rec.autos.simulators

I want to set up a LAN at home, where I have two PC's, for the purpose
of running GPL for friends and family.

I want to know if there is any performance problem to running GPL over a
slow ethernet, ie., the 10base-T, or is it necessary to run at Fast
ethernet speeds ( 100mbps )?

Also, is there any detriment to CPU time from running GPL over "dumb"
network interface cards, or do you really need to get 3com905's which
handle their own traffic routing, etc., freeing system resources for
other things like this humungous physics model in GPL?

Thanks for any advice and/or cautionary tales.

Your friend in the aether,

Smogbike

There shouldn't be any problems on a 10Mb/s network.  We've routinely run
races with 15 or more people connected to a server that is connected to our
backbone at this speed.  With a full field, you're only looking at
O(100Kb/s) per client machine on a LAN.

I'd guess that simple cards would be OK, but I can't say for sure.  The
machines in my office have: 3Com Fast EtherLink XL 10/100; ditto; 3Com
Etherlink III Bus-Master PCI.

Randy

My setup for 2 nodes at home is 10Base-T, with some *real* cheap PCI
NICs, and it works just fine, never a problem w/ any games.  I really
don't think bandwidth for most games would ever be a problem w/ only 2
nodes, at least that's what my experience has shown.  Good luck!

Brett

It'll run over a modem connection reasonably well; 10Mbps is luuuxury...

Umm, "handle their own traffic routing, etc"?! 10bT is 10bT. The 3Com
cards have nice big transmit and receive buffers, but they don't do
anything fundamentally different from any other Ethernet card. They
certainly don't do any sort of routing...

For me, cheap ($15-20) PCI ethernet cards have worked just fine. (In
fact, ISA cards work fine, but they're more of a hassle to deal
with. Death to ISA!)

I happen to have some old 3Com cards from various promotions they've
run and they're great cards, but for GPL you won't notice a bit of
difference, provided it has Windows drivers.

---Jim

I have 2 PCs at home, both connected via Linksys 10/100base-T NICs.  I had
these connected to a 10base-T hub and noticed no real difference in GPL
eliminating the hub and using a cross-over cable (100mbps full-duplex).

Brian

I have 3 machines connected on a 10base-T LAN using a 10Mbs hub one of which
has a Linksys 100Mbs Ethernet card and the other 2 have 3Com 10Mbs network
cards. Performance on all multi-player games is great including GPL - warp
free. Make your fastest machine the host. If only the internet was this
good. You can also run LAN/internet races if the host has an internet
connection. This allows players to join fron both your LAN and from internet
connections. Use IPX for the LAN players and TCP/IP for internet players,
Cheers,
Paul