New CorkInternet cafe - feedback

pincork

I am planning a new internet cafe in cork - and am considering having a private gaming room- any feedback on specs, games and general information on making it as user friendly as possible would be appreciated.

cheers

p

Puck

Air-Conditioning and plenty of it! Those places can get very smelly.:eek:

Stephen

Well, if you want to keep us moany gamers happy, you'll want machines with nice fast CPUs (something over 1ghz anyway) and a lot of ram (cheap these days unless you're getting rambus) as well as good graphics cards, such as a GeForce2 Ultra or a GeForce 3 of some description.

And of course a good selection of games installed on the lot

for instance:

Half-life and a bucket of mods
Quake3
Return to castle Wolfenstein
Red Alert 2 maybe (for those weirdo RTS lovers)
Operation flashpoint

What else, I wonder...?

amp

Fast, fast network, with switches and 100base hubs.

Oh and try and control possible muppetry emaninating from your new cafe on to boards.ie

Illkillya

i wouldn't go there unless it got 125fps solid in q3, so geforce2+ would do the trick nicely... and not just 4 or 5 of them.. i want them on ALL the gaming machines
and u have to keep up to date with all the patches and stuff for all the games

Blitzkrieger

Don't let any feckers in who aren't playing. The last thing you want is some six year old constantly asking you questions or constantly saying "Oh - shoot that guy!". I know from experience sadly. Don't put in big windows either - people don't want to feel they're in a zoo.

Also : rather than having just one gaming room - why not give the whole place over to a LAN every now and again? The lads are quoting outrageous specs for gaming PCs but you could easily make do with much less. The most popular game in the world : Half Life, will run on a wrist-watch. Unreal Tournament will run grand on a 600Mhz machine with a 16MB 3rd generation graphics card, and no one plays smelly old Quake 3 anyway.
You can't go wrong with the big 3 (HL, UT & Q3). There's so many free mods around you can offer virtually any kind of game.
It's really hard to find a decent sever for some games, so you might consider some specialist games. The best way to play Deus Ex, Wargasm and Operation Flashpoint is on a LAN. Also games like GTA2 or Carmageddon are rare online as there are no dedicated servers. I don't know if you'd want to fork out for joysticks for the likes of X-Wing Alliance. Probably not. I'm not a big RTS fan but Starcraft was very popular on the CIT network until the technazis deleted it. TA and AOE are popular too.

Apart from that - low prices

GoneShootin

AND

a method of STOPPING people putting on OGC and all them other wallhacking / aimbot sh!it programs

AND

a method of STOPPING people from accessing the registery and robbing the CD KEYS so that you cant play if someone else is running the key etc...

both points copyright Internet Exchange, Wood Street, Cork

wat price are we talkin about per hour

Pepe LeFrits

Something like a 1 to 1.2 ghz machine with 256mb ram, a GF2 GTS (or a Kyro2, cheaper but nearly as fast), with a 17" monitor, a good keyboard and mouse, and of course a nice set of headphones and a mic, isn't especially expensive these days and is really what is needed if you want to entice gamers. A fast leased line that won't be overloaded by browsers is probably the most important though.

After that, gameswise i'd say the latest HL with its mods, Q3 (mods too), Red Alert2, Age of Empires2 and Starcraft should be plenty.

Comfortable chairs are good too

Kairo

Here's an idea....
How's about moving the whole thing to Kerry?


Just a thought...

pincork

Thanks for all the useful advice- love to move it to kerry .. maybe soon.

Re using games - is there a copyright issue using one cd on a number of machines for LAN gaming.

Should we have good quality speakers or headphones in the gaming room. Will it add to the fun or be a pain in the neck listening to other games.

If anyone is interested in testing equipment and giving feedback on layout let me know. i would like to build a panel of experienced gamers who I could give free time for some expertise.
Also looking for staff - full and partime.

wiredincork@hotmail.com

Cheers
p

Stephen

As far as I know there is a problem using one copy of a game on more than one pc

It is possible to buy multiple licenses/cd keys for games for use in a café. Maybe you should chat to meglome from Does Not Compute, as I think they bought a café-licence for Half-Life from sierra.

Also i think it'd be better to have headphones than speakers, nothing more annoying than playing something like Quake3 and hearing someone next to you hacking up skeletons in diablo 2

Mark

You get Starcraft and Operation Flashpoint down there and Ill walkto Cork!

Oh and by the by,could we have some more info,prices,any age limit(Im 14),where in Cork,etc...

Blitzkrieger

Originally posted by pincork
Also looking for staff - full and partime.

hmmmmmm

Pepe LeFrits

Definately headphones (good quality ones) and microphones (seperate to the headphones, not 2 in 1 jobbies) are a must imo.

meglome

drop me a mail if there is anything I can help you with gary@doesnotcompute.ie

gl

DeadBankClerk

Originally posted by Blitzkrieger
The lads are quoting outrageous specs for gaming PCs but you could easily make do with much less. The most popular game in the world : Half Life, will run on a wrist-watch. Unreal Tournament will run grand on a 600Mhz machine with a 16MB 3rd generation graphics card, and no one plays smelly old Quake 3 anyway.

Dont listen to any of the above. What about the games of next year Blitzkrieger? Will the café have to buy all new pc's then?
And no-one plays unreal, loads of ppl play q3.

Victor

Ventilation - fresh cool air. No smoking.

Sound attenuation (nothing like an irate CS clan captain talking his team through a game - not looking at anyone in particular). Use soft furnishings / finishes - not hard floors and plastered walls / ceilings. Sound insulation from pub music / traffic noise. Solid floor that doesn't suffer from vibration.

Headphones should be those Phillips "Stereo Headphone SBC HP140" or similar ones that cover your entire ear, not the foam ones. Speakers tend to alienate non-gamer customers (when played at full volume).

Sturdy chairs, perforated / slotted pattern for blood circulation / sweat ventilation (think someone sitting in the chair for up to 12 hours).

Basic snacks / drinks - stops people bringing 1.5 litre bottles to LANS and spilling them on keyboards. 0.5 litre bottles safer than cans.

Decent toilets.

Dedicated gaming bandwidth - there’s nothing like turning a corner with a 500 ping spike and meeting 5 guys from the other team to make people sulk and go home. MPEGs, music and streamed news video are the big culprits.

Minimum 19' monitors.

Legroom. Elbow space.

Standard keyboards - no fancy stuff, nothing like an undersized backspace or a mis-positioned 'shift' key.

Create a local mirror for important / common downloads - saves on bandwidth.

Useful desktop - some cafes are very paranoid about what a customer is / isn't allowed do. This can be very patronising and drives people away. I will have as many windows open, as I like.

DeadBankClerk

|------------------------------------------------|
|       |           |          ^                 |
|       |  MONITER  |          | lots of         |
|       |___________|          | space this way  |
|       | KEYBOARD  |          v                 |
|------------------------------------------------|

Mr.Applepie

Originally posted by pincork
Re using games - is there a copyright issue using one cd on a number of machines for LAN gaming.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=37050 <

---

has something about lan gaming and cd keys etc.

-ADREN-

What about mice .. dont think any of u mentioned them

Personaly I think when i play from home then go to a different PC like DNC or Netshop (been a while ) I feel the hardist thing to get used to are the different mice.. At home I use a standart Microsoft Mouse: Button 1, Middle Scroll Button, Button 2. I think its the best of all, no complaints nothing ever gone rong with it, prefer it to The Microsoft One that uses the Infer Red Technoladgy or what ever.. Then again im not every one..

But mice I would feel would be a important buy..

L8terz..

Maximus||Adren
.EasD.Adr3n

Btw.. im serious when I say Limerick wants a gaf like that we have +13 people here that would use a place like that for definate all ready.. with out any advertising or so on...

Enygma

Delta Force 1, 2 and 3 with NovaWorld accounts on all of them.
We'll be in every night then

Blitzkrieger

Originally posted by DeadBankClerk


What about the games of next year?

What about them? Do you really need a 2GHz PC to run Quake 4? a 700Mhz to 800Mhz with a decent 3D card will do. Haven't you ever heard of over-specing? If the guy can get 3 years out of a budget computer it might be a good investment for him.

And the last I heard there was more UT servers than Q3, so



HL owns both UT and Q3's pants neway

Illkillya

i agree with DBC blitz... even RTCW can have awful fps on what you would consider a good machine. I don't think a geforce 2 ultra is over-specing, especially since most customers play with detail on high and no fps tweaks.

And the last I heard there was more UT servers than Q3, so

last time I checked there were more q3 players than UT. i don't know what servers you're talking about, because i'd guess that there are more q3 servers in the world than UT. If you're talking about in ireland, then u could be right since theres only 2 q3 servers.. but last time I went looking for Irish UT servers I could only find 2 Irish ones.

and HL does not own the pants of q3 imo

DeadBankClerk

Originally posted by Blitzkrieger
What about them? Do you really need a 2GHz PC to run Quake 4? a 700Mhz to 800Mhz with a decent 3D card will do.

well, the next id software game is doom 3, which they aim to get 30fps on gefrorce 3.

www.manties.net to you!

Pepe LeFrits

I don't think 19" monitors are really necessary - they are a significant step up in price and i've never found 17" to be too small for gaming or browsing.

Mr.Applepie

Originally posted by Illkillya
and HL does not own the pants of q3 imo

Not yet anyway. at the moment we only have your shoes shirt and your brigt shiny cap but give us time and your pants will be ours!

Blitzkrieger

bleh - fps

As long as the gameplay isn't affected who cares? The idea is to kill people not admire the detail of their skins

I know Doom3 is the next ID release but Quake 4 is on the way too.

And HL, CS, TFC, DOD, etc. own Q3's pants

-ADREN-

Nah..
1st FPS
1st PING
1st GAMEPLAY..

all come in Tied 1st.. All of them are essential for ON-LINE gaming.

You have all of them in one then u are on the spot and ready to rock..

Lacking in one of these will decrease your fun and playability.

-adren-

Littletinyman

Nothing much I can add to what already has been said, one point I want to emphasise though is having dedicated bandwith for gamers - you might aswell not have a gaming section at all if your ping is 2000 because some git is downloading 2349715 mp3s