> This page is just getting started... !!

> Switches or hubs?

One of the most enjoyable attributes of going to a LAN party is getting to frag the shit out of people with a very low ping time.  If your network is not up to the task people will be very disappointed.  So how do you make sure that your guests enjoy LPB status and low packet loss?  The single biggest variable can be stated in one word, SWITCHES!

The reason switches are so much better and in fact needed in large LAN environments is quite simple.  A hub is nothing more then a splitter, or the equivalent of turning one wire into multiple wires in the most basic of terms. On a hub network there can only be one device transmitting on a segment at any given time. (not full duplex) If two or more devices are trying to transmit at the same time, a collision occurs. (An Ethernet segment where only one conversation can occur is called a collision domain.) After a collision, all devices must retransmit.  Obviously as the number of devices on the network increases, the probability for collisions increase. Now devices must spend more time retransmitting data.

A switch on the other hand is an intelligent piece of hardware that builds a list of  who is connected (mac addresses) then forwards traffic only to a specific client (mac address).

Why do you care?  Well if you are using hubs all packets go to EVERYONE, regardless if they need it or not, whereas a switch will send Q3 game play packets to only those people who are playing Q3 on that server.  Your buddy playing UT will not receive the Q3 packets.  Packets being distributed to everyone results in collisions, collisions = packet loss which = lag and lag is bad.

Can hubs be used at all?  Well sure, if you only are going to have up to around 20 guys or so you can get by with hubs.  It would still be better running switches but the collisions shouldn't be unbearable. 

To keep the collisions when using hubs down to a minimum make all attempts to not daisy chain the hubs.  Daisy chaining creates hops and hops contribute to more packet loss. A hop count is the numbers of hubs that an Ethernet signal has to pass through to reach its final destination.

10base-T hubs - no more then 4 hops
100base-TX - hubs no more then 2 hops
Switches do not accumulate hops

One final note on the hubs vs switches issue.  Switches provide full-line speed (10 or 100) dedicated bandwidth for all connections. Hubs share bandwidth so the connected ports contend for the same network bandwidth. When two computers are communicating on a switch, they are connected with a dedicated channel between them, so there is no competing with other ports.

We will give some examples of network layouts later in this article.

> bits vs bytes
8 bits to a byte

> 10, 100, or gigabit

++++ TEMP +++
You DO NOT need gigabit to play games, and although some may argue, the idea is to play games. Before anyone flames me....I leech too so I am not putting it down, but the cost just is not justified in my opinion though.

Would leeching be faster on 10/100's? Sure as long as the uplinks were fat enough. Like gbps which = $$$. Here are some figures people don't think of sometimes. Kidd jump in if I get these wrong....

Max you will see out of 10 megabit (10baset) is around 1 megabyte/sec. [ broadcast quality video needs 700k ish]!

Max out of 100 megabit is around 6-7 megabyte/sec.

Max out of Gigabit is around 100 megabyte / sec.

There is a catch though. Say you have a 24port switch (like lanwar uses) and all ports were 100 instead of 10. HOW in the hell are you going to get a max of 2400mbit/sec (24 users x 100mbit) to go through a 100mbit pipe??? You could do some trunking but even then you will only get up to around 400mbit/sec and only certain switches support it. Granted not everyone is going to be sucking the full juice at a time, but still you see the limitation there. You need gbps uplinks to really benefit, and then there is that whole $$ problem.

By the way full duplex means (for example) 100up and 100down at the same time, it does not mean you will get a divx movie twice as fast from your buddies machine!

A fiber run can be long...real long. I don't remember how long Cat5 gbps can be but you are correct that it is a different standard then reg cat5e which can be 100 meters long.

> Switch settings
Cut through, fragment free, store and forward, and full or half duplex?