Setting up a LAN party

[ZesteR]

Hello everyone!

 

It's been awhile since I've trolled these parts! How is everyone doing?

I'm alright, very busy with school and work.

Although I still find time to game, I am apart of PSU Lehman campus IT club and we are settings up a LAN party.

 

Since you guys are veterans at doing such things, do you have any checklists or anywhere I can go to find out information on setting up a dedicated servers for a LAN party?

Specifically CSS and TF2, but we will be playing L4D2, but local games are easy to setup for that.

 

I'm curious if I need another steam account to run the dedicated servers? Can I run both on the same box?

There will prob. be no more than 25-30 ppl at the lan who will be gaming on PCs.

 

I can setup the network, power cables, tables, etc.

 

Hope you guys can help me out!

 

Zesty

[mookie]

Here's a (hopefully) quick run-down:

 

Get HLDSUpdateTool (from srcds.com). It will probably want to go into Program Files; IMO it's easier if you just put its folder on the root of a hard drive (I like \srcds).

 

Once it's all installed, get into a command prompt at that directory and run hldsupdatetool once or twice until it's up-to-date.

 

The easiest way to install a server (IMO) is to be in your srcds directory, type "md whatever", then type out your update/install command.

 

e.g.

md css

hldsupdatetool -command update -game "counter-strike source" -dir css

 

e.g.

md tf2

hldsupdatetool -command update -game "tf" -dir tf2

 

I always run the install/update command again until it goes through without actually updating anything. Often it won't complete the first time and will terminate with connection reset by peer (IIRC). If your game directory is a subdirectory of the directory you're in, you can use a relative path which makes your typing easier.

 

Make sure to check what the proper name (according to hldsupdatetool) is for each game you're installing. CSS is "counter-strike source", TF2 is "tf". It's easy to install a CS server instead of CSS by accident.

 

SRCDS.com has somewhere on there a batch file to run your server and keep restarting it in case it crashes. It's simple but useful.

 

If you set up your servers this way (with HLDSUpdateTool) you will not need a Steam account.

 

A typical set of launch options will be something like "-console -game cstrike -ip x.x.x.x -port x -tickrate 66 -fps_max 500 +maxplayers 20 +map de_dust2". Typical tickrates are 33, 66, 100, but I believe 50 and 85 are also valid.

 

TIP: You can spawn multiple servers off the same installation, just create a new batch file for each and make sure to specify a different port number. This will save a lot of time and space if you don't need each server to have a different config (e.g. you want to run several match servers). Supposedly, you can add "+servercfgfile x.cfg" and this will use a different file instead of server.cfg. I have never tried this, so it could be lies.

 

If you're going to have custom maps, and have time to do advance prep, and are comfortable setting up Apache or something else, BZ2 all the custom files and put them on a web server (with the same directory structure as on the game server). Set sv_downloadurl to the URL for the root of those files. UNC names should work (e.g. "http://hostname/cstrike/"). Moving these files off-site is obviously not a good solution for a LAN party (but if you have another spare machine that'd be ideal). See gamerscoalition.com/maps for an example of a live fast download server. Note: If you use a fast download server, when you choose your maps you have to match the capitalization of the files on the web server. Web servers are case sensitive.

 

If you don't want to set up a web server, delete all the custom content off your own client, then run through downloading all the maps before you get started. The first time the server needs to send someone a file, it's going to compress it, which will add a noticeable delay to your map change time. Getting together a map pack for each game is another (possibly better) option.

 

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

You probably need to run this to get your server to run a good framerate. All it does is change the kernel resolution timer. "stats" in console will show the server's framerate (among other things), which will usually be near a power of 2 (64, 256, 512).

 

Install the latest version of Source MetaMod, then SourceMod. Go into the plugins directory (in SourceMod) and move any plugins you don't need into the disabled folder. mapchooser you probably want to keep, otherwise you can probably dump everything. My guess is the only functionality you'll really need is sm_setnextmap since there should be no kick/banning needed and voting can be done by voice/hands.

 

You can probably handle both servers on the same box. I'd expect this to be especially true since, at any given time, more people on one is going to mean less on the other.

 

You may want to base your server.cfg on something you'd get from CAL or another non-defunct league. I don't remember how good the default server.cfg is, but it's probably not that great. If you want I can post a config very similar to Retrocedence. If you need any CSS maps, I have bunches (almost all the maps we've had on rotation, plus some others) that are packaged for installation on a server (as opposed to how many mappers release, with extraneous files, sometimes missing files, or incorrect directory structure). Most well-used maps these days though are a breeze as they are only BSP, NAV and sometimes TXT. You probably want to disable sv_pure since it creates some hassle if maps have extra files, unless you have reason to be concerned about materials hacks at a LAN (e.g. banana-yellow, lime green, magenta player skins).

Edited March 22, 2010 by mookie

[ZesteR]

Wow thanks!

 

Before I break down your post to further help me explain, i will check out that tool and make sure everything is good with the machine I'll be running it on.

Could I run this on a Win7 Laptop? Dual-core 2.4ghz, 4gb ram, 200gb 7200rpm hdd?

 

I will have to see about the CAL server.cfg because they might want a css tourney. def. not a tf2 one, although they are very exciting to watch.

 

So having the maps on a web server somewhere is a whole lot faster than getting the maps from the server directly because it compresses them and of course that's cycles taken away from map loading, etc.?? (just to clarify)

 

The LAN party isn't going to have internet connection (school policy, bleh)

So I will have to think about a local web server. Or maybe online and that would be something they need to get prior to coming.. And have it on thumb drives if ppl don't.

[lousiest]

All the best with the party

[mookie]

All that tool does is change the kernel resolution timer; you won't see anything really until you run a server and check what the framerate is. I don't know about Windows 7 but on most versions of Windows you won't go over 64fps without it.

 

That sounds like probably enough CPU and RAM. If that's a PC you use for something else, I'd make sure to defrag it real good before you start installing. And make sure it won't go into some kind of low-power mode if you don't go jiggle the mouse every ten minutes.

 

Normally, people set up fast download servers to take the bandwidth load off the game server. That should not really be a (big) issue on a LAN. But if the server gets a request for a file it doesn't already have a zipped version of, it's going to zip it up. So that's going to slow the server down as much as if you sat there and ran WinZip on the map. My guess is that'll add 10 seconds or more to the map load, but it only has to do this once for each map (depending on BSP size). If you connect to the server yourself, and download all the maps off the server, you'll force it to do this work ahead of time. The upside to doing this instead of a webserver is there's no configuration to screw up; if the files are there, SRCDS will find them and send them.

 

If I had a spare box, I'd run Apache on it and do it like that. But then, I have a lot of time in loading up custom maps for fast download. If you don't do it right, and don't know how to fix it, you might be looking at purple checkerboards and/or downtime.

Edited March 22, 2010 by mookie

[ZesteR]

Thanks lousiest!

 

Mookie, thanks for all the info! i'm gonna have to sit down with it all this weekend.

I might build my old old box and just put an apache server on it.

 

About the laptop, I will take everything into consideration!

[ZesteR]

Hey Mookie

Thank you so much for all the info!!!

 

At the moment, the LAN party is on Saturday and I've setup a TF2 and HL2:DM server on the laptop.

 

Im having issues though with TF2 and getting it to connect to the steam cloud. (Want unlocks if I can get internet access)

 

I've set sv_lan = 0 but it seems to be unable to access the steam cloud. (Yes I have internet atm)

 

There is prob.a 5% chance I'll have internet access. but if I can get my laptop to connect and just that. I would be happy. That means the server can at least connect to the Steam cloud.

 

Any help would be awesome! Thanks again.

 

Quick note:

When I log into steam on my laptop. then start up the server. I have access. All is well. But that means I have to play on my laptop (which I wont)

 

I get an error when I start up the server without Steam open. Saying the steamclient.dll is not setup to run on Windows . I can get u the exact if u need it.

 

Another note:

I might have messed up something with the directories when I installed HL2:DM.

I think Im going to delete it all and redownload today. And put them in separate folders. (Was hoping that I could save HDD space, but idc atm)

Edited April 23, 2010 by ZesteR

[mookie]

I'd take Steam off the laptop before you even install the servers. No need to have Steam on there at all.

[ZesteR]

Okay. I was thinking that there were conflicting files.

 

I thought it would be good to have so I can test, but thanks.

[ZesteR]

Is it alright to have TF2 and HL2:DM under the same File directory?

i.e.

 

C:\HLServer ?

or should I do

C:\TF2Server

C:\HL2DMServer

[mookie]

What I think is easiest is to have one directory where hldsupdatetool is and make a subdirectory for each game. So:

 

cd %whatever%

md tf2

hldsupdatetool -command update -game "tf" -dir tf2

 

Would be what I would do to install TF2. %whatever% could just be C: or D: but I'd usually do something more like d:\srcds.

 

IIRC (at work now) there should be a steamclient.dll file in there, which is what the server uses to connect to Steam instead of actually running Steam.

[ZesteR]

Yup! I found it!

The stealclient.dll was 0k . lol.

 

I now have CSS, TF2, and HL2DM setup under C:\HLServer

 

Now I just need to find sever.cfg files for HL2DM and CSS.

 

And some hacking to get into the internet on campus

 

 

Alright I'm all setup!

Im sure it's wise to update the servers right b4 I leave to the lan, haha.

Edited April 23, 2010 by ZesteR