Non Dedicated Server Specs?

[chickendippers]

Me and a friend are planning to have a small LAN event and I'm interested in how many players we could host using our computers as servers and playing on them at the same time.
We are planning on playing: CS, Q3, Wolfenstien ET and possibly UT.
Our specs are:

1
AMD Athlon XP 2500+ Barton (o/ced to equivalent to 3200+)
512 MB DDR PC2700 Dual-Channel Corsair @ 396 MHz
ATi Radeon 9500 128 MB AGP 8x - Stock speeds

2
AMD Athlon XP 2500+ Barton
512 MB DDR PC2700 RAM
nVidia GeForce Ti4400

(more detailed specs: http://forum.savagewar.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=1006 NeuralCord and chickendippers' PCs).

We were thinking of 30 peeps max. So 15 players on each comp? Would that be possible without lag?

[Jon M]

You shouldn't have a problem with those specs... the only possible pinch point might be having 512mb of ram.. 1 gig would be better.

If you want to test it and own CS:CZ (Condition Zero).. just start a local game and put 15 - 20 bots in with you

[SMHarman]

The PC performance specs are not likely to be the limiting factor. The network configuration will potentially slow things down more.

If you are connecting them through a router, then the routers routing speed needs to be considered. If you are connecting all of them through a hub then packet collision needs to be considered.

Others have more advanced networking knowledge than me, but if you have 15 users on a 10mb network wire then you are sharing that bandwidth evenly.

This all said. You work with a 256k upstream on a cable modem and that means a game should operate fine, if you put all the players on one machine via hubs the bandwidth allocation will be 333k each and the pings are likely to be near 0 so that should work.

I would imagine a 4 port router with each of the routers connections being put split 4 ways via a hub would be the best way of configuring this, that would give 16 connection points, one for each PC plus the game server. Make sure you remove other traffic from the network, removing services and the internet connection etc.

[chickendippers]

Who would pay for Counter Strike to play Skirmish!?

Thanks for the confirmation guys

[NeuralCord]

We're probably gonna use 2x16 port 100 mbps ethernet hubs and no net connection. So I guess that would be ok?

[SMHarman]

Originally Posted by NeuralCord

We're probably gonna use 2x16 port 100 mbps ethernet hubs and no net connection. So I guess that would be ok?

I guess it would

[Richard M]

Originally Posted by NeuralCord

We're probably gonna use 2x16 port 100 mbps ethernet hubs and no net connection. So I guess that would be ok?

Try to use switches instead, they're faster.

[NeuralCord]

Well ideally we're going for whatever we can scav off some PC hardware places for the 2 days and let them have some posters or whatever up.

Does anyone know any good sponsors, I'm gonna apply to nVidia, Corsair, Thermaltake, 3COM, Netgear, Intel, AMD, ASUS, PC World, ebuyer.com - there's so many just incase we don't get many sponsors

[Millay]

My advice would be to contact your local PC suppliers, they are much more likly to support you than the big boys, in return for some advertising, unless you got the press interested etc etc the big boys wount be to interested..

Just my thoughts

[NeuralCord]

Ok, thanks for the input