LAN Party Questions

[Divine]

I am going to have a LAN party in June. I have some questions.

1. I have a router, and I want to play on the network for Counter-Strike with my 3 other friends. So I would need the router, wires, network cards on each computer and I could play CS, Gubound (internet) and Starcraft fine?

2. What is a hub? Do I need a hub and a router?

3. If my 3 friends have WindowsXP home and I have 98 does it make a difference and we will still be able to connect to each other?

4. How do you disable the Firewall in Xp if you need to do that to play CS/SC/GB.

Thanks in advanced,

[NegotiatorSmith]

1. Yes, you will need those three things if you want to play LAN games between the computers connected to the router. Yes, LAN games should work just fine.

2. A hub is another device that multiple computers can be connected to to form a network. I doubt you're interested in the technical differences between a hub and a router, so I'll put it this way - if you have a choice between the hub and the router, go for the router. When a piece of data comes into one of the hub's ports, it is sent out to every computer connected to the hub, regardless if the data is meant to be sent only to a specific computer. The router "intelligently" routes incoming data to where it needs to go, so it's more efficient and reduces the traffic coming to each computer. For a LAN party, the best network device to use is a switch - it is more efficient than the hub, and it costs less than a router (you only need the router if you want people on the LAN to be able to access the Internet).

3. No, that shouldn't make a difference. The games that you will be playing on the LAN don't care what OS each computer is running, as long as communication over TCP/IP can be established.

4. Most likely you'll need to disable the XP firewall. To disable it, follow these steps:

a. Click Start, click Settings, click Control Panel
b. Double-click on Network Connections
c. Right-click on Local Area Connection and click Properties
d. Click the Advanced tab, uncheck the box next to "Protect my computer..." and click OK

[Divine]

thanks for the help thats perfect and I got my LAN set up, thanks!