Networking

[cragllo 0]

Hello,I need some advice, My and my friends will be having a little LAN Party, and I need to know what is best.A hub, router, or switch? Someone told me taht a switch is better and faster. Is this true?

[miCRoSCoPiC^eaRthLinG 0]

Yup, you're quite right - a switch is way faster than a HUB. Hubs or Concentrators (as they were earlier known as ) are the most basic form LAN connectors. They come real cheap, no hard installation procedures involved (just plug and pray...oops play ) and you can get your LAN Party rocking in a matter on minutes.

 

Switches come in managed and unmanaged forms. They are way more expensive than hubs. The unmanaged switches behave somewhat like hubs - no complex installations - just plug your systems in and connect to each other. The Managed switches on the other hand are far more powerful, with the ability to limit MAC (Ethernet Card) Addresses to certain ports on the switch, as well as, assign any port to a link aggregation (a link coming from another hub containing multiple systems). Managed switches can help you break down your network into multiple VLANs (Virtual Lans) and subnets. Packet forwarding is also way faster in switches as they KNOW exactly which port to forward the packet to by examining the IP Header and matching it against it's address database. Switches are configured to learn new MAC Addresses as you add more and more systems onto your LAN and thus maintains a huge list of address+port combination in it's database. Even unmanaged switches are capable of this. I've got both managed and unmanaged 3COM switches here - the unmanaged one came for about $150 while the managed switch was well over $1000.

 

Routers: The most expensive of all - mostly price range starts around $700-800 for a reasonable one. These are the so called Gateways to Internet and are extremely intelligent devices which not only remember MAC Addresses of you LAN (they double up and act as switches too, for your LAN) - but they also are capable of mapping routes to a remote computer over the internet. Thus they are the global versions of switches - they remember these mapping routes and constantly try figuring out new routes by connecting to various other routers on the net. When one such link fails, they simply redirect your connection through another route - hence the name, Router. Most good routers come with their own Operating System - and are quite complex to configure. There are loads of so-called cheap broadband routers out in the market, but one word of advice - there's NOTHING CALLED A "CHEAP GOOD ROUTER." If you want one you've to pay the price. Hubs, switches and routers can be stacked up, i.e. when you run out of connection ports on these, you can get more of these and link them to each other, thus further widening your LAN.

 

The fact of the matter is, I think a HUB is more than enough for your little party (although make sure it supports a 100Mbps LAN... Have fun

[Wyllt 0]

What can possibly be added to microscopic^earthling's answer to your question. Not much other than my agreement with everything he said. In short a hub (capable of 100Mbps) should give you more than speed for a lan party, unless your talking about 50-100 computers using a high bandwidth program, then you may want to go to a switch. I've set up networks of over 100 PC's with only hubs and had no serious problems with speed, of course they were only using business apps that weren't very bandwidth intense, but it worked. Naturally when I convinced the company to spend the money to upgrade to managed switches instead of hubs they found the speed bonus surprising, but it still worked fine with hubs only.

[ramon 0]

Well I have to agree with to above, exept if you are planning on copying data from each other, then i would seriously advice to use a cheap switch.Because, if you use a hub, all data that is transmitted, will be sent to all devices (computers) connected to that hub. Meaning that the lines will slip full with information that is ment for only one computer and will reach 3 or 5 or 20 computers, or how much are connected to the hub. Also all data that is transmitted will take bandwith that is available (if you have a 100 mb hub and one is transferring data from another pc, at 100mb, none is left for the other devices and gaming will become so drasticly slow that it wont be fun to play anymore).using a switch every port on the switch has its dedicated 100mb and data is only transmitted to the device that is in need of this data.A cheap switch is slightly more expensive than a hub but well worth the money.Have fun gaming!

[RGPHNX 0]

Hi cragllo,Gaming?? a switch is the only way to go !!All info above is accurate.RGPHNX

[cragllo 0]

Thanks for the info people, I only want a cheap one for now, do you think this one will be ok?

 

http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

 

craig.

[ramon 0]

A switch for 5 computers is perfect for a small lan game.I'd say go for it.

[Inspiron 0]

Remember to check for warranty in case something gets wrong...And also the manual...I'll go for Linksys however, at gigabit rate...

[RGPHNX 0]

Hi Cragllo,
THE EQUIPMENT IS ONLY AS GOOD AS THE COMPANY THAT STANDS BEHIND IT.
check out the sellers ratings at http://www.resellerratings.com/ . OR
http://www.resellerratings.com/store/Ebuyer_US
This company has mixed performance reviews over the last 6 mos. Check out the URL for more info
Hope this helps,
RGPHNX

[cragllo 0]

That is 'Ebuyer US' I order my stuff from 'Ebuyer UK'

[jmar71n 0]

Good thread topic! I've attended and hosted I don't know how many LAN parties over the years. From tiny ones of just 3 people to 30 people or more. I think one of the most fun ones we had was an impromptu one one nice sunny day. We decided we wanted to play games, but also enjoy the outdoors, so 8 of us brought our Macs out (and 1 PC) and we played outside on the deck. We sat in such a way to minimize screen glare and got in gaming and great tans. Usually with LAN parties come junk food and more junk food. I don't think I've ever seen healthy food at a LAN party.Problems are usually versions. Everyone doesn't have the same version to play the game. The best organized LAN party to get over this was one my friend organized. He had a server with all the game patches accessible to everybody. There was also internet access if someone brought a game that wasn't planned to be played and everyone needed to patch. Other problems are people sucking up the game bandwidth to swap porn. That same LAN party that was super organized, my friend actually set up a seperate network so that people who wanted to just swap files could and they wouldn't be bogging down the network.Types of games? Usually FPS. We play Star Wars Battlefront a lot at them. Awesome game. Also usually get some Warcraft Frozen Throne and even Starcraft, even though that game is ancient now, but still excellent. When it gets really late in the night, we often find ourselves playing Motocross Maddess. Everyone times it so we all jump off the big cliff at the same time. Heh