Setting up a LAN party

So me and some friends decided that it's finally time to try out a LAN party. I'm going to host it at my house with a total of 8 people. What kind of hardware am I going to need? What games should we play? Any suggestions are welcome.Setting up a LAN party
As long as you got a fast enough Internet connectionand a router, you'll be alright. Also, get your AC on 'cause it'll get hot; and get chips or something.Setting up a LAN party
A game capable of LAN connectivity.An 8 port router or switch.Multiple Outlets each on their own circuit breaker. No more then three PCs should be on the same circuit breaker. If you have more then three you risk tripping the breaker. A US based circuit breaker is meant for around 1500w of power draw, can supply more depending on the breaker's amperage though.A long, foldable table or two with chairs and stuff.[QUOTE=''smc91352'']As long as you got a fast enough Internet connectionand a router, you'll be alright. Also, get your AC on 'cause it'll get hot; and get chips or something.[/QUOTE]He said LAN, usually means all you'll be doing is playing games that are LAN based, meaning no need for internet connection.
[QUOTE=''kilerchese'']An 8 port router or switch.[/QUOTE]Is there a way to utalize 2 4 port routers for eight computers? Or will I strictly need an 8 port router?
2 x 4 ports are only going to give you 7 ports. You could do 3 x 4 port routers though and have 10 ports.Reason you'll only get 7 ports is because one router will have to connect to the other. One end of the cat cable will come from one of the LAN ports and the other end will go to the WAN port.This is what it would look like.Blue is ethernet cables to PCs.You could also just pick up a 8 port switch and not have to worry about router configuration if your just going to do LAN play.http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833127082
[QUOTE=''kilerchese'']2 x 4 ports are only going to give you 7 ports. You could do 3 x 4 port routers though and have 10 ports.Reason you'll only get 7 ports is because one router will have to connect to the other. One end of the cat cable will come from one of the LAN ports and the other end will go to the WAN port.This is what it would look like.Blue is ethernet cables to PCs.You could also just pick up a 8 port switch and not have to worry about router configuration if your just going to do LAN play.http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833127082[/QUOTE]Gotcha. Thanks for the help.
You definitely want to use wired ethernet, however I'd suggest getting a gigabit ethernet router that way you will have the fastest network connection possible (also CAT 5E or CAT 6 Ethernet cable). Also you will need plenty of food, snacks, and soda (please don't get drunk lol). And you definitely can't forget the Computer's themselves! It would be a good idea to have your friends bring their own computers (hopefully they have some decent hardware configurations as well). Also for games I'd recommend Enemy Territory Quake Wars, Unreal Tournament 3, Gears of War, and Call of Duty 4. Hey you should invite some of your gamespot friends as well! Well anyway good luck my friend and have fun!
Unless all of the computer are Gigabit capable, no need for a gigabit router. I know the switch I suggested supports Gigabit, but I didn't suggest it because of it. It's the best rated 8 port switch on Newegg that is un-managed.
[QUOTE=''UltimateGamer95'']You definitely want to use wired ethernet, however I'd suggest getting a gigabit ethernet router that way you will have the fastest network connection possible. Also you will need plenty of food, snacks, and soda (please don't get drunk lol). Also for games I'd recommend Enemy Territory Quake Wars, Unreal Tournament 3, Gears of War, and Call of Duty 4. Hey you should invite some of your gamespot friends as well! Well anyway good luck my friend and have fun![/QUOTE]Ooh, ooh; Unreal Tournament is perfect! One thing I always wanted to try is playing a Real-Time Strategy game in Battle-ship style(face-to-face).
a network switch or 2 and lots of cables. depends what sort of games your into. fps can be lots of fun.
[QUOTE=''BlackHawk2599''][QUOTE=''kilerchese'']2 x 4 ports are only going to give you 7 ports. You could do 3 x 4 port routers though and have 10 ports.Reason you'll only get 7 ports is because one router will have to connect to the other. One end of the cat cable will come from one of the LAN ports and the other end will go to the WAN port.This is what it would look like.Blue is ethernet cables to PCs.You could also just pick up a 8 port switch and not have to worry about router configuration if your just going to do LAN play.http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833127082[/QUOTE]Gotcha. Thanks for the help.[/QUOTE] That is not the way you would do that for most routers. Instead, just plug the secondary router into one of the rj45 ports of the primary router, skipping the wan port. Also disable dhcp on all of the secondary routers and make sure that the routers are all given IP addresses in the same broadcast range.
Since I want something technical to do, I will make you a nice list. Either use routers that you have already or pick up a switch with plenty of ports. If you are using 2 4-port routers, you will lose one of those ports to connecting the second router, so you will have to find yet another router for the extra one connection.The setup will go like this:

1. Primary router(which hosts DHCP) Set to a common lan IP such as 192.168.1.1

• Secondary Router(which has DHCP disabled)Manually set to a reserved lan IP address such as 192.168.1.101
• Tertiary Router(which has DHCP disabled)Manually set to a reserved lan IP address such as 192.168.1.102

You need to make sure that you set the DHCP server(your primary router) so that it doesn't assign IP addresses above the range 192.168.1.100 and those IPs I gave you above will work fine.The 2nd and 3rd(if you need it) routers will need to be plugged into a port on the Primary router, and unlike was showed you earlier, don't plug them into the WAN ports.After you plug all the computers up, they should all be given IP addresses on the same lan and should work fine together.If you decide to pick up a multiport switch instead, just plug it into one of the ports on the router because you will still need it to host DHCP. It shouldn't require any more configuration beyond that.PS:The reason for changing the IP address of the second and third routers is because they are usually defaulted to the IP addresses of 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.0.1, which if it was 0.1 they wouldn't communicate at all and if it was 1.1 they would all interfere with each other.