Manage a PC Pool

[Supanova87]

Hi there,

 

I would run a little buisness, something like rent gaming computers, like cybercoffees

I wish I could get some help to set it up, like witch apps/software should I get. I doesn't matter if I shall subscribe or buy it.

 

The plan is getting a pool of 20+ gaming PCs and 1 admin to manage customers accounts and renting time. all of this in local network.

 

it should run like that :

1. customer comes in, I set up a login account for him.

2. the said customer pay for an amount of time like 1hour for exemple, then take a seat on the pc he wish to use.

3. he logs in and then can use is until the timer is off.

4. If the customer want to extend the time he would pay an other hour or 15mins then I could add this extend to the management software.

5. time's up, the software log out automaticaly the customer.

 

It would be nice if a software could overlay the default windows desktop and limit the access to whatever I can set up as admin like games launchers or else.

 

Also, some customers would come to get wi-fi acess with their phones/tablets/own laptopss, If I could set up a webpage firewall with the same functionalities, it would be great.

 

thank for reading and thank for your help.

[KangUsapEmenq]

48 minutes ago, Supanova87 said:

I would run a little buisness, something like rent gaming computers, like cybercoffees

First thing you need to know before you even open such business, is if there's a good demand on them.

On my country, 3 of 5 internet cafes closed permanently simply because there's no demand here since mobile gaming is a thing. 

 

Of what I said below is of what I think. I never opened a business like so, but I certainly, at least, know how it works.

 

48 minutes ago, Supanova87 said:

The plan is getting a pool of 20+ gaming PCs and 1 admin to manage customers accounts and renting time. all of this in local network.

 

it should run like that :

1. customer comes in, I set up a login account for him.

2. the said customer pay for an amount of time like 1hour for exemple, then take a seat on the pc he wish to use.

3. he logs in and then can use is until the timer is off.

4. If the customer want to extend the time he would pay an other hour or 15mins then I could add this extend to the management software.

5. time's up, the software log out automaticaly the customer.

 

It would be nice if a software could overlay the default windows desktop and limit the access to whatever I can set up as admin like games launchers or else.

 

You'll need a pick of 'internet cafe software' / 'PC billing software' (Google it), for the customer to get vouchers per-time needed. Unfortunately, I can't give you a recommendation on which one simply because on every country the software availability would be different on each other.

 

For the PCs, I recommend you to use diskless PC. So each PC got it's main components; CPU, RAM, motherboard, decent cooling, and GPU, but no need any storage device like HDD or SSD on there, all of that came from a diskless server. It simplify a lot of things as you only need one server PC to store all of that game data, and cost-effectively reducing unnecessary unused disk space. You'll need a 24 or even 48 port gigabit (has to be a gigabit, not less) switch, get the decent one, probably something with VLAN capability because you'll use wi-fi either, and we definitely need to isolate between wifi to cafe PC clients. Cat 6 cable would be nice for the sake of reliability, and, of course of all that, all of the client PCs need gigabit LAN.

 

Make sure the server have a decent spec, otherwise the client will suffer of bottleneck. I recommend you to use SATA (or even NVME) SSDs to store the game data. 2 TB worth of game drive ought to be enough. Try to get RAID0 (assuming you'd go for 2 TB total, so two 1 TB SATA SSD drive) on it as so to increase performance and reducing the possibility of bottleneck.

 

The main disadvantage of this, of course, if the local network's down or the server's down, all of your client's down. So make sure to put all the good effort to make sure the server are always on working order.

 

But of so far of my past years ago playin' on internet cafes (and all of them using diskless approach, and yes, I actually 'spied' on how they works lol), CCBoot is the one good pick for diskless PC environment, lots of cafes here use that too. https://www.ccboot.com

That company offers a billing software either, which is https://www.icafecloud.com. Never used it tho, so can't tell of how good it is.

 

48 minutes ago, Supanova87 said:

Also, some customers would come to get wi-fi acess with their phones/tablets/own laptopss, If I could set up a webpage firewall with the same functionalities, it would be great.

For this, put some decent AP (like, commercial grade like Ubiquiti's, not those puny 2 antenna home-grade APs) since you definitely will get a lot of wireless clients there. Isolate the connection between clients (all of them) as to prevent someone snooping on someone else data while they're got connected. Use the voucher method either for the clients, and probably limit the speed for each client if your bandwidth from the ISP can't cope them all.

 

On the more details of how the networking works, unfortunately, I can't tell you much than to get professional help to set it up. But the point of what I can get: