Most popular LAN games

MeatProduct

Dear All,

I'm looking into setting up an internet cafe and I would be most interested to hear your views on what the best LAN/internet games are. It's clear that CS is on top but if you had to have a top 5 of LAN/Internet/Internet Cafe games, what would they be?

Many thanks indeed.

Nick

EDIT: PS: This will likely be a Linux-based internet cafe with WineX installed to play the games.

Senor_Fudge

battlefield 1942 and especially the mod desert combat they are a must if u want big games going loads of money

Strategy like command and conquer generals and red alert 2 with yuris revenge and mods like blitzkrieg are class

that is all for now

keep an open mind is the best thing CS isnt everything lads
its just one game

TheSonOfBattles

Battleship would be my personal favourite!!!!111oneoneone!!!

Senor_Fudge

u gotta be ****ting me

TheSonOfBattles

Originally posted by Senor_Fudge
u gotta be ****ting me

I'm dead serious. I've signed up for Darkside IX, and I'm hoping convince a few people to have a few games.

"You sunk my battleship" - Those words give me a stiffy, i'm dead serious. It's not all about graphics you know.

Señor Juárez

...lol


Battlefield: Vietnam (if the PC's can handle it well)

UT2004, aye

CoD seems to be popular nowadays also

MeatProduct

How does this sound, in order of priority:

1: Counter Strike
2: BattleField 1942
3: Red Alert 2
4: Battleship (contraversial)
5: ?

Please change this as appropriate.

Thanks guys!

Nick

Bu11et_Proof

If Battle Ship is in there why not connect 4 ?

TheSonOfBattles

1: Battleship
2: BattleField 1942/DC
3: Quake 3
4: Red Alert 2
5: Counter - Strike (Contraversial)

I think that should fix it up nicely. Thanks for your consideration.

Senor_Fudge

tiddley winks

MeatProduct

A lot of contraversy so far! Here's a list of the games that work on Linux if it's of any use.

Nick

Edit: Battleship isn't in the Linux list

Senor_Fudge

diseaster strikes!

TheSonOfBattles

Don't worry, I'm learning linux as we speak through the power of mind bullets to rectify this tragedy. Soon I shall code up versions of tiddlywinks, connect 4 and most importantly Battleship for this great system.

BKtje

Some of the more popular games at the moment would be

Call of Duty
CS (+mods)
UT2K4
Battlefield Vietnam(tho only just released and unsure of how popular it is)
Command and Conquer generals: Zero Hour Expansion
Quake 3

Those id say would be the most popular games at the mo.
Of course Far Cry, Savage etc would prob be wanted at some point.

the_syco

How about Warcraft III?
The way I see it, is that if you have a popular game, that's not in another LAN place, peeps may come to play that game.
So far, I haven't seen W3 in a LAN place, but I know that its good on multiplayer (played it in a compsoc).

Or maybe another game. Check around. Find a game that has a following, but is not in a LAN place nearby, and run it. See how it goes.

mr_angry

1. Counter-Strike
2. Quake III Arena
3. C&C Generals (+ Zero Hour expansion)
4. Call of Duty
5. Halo

MeatProduct

Halo? I had never thought of that to be honest. Is it that good? I have heard that Quake 3 is getting less popular. I still play it though.

Many thanks for that,

Nick

EDIT: I have seen Warcraft 3 in the Nethouse, 'tis a great game

TheSonOfBattles

I'd say Quake 3 would be a nessecity, but then I would since it's the game I'm playing most at the moment in all seriousness. There is a ulterior reason to that I suppose, that being that my housemates computer can't handle much past that, but I still think it is one of the best games going tbh.

ykt0di9url7bc3

Bridgebuilder,
soldat,

Winters

Following games would probably be required:

• Half Life
  [Mods: Counter Strike (for all you l33t people), Day Of Defeat etc. ]
• Battlefield 1942
  [Mods: Desert Combat, Galactic Conquest, Forgotten Hope, Eve Of Destruction]
• Battlefield Vietnam
  [ No mods out yet ]
• C&C Generals (+ Zero Hour expansion)
• Call of Duty
• Medal Of Honour
  [You could get away with just having COD insted of both COD and MOHAA]
• Unreal Tournment 2004

there all I can think of off the top my my head. Although I'd only play Battlefield Vietnam and Battlefield 1942/mods. BF: Vietnam is a requirement along with Desert Combat. Many of the origional BF1942 mods are also moving to BFV as the engine itself is much improved.

Jim

Battlefield Vietnam.

I haven't seen many net café' that actually can do Bf:1942 or Bf:Vietnam at a decent quality. If your pc's could do that, I'd at least be in. Is it going to be a Dublin based café?

MeatProduct

Originally posted by Jimeatsmenu
Battlefield Vietnam.

I haven't seen many net café' that actually can do Bf:1942 or Bf:Vietnam at a decent quality. If your pc's could do that, I'd at least be in. Is it going to be a Dublin based café?

Great, I'll look into it, thanks for that. It will be in the south of the country I'm afriad, you'll be in for a bit of travelling

Nick

MeatProduct

Originally posted by Winters
Following games would probably be required:

• Half Life
  [Mods: Counter Strike (for all you l33t people), Day Of Defeat etc. ]
• Battlefield 1942
  [Mods: Desert Combat, Galactic Conquest, Forgotten Hope, Eve Of Destruction]
• Battlefield Vietnam
  [ No mods out yet ]
• C&C Generals (+ Zero Hour expansion)
• Call of Duty
• Medal Of Honour
  [You could get away with just having COD insted of both COD and MOHAA]
• Unreal Tournment 2004

Half-life and Battlefield both have good WineX support and Medal of Honor has a native Linux version as well as UT2004. So that's 4 of the games you mentioned that should work well on Linux.

Thanks for that, good list.

Nick

TheSonOfBattles

What part of the south of the country out of interest?

zAbbo

Quake3 Arena is the easiest o get working in Linux, and has a wide range of mods that will appeal to everyone.

Most of the games here : http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=140271

are available under Linux, Truecombat is better than CS.

So there you go

Quake3 + mods
Ut2003/04
Americas Army
Return To Castle Wolfenstein
Wolf ET

All run better on Linux

MeatProduct

Thanks for that bazH. Very helpful indeed. Linux has a fairly strong case for games already, without WineX. That's a good list of games.

Unfortunately I'm not in a position to comment where in the south, that's still up in the air.

Nick

PS: If it goes ahead all you guys are invited to the launch party.

Winters

Originally posted by MeatProduct
PS: If it goes ahead all you guys are invited to the launch party.

Fantastic.

Would be great to see a Linux net café around particularly if you have PC's with a good enough spec to play Battlefield Vietnam. You need a minimum of 512mb Ram though for any sort of proper gaming too and a good graphics card. Get those two thigns and also allow people to rent it out for lan nights etc. and you have a winner on your hands.

Good luck to you too. Need any help on the Battlefield things just take a look over at the Battlefield board.

MeatProduct

Originally posted by Winters
Fantastic.

Would be great to see a Linux net café around particularly if you have PC's with a good enough spec to play Battlefield Vietnam. You need a minimum of 512mb Ram though for any sort of proper gaming too and a good graphics card. Get those two thigns and also allow people to rent it out for lan nights etc. and you have a winner on your hands.

Good luck to you too. Need any help on the Battlefield things just take a look over at the Battlefield board.

For your consumption I am posting the specs that I indeed to get:

AMD Athlon 64 3200+ CPU + Fan
Socket 754 Motherboard + GBLan
1024MB RAM PC3200
2 x 120GB Hard disks (RAID)
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB / GeForce 5950?
DVD Burner
Tower case with front ports
400Watt PSU
19” Black CRT monitor
Keyboard
5-button mouse (MS or Logitech)
Floppy drive
Card reader
2 x Case fans
Headphones with a microphone
Web camera

Please let me know if anyone sees any problems with this. I'd like to keep the costs down a bit.

Nick

Winters

Originally posted by MeatProduct
Please let me know if anyone sees any problems with this. I'd like to keep the costs down a bit.

They are monsters of machines. Possibly a bit too much for just a internet café abnd gaming. They are better then my own PC actually .... i would be suprised if your missing one after i've been

You could save money by just going for high end AthlonXP's insted of going for the Athlon64's. Also 100mb/s lan is all you need. Gigabit is expensive and wont really make any differace to your speeds, you wont have a gigabit internet connection and there wont be any differance in gaming really between 1000mb/s and 100mb/s lans.

Also you only need one 120GB hard drive. Sure as long as you have it set so people cannot install whatever crap you want and keep the discs clean you should be fine. No point wasting money on two 120 gig drives per machine. As regards the Graphics cards, the 9800Pro/XT is the top card at the moment. It outperforms the Nvidia [in most cases] and does have better DirectX 9 support.

You can easily cut the power down on those boxes and not loose much performance at all. Remember you must take into account the costs of the games [CD-Keys for each machine (possibly?). Try and bulk order games in from the suppliers for cheaper prices] and Operating Systems [cheaper if goign down the Linux route].

MeatProduct

Originally posted by Winters
They are monsters of machines. Possibly a bit too much for just a internet café abnd gaming. They are better then my own PC actually .... i would be suprised if your missing one after i've been

If you take one you are responsible for keeping the software and games up to date, I hope you realise that!

You could save money by just going for high end AthlonXP's insted of going for the Athlon64's. Also 100mb/s lan is all you need. Gigabit is expensive and wont really make any differace to your speeds, you wont have a gigabit internet connection and there wont be any differance in gaming really between 1000mb/s and 100mb/s lans.

I thought about that but those 64s have nice benchmarks and I really want the gamers to be impressed with the performance.
I'll have to go for the gigabit madness cause I'll be doing a lot of ghosting and might be going for the dumb terminal on the internet machines so they'll need some nice network speed. As you said the gigabit won't affect the gaming though but I just want to make completely sure that there are no bottlenecks.

Also you only need one 120GB hard drive. Sure as long as you have it set so people cannot install whatever crap you want and keep the discs clean you should be fine. No point wasting money on two 120 gig drives per machine. As regards the Graphics cards, the 9800Pro/XT is the top card at the moment. It outperforms the Nvidia [in most cases] and does have better DirectX 9 support.

I might reconsider the second hdd. Having two in a RAID 0 setup really boosts the loading times of games though. 'Tis a tough call.
The 9800Pro has the best price/performance ratio as far as I can see. It kicks the craps out of the NVidias.

You can easily cut the power down on those boxes and not loose much performance at all. Remember you must take into account the costs of the games [CD-Keys for each machine (possibly?). Try and bulk order games in from the suppliers for cheaper prices] and Operating Systems [cheaper if goign down the Linux route].

I've figured in all those costs. I factored in €250 worth of games per machine. I know that's not much but as you said I can get them wholesale. I will have to be selective about the games I get, they must be the most played.

Many thanks for the above analysis, very useful.

Nick

Jim

Please come to Dublin.

We need them high spec machines.

MeatProduct

Originally posted by Jimeatsmenu
Please come to Dublin.

We need them high spec machines.

Who knows what may happen a year or two down the road..... who knows.....

Nick

Gerry

nvidia based cards are better supported on linux, though ati are improving their support. This would be something you need to check again closer to purchase time.

Señor Juárez

i wouldnt be so sure about those radeons, they are overheating sacks of shit. and the nvidia FX cards have really dropped in price...


as for the Athlon 64's, i would go with that alright, youll also be future proofed for the 64bit games. Savage is 64bit compatible. youll want to think hard about the licencing though, afaik 64bit XP isnt available off the shelf as of yet, so you may have to go with 32bit XP. which means upgrading your licences to 64bit, which means shelling out.

MeatProduct

Bloody Windows. To be honest it's looking like Linux at the moment. Just too many costs involved with Windows and it doesn't really have the huge gaming advantage I once thought it had.
I'm a bit concerned about the Radeon overheating issue posted above. Does anyone else have an overheating problem with a 9800Pro?

Nick

Señor Juárez

if you decide to use them, just be sure the cases are well ventilated so as they are allowed to cool.

i do know a couple of people who have been unlucky, but some people do love the 9800's etc.

careful now with the linux, it scares the Joe Soaps

MeatProduct

Originally posted by marclar
if you decide to use them, just be sure the cases are well ventilated so as they are allowed to cool.

i do know a couple of people who have been unlucky, but some people do love the 9800's etc.

careful now with the linux, it scares the Joe Soaps

We plan to ventilate well. We are going to circulate the heat generated from the computers around the rest of the building. There'll be some crazy cooling going on. 2 x 120mm fans to start with, 1 intake and the other is the exhaust.

All the latest games are likely to make the computers generate a whole lot of heat though.

About the Joe Soaps, I'm hoping to target those folks directly. Try and get it across that there's nothing to be afraid of. Might do some free Linux awarness days to promote it.

Nick

MrPinK

There's a 64-bit, native Linux version of UT2004 on the way. Once the 64 bit drivers and compilers mature a little, it would run like nothing else on earth on those machines.

careful now with the linux, it scares the Joe Soaps

Joe Soaps just want to browse the Interweb and check their mail. They probably won't even realise the difference

Señor Juárez

Just set the background to the XP "bliss" and theyll never tell the difference :P

quank

you should have a free LAN on the opening weekend etc.... ye know... to get your reputation around.....
:rolleyes:




and btw; plz make it dublin

MeatProduct

64bit UT would be very nice indeed!

There'll be lots of crazy free stuff going on at the start. A free gaming weekend is a good one though, might just do that. Thanks.

Well, Dublin could be a possibility if a good market share potential could be shown. Nothing will happen with Dublin for at least 6 months though, just don't have that kind of money. Only have enough for 2 at most. For Dublin it would need to be a very large internet cafe indeed; 80 or so computers me thinks. As well as a well fast internet connection.

Nick

Winters

Originally posted by MeatProduct
Well, Dublin could be a possibility if a good market share potential could be shown. Nothing will happen with Dublin for at least 6 months though, just don't have that kind of money. Only have enough for 2 at most. For Dublin it would need to be a very large internet cafe indeed; 80 or so computers me thinks. As well as a well fast internet connection.

Thing is about Dublin, as long as you have it along a DART or BUS route you are connected to the whole city in some way or another. You dont have to have it in the center where the outrageous rent prices can be. Something so specialised as a gamer net café would attract gamers from all around Dublin who would actually be perpared to take a couple of busses to get to it.

Also if your looking at being able to handle 80 -> 100 people you would be perfect for even renting the place out for large gaming nights and tourni's. You could nearly have two fill 64man Battlefield servers going too.

Mentioning of servers. Just a thought but.. If you were to have a few old PCs. Set them up as dedicated BF/HL/COD servers etc. You would always then have a local game running.

Just dont price yourself out of the competition too much, and lets not forget fridges of coke and red bull. A few mars and snickers wouldnt go amiss too. And offer the latest patches etc. for people to burn onto CD or whatever.

MeatProduct

Hi Winters,

Some good comments there. Regarding the gaming servers; in you experience how practical is it to run a number of dedicated game servers off the one machine (2GHZ Athlon + 1GB RAM)?

I'll suggest the Dublin market to the investors and see what they think but I seriously doubt anything will happen for us with Dublin in the short term. Unless something mad happened

Nick

tman

if you are thinking of getting warcraft 3, it'd be worth grabbing a few copies here.
€15 cannae be beat tbh

(play.com should be paying me ffs)

not sure if it's been mentioned already. but a decent set of cans would be nice (seinheisser or somesuch...)

MeatProduct

That's a great site, so much cheaper. I'll need to compare those prices to some wholesalers.

Nick

tman

yep, well worth checking out for some of the new games such as unreal tournament 2004 (a definite essential purchase for any gaming net cafe). £17.99:eek:

Winters

Originally posted by MeatProduct
Some good comments there. Regarding the gaming servers; in you experience how practical is it to run a number of dedicated game servers off the one machine (2GHZ Athlon + 1GB RAM)?

You wouldnt need any sort of top class machines. Throw in a good but of Ram and you should be able to host a 32man BFV server on a 1ghz. It is possible to have 2 games running from each server, would create a bit of a load but would run allright. You wouldnt need a server for each game too. You could have just, say two dedicated servers running all the time. A Counter Strike and a Battlefield/DesertCombat/Vietnam one. During lan nights, if you have a food few people all wanting to play againset each other its best to have them all running off a dedicated server isnted of one persons PC. Less load on the PC and also if that person quits/goes back to men/crashes .. the game will not go too.

Hated when that happened. Big lan game and someone goes back to change one of the controls and the whole game pauses...

But, you would only need one or so dedicated servers. Should be able to have a couple of games running off that one.

MeatProduct

Hi Winters,

Might go for 2 of the following:

Dual Athlon motherboard
2 X Athlon 2600+ MP CPUs
1.5GB PC2100 ECC RAM
120GB HDD

I wonder how important hard disk performance is for serving games. Would a RAID 0 setup be beneficial?
Should be able to run a good few games off those servers.

What would be the best games to serve to the public? Will have about 4MBits upload bandwith available.

Nick

Jim

Just a thought.
In case you missed the Lan Parties board. Might be helpfull for research purposes.

MeatProduct

Originally posted by Jimeatsmenu
Just a thought.
In case you missed the Lan Parties board. Might be helpfull for research purposes.

Yeah, I had checked that out before, there's a good thread there about setting up a net cafe. Very useful.

At the moment I'll be going for these games:

Linux Native:
Unreal Tournament 2004 64bit
Quake 2
Quake 3 + true combat
Doom 3
Medal of Honor: Allied Assault
Return To Castle Wolfenstein - enemy territory
Americas Army


Runs in WineX:
Counter Strike
Battlefield 1942 (not Desrt Combat or Vietnam since they don't run so well presently)
Red Alert 2 (Generals doesn't work on WineX)
Warcraft 3


Unsure:
Call of Duty
NeverWinter Nights


Are there any good LAN car racing games. Would they be played in the cafe?

Any comments on the above is much appeaciated. If there's anything that shouldn't be there or if I'm missing an important game please let me know.

Many thanks,
Nick

Edit: Actually I'm not sure I would want Americas Army as it is supporting the US military. Any thoughts?

quank

lol, tis only game, doubt anyone would care

emmm, sorry for being a newbington, but i always used windows
how wouldja play CS on linux?

im so ashamed!

if my opinion matters at all

the games i would play (on windows )
counter strike
battle field

i know i know.... im boring