network whilst gaming is in progress - the game will have 10mbits all to itself)


Cheers guys!
-Blueacid

 

[Ageeb]

check your pm's...

 

[Slackfumasta]

10mbit will be fine.

 

[Blueacid]

10mbit will be fine.

Score - i'll report back after the lan and either thank you OR have a go at you because we had rediculous packet loss!!

Meh, might as well go and practice the games - i don't want to get thrashed at them!

Cheers all

 

[Xenocide]

eh, make sure its full duplex though, it 10mbit will get VERY laggy if there is filesharing going on.

do yourself a favor and go buy a dell 2016. i use one for my lans and my home network. its the most robust switch i have EVER used. i like it better than many cisco switches. its a full duplex auto sensing / crosover 16 port switch. i picked mine up for $20 bucks on ebay.

yes its a dell, but it has amazing quality and speed, id buy dell switches over cisco for 95% of applications...

 

[MLMIB]

yes its a dell, but it has amazing quality and speed, id buy dell switches over cisco for 95% of applications...

the dell pricing is currently quite nice, I'd still prefer cisco, but yes, the price advantage of the dells is amazing. cisco still owns the managad switch arena though

 

[XWRed1]

It'll be fine if there's only games, but if people start swapping files it could lag out the games, especially it being a hub.

 

[twEEkerAreUs]

So - can we expect fairly low pings from this thing, or will we end up with pings in the 500's, and rediculous packet loss (there will be no file-trading on the network whilst gaming is in progress - the game will have 10mbits all to itself)

It will work just fine, had a nearly indentical setup but (6) people and we were getting pings anywhere from 1 - 15. File Sharing was iffy, watch control over that as in limiting 2 people at a time getting files.

 

[ThePCGuy]

I run (2) Dell 2024 switches with (14) Gigafast EZ-800s (8 port) switches in an extended star topology at my lanparties. The Dell switches fit the bill for a cheap, quick, effective switch. They aren't managed, but they do more than fine.

 

[gorilly]

just had my first CS source LAN! we were using an old netgear 8 port hub with uplink (internet).

when playing the game there was no lag at all but when file sharing you could tell it was slower than a switch, it was lagggggggyyyy but for games a hub will do fine. buy a cheap netgear switch or something im sure you could get a cheap one off of ebay

 

[Blueacid]

Cheers guys - It's not until mid feb that this will take place, but we do have the option of running down to another person's house, and swapping their 100mbit switch out with my 10mbit hub (so they don't lose networking entirely... but it'll be slower), if we need the faster switch (but we'd rather not)

Thanks for your help

-Blueacid

 

[winterhavok]

10MB hub would work on most games, unless you are working with extensive graphics/sound/gameplay. IE NeverWinter Nights and so forth, in which case I would suggest a 100MB anything larger would be overkill in my opinion. As someone pointed out before me though, make sure that it is only for games, if they start file sharing on that connection it will take a tremendous hit and the hub probably won't be able to support it all. All in all, if you can afford it, or have the players chip in, try to buy a 100MB hub, it will be a lifesaver in the long run.

 

[XWRed1]

You don't need a 100mbit hub for NWN.

The graphics/sound come from your hd, not the network. People claim to host busy NWN servers off dsl lines and frac T1s. Those are much much slower than even a 10mb switch.

 

[TollhouseFrank]

10mb is MUCH faster than anything that 99.99% of us on the internet have access to,and yet we still play these super intensive games at 256Kbps and up to about 3Mbps.

most games that i know of generally have a 2-way stream of about 256k to about 512kbps, which is WELL short of 10Mbps.

 

[winterhavok]

You don't need a 100mbit hub for NWN.

The graphics/sound come from your hd, not the network. People claim to host busy NWN servers off dsl lines and frac T1s. Those are much much slower than even a 10mb switch.

Wouldn't the DM Tools require to be coming straight off of the host computer and if it is intensive, wouldn't that slow down the connection? I never had a problem, but then again I run a 10/100 onboard LAN so I am not sure exactly how well the 10MBPS would run.

 

[Wwing49]

Should be fine, we had more than expected at our last lan so some were on 10Mbps. Games were fine <20, but file transfer took forever!!!! if you have a 4 port 100mbps, bring that with in case 2 comps need to transfer files.

 

[Blueacid]

Should be fine, we had more than expected at our last lan so some were on 10Mbps. Games were fine <20, but file transfer took forever!!!! if you have a 4 port 100mbps, bring that with in case 2 comps need to transfer files.

That sounds like what our setup will be - 10mbps network for gaming, and a 4port 100Mbit switch, for file trading


There won't be much file trading as such, it'll just be leeching from my computer mostly (having every single family guy episode in DVD quality will be popular, so i'm told... yay, go DC++ ) so actually, on that note, is there a way to limit the speed at which shared folders send data to the network, so that I could have files transferring slowly, whilst we play games (and if we play a large, long game like Rise of Nations, the longer transfer time for the files wouldn't be noticable, cos they'd all finish way before our game did!)


-Blueacid

 

[Mr.Guvernment]

didnt read it all - but he said a 10mb HUB, not a switch.... and how many people will there be ?

i have had 5 computers running Unreal tournament with 1 dedicated server and the switch from a 10mb hub to a 100mb switch was incredible! in performance.

 

[Blueacid]

Tis a HUB - not a switch as some people have said.

There will be 7 computers. I have decided against a dedicated server, since the only machine we'd use as a dedicated is a lowly 500Mhz K6-2... which would perform fairly badly, plus it's also at my house, and i can't be bothered to take it also (hehe, excuse)

7 machines, one running as a server (and running the game at the same time)

 

[Cjwinnit]

Tis a HUB - not a switch as some people have said.

That's gonna rock in the non-conventional sense


If there is a need for two people to have a faster speed and they aren't doing anything else (for example, one has an FTP install of SuSE on their rig and suchlike) then crossover cables come in real handy.

Something you should consider (if you are running XP) is putting two NIC's into your computer so that one is in the hub and the other can run full 100mbit for a crossover connection (you might need to bridge them. If bridged, then your computer will also act as a switch. Handy )