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.