lan Partay!

[Kaanin]

Hey guys long time no see...well for those of you who actually know me.

 

Anyways me and my college buddies(tech school) all get together and hold a small lan party every thursday.

For some time now we have been playing this strategy game called dawn of war... its fun...but we've had enough of strategy games for now.

Anyways a bunch of the guys are interested in moving over to Counterstrike.

 

Now normally I would just have us all play on the GC server, BUT...

1. We want it to be just our small group for some games

2. We have no place where we can all be in the same room and share a good solid connection over the net to play on GC.

 

Anyways the whole point of this topic is that Im having trouble setting up this Lan party.

I was able to create a Lan game they could play, but the lag was horrid, and we had no control over game settings such as, map rotation, prices, bots, etc...

Ive looked online for guides on setting one up and I have found several, but they all go about it different ways, and many of them don't even go over the whole issue of game settings.

 

So I was wondering if any of you could help me in getting this all working right...do I need to download some admin tools...do we all need to set up our IP addresses...do we need a windows workgroup?

 

Like I said we have been doing lan partys on dawn of war, so i got all the equipment, so heres the specs. (we all have the same laptop models, they are mandatory at our school)

Windows XP: Professional

Counterstrike: Source

Linksys 8 port 10/100/1000 Ethernet switch model#: EG008W version 3

Several cat6 Ethernet cables.

 

 

 

 

Some of you may be wondering what ever happened to me. Well the Videogame industry is extremely demanding, and to tell you the truth I have had to give up on a majority of my video gaming to focus in on school, and building my career. I haven't forgotten Counterstrike, and I plan on returning sometime in the near future. I graduate on February 22nd 2008, from there I will probably go work with THQ, being in all that my uncle is their Head of Global Development, and their hiring big time here in phoenix AZ. A few months after I graduate and settle into a steady life I plan on returning to Counterstrike and Clan TWC.

[Tristan]

Kaanin's back?

 

ilu <3

[stutters]

I was able to create a Lan game they could play, but the lag was horrid

you need to run a dedicated server. find a spare crappy computer, download and install steam to it. open steam, and click the tools tab. install source dedicated server.

 

and we had no control over game settings such as, map rotation, prices, bots, etc...

this is the quickest and easiest way to make those changes, but also the least flexible. i'd say start there, then if there's a bunch of other crap you can't live with out, check out http://www.mani-admin-plugin.com. if you've never installed mani, i wouldn't bother with that until you've tried the cfg maker and want something more.

 

do we all need to set up our IP addresses...do we need a windows workgroup?

i hate windows networking, but you should be fine if everyone uses dhcp (assuming your router supports it). just be sure to disable the firewall on the dedicated server; you should get a popup the first time you run it.

 

glhf, invoice is in the mail.

[mookie]

http://www.srcds.com/db/engine.php?subacti...p;id=1097362093

First you need SRCDS like said above. I think if you run it in Steam it'll need its own Steam account, otherwise it might kick your other account off Steam while it's in use. You can run a stand-alone SRCDS which won't require you to be logged into Steam or anything. It will take a while to get all the stuff for a server downloaded, so you'll want to do this well in advance.

 

The file you download, hldsupdatetool.exe, should just be run from w/e you download it and you choose where you're going to put the server when it asks. If you're thinking, "all this program did is download a different file, also called hldsupdatetool.exe," my answer is, yes.

 

Here is what I typed in to make it work:

D:\srcds> hldsupdatetool

Updating HLDSUpdateTool even though you just downloaded it from the internets.

D:\srcds> hldsupdatetool -command update -game "counter-strike source" -dir d:\srcds

Actually installing SRCDS now. This seems to be going extra-slow, probably because of people downloading the TF2 beta.

 

http://mookie.mksvx.com/srcdsfpsboost.zip

You'll want to run this program on the same machine as SRCDS. It reduces the quantum size or some similar scheduling voodoo. Some people will say to run Windows Media Player in the background of a server; this is supposed to do the same thing. Without doing this you'll probably be running 64FPS server-side or something in that area.

EDIT: Just tested on NT 5.00.2195 and could go at 512FPS without running this tool. May not be needed. This is the command I was running:

D:\srcds\srcds.exe -console -game cstrike -tickrate 100 +fps_max 600 -maxplayers 16 +map de_dust

 

http://mookie.mksvx.com/mani-1.2P-installed-windows.7z

If you want to use Mani, download this and copy all the files into cstrike in your SRCDS (overwrite unless you've got some settings you need to keep). It has Mani 1.2 beta P installed, and if you just overwrite everything it should start up fine the next time you start SRCDS. As a bonus, SMM will now be installed if you want to run any other SMM plugins. If you don't want to use Mani, download this anyway, and take autoexec.cfg and server.cfg from cstrike/cfg and pure_server_whitelist.txt from cstrike. These should give you some good default settings to work from. I'm not sure about SRCDS, but the default settings for a listen server (i.e. open console and type "map de_dust2") are just asinine.

 

http://www.mani-admin-plugin.com/index.php...4&Itemid=25

If you want to use Mani, this should tell you how to set up some admins.

 

Go into server.cfg. You want to change sv_lan to 1 unless you want to let other people join the game. You probably want to change sv_pure to 0 unless you think people will be cheating with skins (if you're in the same room, you definitely don't need the server to be pure). Change rcon_password. Change any other settings you want, mp_startmoney, mp_friendlyfire, sv_alltalk, mp_autokick, etc.

 

mp_winlimit (team wins), mp_fraglimit (individual score), mp_maxrounds (max total rounds), mp_timelimit (minutes) control when the server will change levels. Set all to 0 to make it only change when you want to change. If you're using Mani, you can run ma_setnextmap to set what map will come up next, otherwise the server will decide from mapcycle.txt. You can run changelevel or ma_map to change maps, or nextlevel to make the server change maps at the end of the round.

e.g.

] ma_setnextmap de_dust2

set next map

] ma_map de_dust2

change level

] rcon changelevel de_dust2

change level

] rcon nextlevel de_dust2

change level at end of round after intermission

 

Hopefully you don't need to mess with bots much. There are a ton of options for bots, most start with bot_.

 

Go into autoexec.cfg. If you changed sv_pure or mp_dynamicpricing, change it here to match.

 

When you start your server, people should be able to connect to it using the computer's Windows networking name (instead of an IP address or DNS name). If it's not working, try connecting the switch to your wall jack to see if the router on the other end will start giving out IP addresses.

[mookie]

People have some odd questions:

and is the server i just installed, stay running while my computer is off, or do i have to leave my computer on to keep ther server going?

[Tristan]

mookie i dont get your signature.

[mookie]

mookie i dont get your signature.

What's not to get?

[Tristan]

mookie i dont get your signature.

What's not to get?

 

i dont like your new signature..

[Kaanin]

you need to run a dedicated server. find a spare crappy computer, download and install steam to it. open steam, and click the tools tab. install source dedicated server.

 

Really? There is no way I can run it from the PC I'm playing on? I got a PC I can run it off of but its rather inconvenient. Usually we hold the lan party after class at the school, and needing a spare PC would mean everyone would have to pack up all of their stuff, go to my house and setup, before we could even play. Plus the server PC would be my family PC, and my family couldn't use it as we played.

 

 

Thanks for the info guys, In the next few weeks ill setup the whole thing on my home PC (providing theres no other way to do it). Ill return of I hit any roadblocks.

[mookie]

You can run the server and play on the same box, but it'll lag bad (even worse if you use bots).

[Allanon]

Well if you're family is only doing things like checking e-mail I think they could still do that while running the server.

[stutters]

Usually we hold the lan party after class at the school, and needing a spare PC would mean everyone would have to pack up all of their stuff, go to my house and setup, before we could even play. Plus the server PC would be my family PC, and my family couldn't use it as we played.

or designate someones laptop as server only, don't let them play on it, and just rotate on the other comps.

[TheGeek]

I'm not invited?

 

Mookie, SJ, and M2 are the people to talk to about this. It took me around 3 days to get my dedicated server up and running. Mainly because it was my first time and the STUPID mani admin list wouldn't accept my ip OR my steam id OR my player id. It still doesn't.

 

I used a 2.0 ghz intel, 512 ram laptop with a busted screen as my server. Worked pretty good too. There is a stand alone server administration tool you can use... if i could find the link... sj might know what im talking about. It makes it that you can change maps, ban players, most everything from a stand alone program away from the server.

 

OH! This might help, http://www.cstrike-planet.com/tutorial/1-W...all-CS-Source/3

 

Commands... http://www.cstrike-planet.com/cvarlist

[mookie]

Mookie, SJ, and M2 are the people to talk to about this. already posted how to set up SRCDS.

It took me around 3 days to get my dedicated server up and running. Mainly because it was my first time and the STUPID mani admin list wouldn't accept my ip OR my steam id OR my player id. It still doesn't.

If you download what I posted and follow the link (fourth one) to instructions for setting up admins you should be all set with Mani. If it doesn't, post your Steam ID and I can make a clients.txt file that will make it work.

 

I used a 2.0 ghz intel, 512 ram laptop with a busted screen as my server. Worked pretty good too. There is a stand alone server administration tool you can use... if i could find the link... sj might know what im talking about. It makes it that you can change maps, ban players, most everything from a stand alone program away from the server.

http://hlsw.org/

Get 1.1.6, not 1.2.0.

[TheGeek]

See? Mookie knows his stuff