Gig Router and Switches

[Severance17]

I am living in a dorm at college and we constantly have LAN parties and we all have gigabit port on our computer but all the switches we have are 10/100 and we would love to get two or three good switches and a gigabit router for our LANs any suggestions?

 

[Pantlegz]

As long as everything is within the LAN, shouldn't need a gigbit router. The switches should do all the work for you, I think. As far as a reccomendation, I'm not too sure, I've had bad luck with netgear and linksys so I would suggest anything aside from them.

 

[NickOlsen8390]

you dont really need a Gigabit switch for lan parties. But if you must i would suggest HP switches, there procurve line is rock solid, i have used many of them.

 

[hnzw rui]

Yep, HP ProCurve. 1400 series is a basic unmanaged Gigabit switch and comes in 8-port and 24-port flavors. 1800 series is managed but it's usually twice the price.

 

[Severance17]

we do a lot of file sharing and run multiple games. we have 100+ people coming to the parties, so we need a lot of bandwidth. The 24 or 48 is the taste i kinda like.

 

[NickOlsen8390]

In that case, i would use a gigabit switch as the backbone, having other 10/100 switches all feeding back to it. It would work even better if the switches had Gigabit uplinks.
I have the HP 1800-24G and it is rock solid. I also recommend that the backbone switch is managed, it can help solve a lot of problems when they arise. I would also have the Dedicated game servers plugged into this backbone. Don't use non dedicated servers if you have that many people. IE, don't just say create server in Counter Strike Source.

But as for Gigabit to the computer its not needed.
But like i said, with 100+ people you should setup a Gigabit switch as a backbone and have all the table 10/100 switches connect to it.
i would recommend you get 24 port switches and spread them out.


As for a Gigabit router, well Unless you have a connection that is faster then about 70Mb/s its not really needed. Your only as fast as the smallest tube in the path. I would however make sure you have a good router, something that can handle a lot of connections. If you have 100+ people there it will be like running Bittorrent, You will see thousands of connections going thru there. I would also have a local file server and have all the needed maps and patches on it to save on internet traffic.

 

[JackMDS]

TrendNet Giga Switch - http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16817111480

Just as good for a fraction of the cost.

If it important to be HP you can print a logo and stick it with Carzy Glue.

=========================
Disclaimer: I have No connection with any of the Hardware providers, or and, the vendors that I mentioned above.

 

[NickOlsen8390]

Its funny you should recommend that switch Jack, I used one here for awhile in another room. And at several client locations. Every one of them no longer works or doesn't work right.
1st one just wouldn't power on after 2 days
2nd one only 3 of the ports worked
3rd one had very poor performance (200kbs transfers)
4th one literally exploded, Blew a cap right off the board
5th one would only work at 10Mb/s, just didn't auto negotiate right.

All of them have been replaced with the HP 1400-8G and have been great ever since.
Mabey it was a bad batch, but i'm not buying them ever again.

Sucks too, i was like "awesome, nice GigE for cheap" boy was i wrong.

 

[Gillbot]

I switched everything from my old lan party rig to gigabit and noticed ZERO difference. I even went for a higher end Telco Systems managed gigabit switch, fiber to the server, the works and it made zero difference in overall game play.

 

[JackMDS]

Originally posted by: NickOlsen8390
Its funny you should recommend that switch Jack, I used one here for awhile in another room.

Hmm? The only thing that I can do is attest to my experience which usually stems from hardware that I use, or and install in my offices or friends and family.

1st one just wouldn't power on after 2 days - I never had such occurrence.

2nd one only 3 of the ports worked - All the ports working on the few that I use.

3rd one had very poor performance (200kbs transfers) - Using Vista peer-to- peer I get about 400Mb/sec.

4th one literally exploded, Blew a cap right off the board - No explosion in my case.

5th one would only work at 10Mb/s, just didn't auto negotiate right. - Did not experience this too,


One thing that I do (which might not be the conventional wisdom)

I put all the 100Mb/sec Network Devices on the Router, and or if needed, additional 100M/sec. switch.

I plug only Giga capable devices to the Giga switch.

I use MTU =1402/1500 (Coz I do not want to slow down the Internet, but I set the RCwin to 513920

I find that on peer-to-peer using Entry Level Devices it works better when using such arrangement.

Note: These setting works on my Network, YMMV.

 

[JackMDS]

Originally posted by: Gillbot
I switched everything from my old lan party rig to gigabit and noticed ZERO difference. I even went for a higher end Telco Systems managed gigabit switch, fiber to the server, the works and it made zero difference in overall game play.

Why should it make the difference in game Play.
Most Enthusiasts game Behemoth provide action that it is above Human Cognitive capacity to begin with,

The average Reaction time of the Human Nervous system is 250msec. Gets even slower when you start with the Brew :beer:.

Having a Faster rigs enable the Game programmer to put more details, enhance coloring and texture, and do few other thing that makes the game experience more palatable.

However unlike Dr. McCoy there is No beaming of enhance Neurowares Cognitive capacities.

What makes a Nascar Driver is not his Car but a combination of Born and Trained cognitive functions that allow him integrate visual information, and translate it to fast coordinated manual reaction in much more efficient way than regular people do.

 

[NickOlsen8390]

Well, like i said, i might have gotten a bad batch.
Just stating my experience with said product

 

[Gillbot]

Originally posted by: JackMDS

Originally posted by: Gillbot
I switched everything from my old lan party rig to gigabit and noticed ZERO difference. I even went for a higher end Telco Systems managed gigabit switch, fiber to the server, the works and it made zero difference in overall game play.

Why should it make the difference in game Play.
Most Enthusiasts game Behemoth provide action that it is above Human Cognitive capacity to begin with,

The average Reaction time of the Human Nervous system is 250msec. Gets even slower when you start with the Brew :beer:.

Having a Faster rigs enable the Game programmer to put more details, enhance coloring and texture, and do few other thing that makes the game experience more palatable.

However unlike Dr. McCoy there is No beaming of enhance Neurowares Cognitive capacities.

What makes a Nascar Driver is not his Car but a combination of Born and Trained cognitive functions that allow him integrate visual information, and translate it to fast coordinated manual reaction in much more efficient way than regular people do.

I was upgrading in blind faith and without lack of REAL knowledge.

I fell into the typical consuper trap that gigabit MUST be faster than 100Mbit, I mean 100 is less than 1000 right?

 

[Severance17]

Your only as fast as the smallest tube in the path.

thats pretty much what im think. I would prefer everything to be gig just because your only as strong as your weakest link. I understand there is no need for gig on the Internet side but it would make me feel better for future use. We are also thinking about incorporating an N access point to people on laptops can play with us with out running a bunch of wires any thoughts on this?

 

[Severance17]

Any recommendations for N access points? I can take care of the DHCP i am just talking an access point.

 

[imagoon]

Originally posted by: Severance17

Your only as fast as the smallest tube in the path.

thats pretty much what im think. I would prefer everything to be gig just because your only as strong as your weakest link. I understand there is no need for gig on the Internet side but it would make me feel better for future use. We are also thinking about incorporating an N access point to people on laptops can play with us with out running a bunch of wires any thoughts on this?

When it comes to networking, Your only as fast as the smallest tube in the path. is rarely if ever true or accurate. Most systems and games besides bulk transfer (IE bittorret which should be banned at a LAN party on the gaming LAN anyway.) Will rarely if ever max out the port. Providing 100mbps or 1000mbps to a workstation does not matter when most games rarely if ever top 768kbps connections to the server. However uplinking to 1000mbps might matter more because the server might be handing all of those 768kbps connections concentrated to that one port. In that case the 100mbps connection at the workstations/gamers rigs will have 0 effect on the over all system. At a lan party, the only time it should be a problem is if person X doesn't have the game and needs to pull it down. In those cases it becomes a benefit because the download doesn't strangle the server's connection.

 

[Emulex]

a router is an access point if you don't use the routing portion. disable dhcp,upnp,don't use the wan port, set a static ip on the network - access point done.

anyhoo

check out disabling nagle (delayed ack) if you are gaming on lan.

honestly in some situations (maybe not gaming) you can end up with more trouble if you are using a network of dissimilar speed (server to clients). I've seen a few folks thinking that turning on flow control on a server at gig-e to 100 megabit clients was a good idea. end up choking the server output to all of the clients.