How many gamers can you have on broadband?

[Matt]

How many people could you have on a broadband connection to play games like CS:Source etc;

Presuming you get a good ping for 1 person, and you have all the correct hardware.

I presuming the problem would come with the small upload speed of 256kb/s but I'm guessing you could fit around 7-8 people on that or am I way off.

[Mu5icMan]

if it's only cs:source then about 5, because you willnot get the full 256k upload due to overhead etc.

If you bond 2 ADSL lines together then you will get about 8-9

[wildcard]

So can i assume that it applies to all games,as we have 3 pcs on a linksys router with a broadband 1.5 mb connection and we can only get 2 pcs onto one server.When the third tries to connect all he gets is "time out".

[Freelancer]

well, ive had a 3 pc network for the last 2 years and the connection has been fine on all the different pipes we have had ranging from 1 meg upto 2 meg

[philbert_mcpleb]

some mates and i got together a while ago and had 7 of us all playing cs on a 600k ntl line

[Matt]

And it ran fine with no lag?

If so cool.

P.S. Wheres my headphone plug for the GBA you sold me?

[wildcard]

Well,ive just about tried everything and we still cant get 3 people on one server for love nor money.I can only assume my router is knackered or not set up correctly.:(
Linksys tell me its the servers,server admins tell me theres no problem with 3 comps getting onto one server,and NTL aint got a clue.:S
Thanks for the input anyway.Much appreciated

[Mu5icMan]

for CS have you fordwarded the correct ports to access steam?

[Tsung]

Originally posted by wildcard
Well,ive just about tried everything and we still cant get 3 people on one server for love nor money.I can only assume my router is knackered or not set up correctly.:(

You trying to get 3 people @ your home onto the same server at the same time?. If they all join the same server, they would share the same IP / Port numbers and it wouldn't work. Your router would not know where to send the packets to from the CS:server. I dont know if you can change the client port numbers in CS:S (force them to be different).

Above is pretty much all guess work :) :p:

[Matt]

I'm guessing that wouldn't be an issue because I would imagine internet cafe's and even the mpuk 100meg pipe only has one ip address.

[Nivek]

it the moment me and my flatmate share 4mb broadband and even when we are on the same server we get sub 35 pings.

Its so quick we are going to downgrade it to the 3mb version

[Mu5icMan]

you do realise you have to have 3 different serial keys for cs to work with 1 ip

[Matt]

So back to the question.

I theory you could have 7 or so people on broadband playing CS and other such games.

[Optimus]

Originally posted by Matt
I'm guessing that wouldn't be an issue because I would imagine internet cafe's and even the mpuk 100meg pipe only has one ip address. the MPUK networking software shizz gives each user a unique IP address visible to the outside world...

id assume net cafes are the same...

[Matt]

Really, that surprises me, so the racecourse has over a 1000 ipaddress that are used 4 times a year?

Well I suppose how ipaddress are assigned due to IPv4 grrrrr, roll on v6, its quite possible, but I thought it was quite hard to get lots of ip's now.

[Optimus]

i think they're dynamically created...

[Matt]

Dynamically created from where though?

[Mu5icMan]

DHCP

[Matt]

I thought DHCP was sharing existing IP, like what a router does.

If MPUK gives a unique dynamically assigned ip address where do these address come from.

[Mu5icMan]

DHCP creates IP's for local networks

It also depends on the number of subnets etc.

My head hurts explaining it

[GeeDee]

Originally posted by Matt
Really, that surprises me, so the racecourse has over a 1000 ipaddress that are used 4 times a year?

Well I suppose how ipaddress are assigned due to IPv4 grrrrr, roll on v6, its quite possible, but I thought it was quite hard to get lots of ip's now.

Over 2000 actually. :)

[GeeDee]

Also, DHCP doesn't 'create' IP addresses neither does it 'share one', it just hands them out. The alternative to DHCP is to manually assign each address.

You're getting a little confused with the average home router setup which contains a DHCP server and ALSO functions as a NAT (network address translation) gateway, allowing effectively any number of machines to hide behind one 'real' connection. The DHCP server hands out non-routable addresses to clients and the NATD re-writes IP headers in both directions to allow the non-routable addresses to communicate externally.

[Matt]

oh yer, of course, stupid T.V. make me forgot something something

[Bonkers]

you can all connect to one online server - it IS possible. BUT the server must allow multiple connections for ONE IP address. Ive had 8? I think at one LAN. Some servers do - some servers done

[Matt]

Hmmm, so the next question is do the multiplay servers allow it?

[wildcard]

The problem in question is with C.O.D. united offensive and mohaa spearhead as well as counter strike, and yes all ports are set for said games.We also have 3 copies of each game so the cd-key isnt a problem.
I do rent a multiplay server for COD U.O and it seems impossible to get our 3 p.c connected at the same time, two is no problem but when you add the third it goes all down hill from there.

Its the same problem with all of the above and i have spoken to several people about this problem and they all assure me it can be done, but none of them can tell me how.
BTW i am a complete noob when it comes to routering and I really don’t have a clue what you guys are going on about.
I’m sure i will be able to work it out in a few millennia :P

Please keep posting guys as it makes for an interesting read

[Nivek]

Originally posted by Mu5icMan
you do realise you have to have 3 different serial keys for cs to work with 1 ip

No i did not, but i assumed it, there arnt many games that allow people with the same CD key to join.

[Unter_hosen]

Matt

I think that this topic is subject to many peoples opinions, however for ADSL (can we use ADSL and not DSL as the definition of the line as you could be talking about SDSL)

My recommendations for decent pings would be

512k/256k ADSL - max of 5 playing Halflife based games
1024/256k ADSL - max of 6 playing Halflife based games
2048/256k ADSL - max of 6 playing Halflife based games

As soon as your upload increases you can have more players.

You can bond 2 ADSL lines together like someone else has said, but this has to be configured at the authentication server and on the ADSL providers network to use the same path for both lines. You will then need something like a Cisco 1721 with 2 ADSL WICs . A firebrick would bond two ADSL lines without any configuring on the providers network. The only provider i know that are doing bonded ADSL is Nildram.

Hope this helps

[GeeDee]

If the problem is that the game literally won't connect (ie, not a bandwidth issue)

Try adding:

+clientport 27016

To one of your MOHAA command lines.
[Copied from this (http://forums.multiplay.co.uk/showthread.php?s=&threadid=28809) thread]

If you want more than two people, obviously give the third person 27017 and so on. :)

Also, this will only work for MOHAA (Q3 Engine) based games.