LAN party setup

[tilenbox]

Heya,

 

My friends and I are planning a LAN party in the near future. 15-20 people with PC rigs and maybe one or two consoles for some tournament-style gaming.

 

Does anyone have any experience setting things up? I co-organised a LAN party before in High School, but my memory of that time is a bit fuzzy, and we had the profs. help us.

 

Anything specific I should watch out for? Any tips and tricks? 

There are probably YT guides on this, but I just wanna ask the Forums for their thoughts and opinions. 

[Dutch_Master]

Make sure your network is robust and fast and provide a fast cache server for games people play+Win-OS updates as not to choke your internet connection. Essentially, Whale-LAN but smaller  

[whispous]

Assuming this is an "at-home" affair,

 

• Pick out some games beforehand and make sure everyone has tested that the game runs.
• Make it clear ahead of time that it will be a pizza order from [store]
• Get a gigabit switch with enough ports for all devices, and a long enough cable that can run from the router to the switch, and enough cables for everyone to plug in.
• Wireless users should be in an area that gets very good reception.
• No-one is bringing an un-updated ancient broken Windows install
• Disconnect any NAS from your network in case an attendee is an awful person full of malware.
• Enough solid tables
• Two sockets per-person, (for desktop users - one socket for laptop users) NO DAISY CHAINING EXTENSION CABLES
• Eliminate trip hazards because otherwise excited people WILL hurt themselves and/or computers

[Needfuldoer]

1 hour ago, whispous said:

Eliminate trip hazards because otherwise excited people WILL hurt themselves and/or computers

Gaffer's tape is perfect for this. It's secure enough to hold cables down, but temporary enough that it shouldn't damage floors even if you leave it in place for days. There's also "tunnel tape" that's wide with adhesive only on the edges, but for a one-off that's an unnecessary expense.

 

 

[manikyath]

under the assumption this is an "at home with extended friend group" type of arrangement:

- figure out seating for everyone before you start planning your cabling.

- have everyone punch their key specs into pcpartpicker and send you the recommended psu wattage, that'll at least get you a good idea how much you need to spread across multiple breakers.

- arrange for a network switch on every table, dont start running multiple network cables per table. just something gigabit will do.

- to the degree possible (if not everyone is showing up with a >1000w rig) do the same for power.

- buy a bunch of cheap carpets to put over the cable runs. ikea has some disgustingly cheap doormats with a rubber underside that do very well.

- ask everyone to pre-load an agreed upon list of games (not saying you have to lock those in, just reduce downloading to a minimum), and to pause windows updates while at the event.

 

realisticly, hosting a party for 20 people, wether lan or otherwise, your biggest problems are catering and interpersonal relations. the rest is a matter of planning and testing.

[Kisai]

12 hours ago, tilenbox said:

Heya,

 

My friends and I are planning a LAN party in the near future. 15-20 people with PC rigs and maybe one or two consoles for some tournament-style gaming.

 

Does anyone have any experience setting things up? I co-organised a LAN party before in High School, but my memory of that time is a bit fuzzy, and we had the profs. help us.

 

Anything specific I should watch out for? Any tips and tricks? 

There are probably YT guides on this, but I just wanna ask the Forums for their thoughts and opinions. 

Depending on how much you trust people.

 

Organizer: Only responsible for Power and Network, and furniture (eg desks/chairs) if the space doesn't generally have it.

 

Food is something that has to be arranged in advance, (eg get everyone's pizza/sushi/chinese food orders in advance) because you can't have 20 different people order uber eats at the same time. 

 

If you are using like a public community space (eg spaces that you'd rent for parties/weddings) you MUST arrange everything with the venue. If you are using a hotel venue, the hotel may require you to use THEIR partners for internet, power, furniture, etc.

 

Generally speaking, a 20-person lan party, means you need a room with 20 x 15A individual circuits, and sufficient cooling. So you're looking at a small convention hall, school gymnasium/multipurpose room, or a large school "lab" type of room that has tables not desks. Some hotels have "boardroom" rentals that are actually perfect for this configuration if it's just laptops. Always check in advance.

 

If everyone is bringing a laptop, then the power requirements goes down to 5 x 15A circuits. But you can not "LAN PARTY" on WiFi. The network will go down a lot because all 20 computers are effectively sharing "one" connection rather than 20 computers sharing one gigabit switch. 

 

If you trust everyone, everyone can bring their own computer (desktop/laptop), extension cords and network cables.

If you do not trust everyone, then you must layout your own cords and cables and cable-tie everything so they don't disappear, and also use things like pieces of carpet to cover cables so people don't trip over them.

 

You typically want a "U" or "H" shape configuration of computers where everyone's computer is against three of the walls, or two of the walls and down the center of the room if you're having two distinct "things" going on (eg 8 players playing one game, and 8 playing another). For fire safety reasons, you must ensure that the doors to the space are not obstructed, so places like a convention space usually have doors on either end of the space.

 

Something to keep in mind is that everyone must come to the venue with their PC updated, and the games they want to use preloaded. Convention space/hotel venues often have poor quality internet at high prices.

 

So summary:

- Decide in advance what to play, make sure everything has been downloaded before hand

- Decide where to play, scout out the location for power, internet and furniture (you may have to rent furniture like tables and chairs)

- Decide on food in advance. Either catering or ordering pizza/subway/sushi/etc in advance so that it arrives when your guests arrive. Make sure that there is refrigeration or coolers for drinks.

- Give yourself enough time to setup and tear down. Often setup takes far longer than tear down.

 

The ideal space for LAN party is going to either be an office type of configuration, because everything is already there (desks, chairs, internet, power) or a school lab. You can not depend on the power or internet of a location you have no control over. Which is why convention spaces are often the most capable, but involve a lot of "bring your own" steps are involved.

 

Avoids:

- Avoid O or Box shape configurations where all the PC's are in the center of the room, because if someone knocks a drink over, that's probably half your LAN party out of commission.

- Also avoid running power/ethernet cables across the room where it crosses the doorway. This is why a U or H shape is preferrable, a U shape will have all the computers against the walls where the doors are not present. An H shape is basically two U's back to back, where each entrance to the space leads directly to that half of the space. Whatever configuration you use, run the cables along that, and avoid the doorways.