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1000mb LAN Cards...

Posted:
Tue Mar 07, 2006 10:10 am
by Si_Combat
Hello to everyone...
Simming on yer todd with yer high spec PC and FS9 as yer co-pilot is pretty cool at the best of times... but getting two PC's talking to each other about FS9 and the fun just keeps pressin' on the multipliers...
My mate and I do FS9 LAN meets on a regular basis and apart from a couple of, unpreventable, issues our LAN meet is always very enjoyable.
Now.... just recently I stumbled across 1gig LAN Cards at my local PC World and my eyes wouldn't close all day from the excitement...
My questions to the professionals of our FS9 community out there is:
Do They Work...

or
Will My Current Motherboard with on board 10/100mb LAN Reject It...

Perhaps one of you simmers have 1gig LAN installed and would like to offer me the benefit of your trials & tribulations before I (and me mate) decide to commite to buying a 1gig LAN card each...
Looking forward to your feedback guys... Cheers ;)
Si_Combat
Re: 1000mb LAN Cards...

Posted:
Tue Mar 07, 2006 11:48 am
by Ivan
Put the onboard to Disabled in the BIOS
And get a 100mbit card with a decent cooler on it... the cheap ones tend to fry themselves
Re: 1000mb LAN Cards...

Posted:
Tue Mar 07, 2006 5:08 pm
by candle_86
Yea 1gb lan works fine. And if you have CAT5E it will transfer, though CAT6 is preferable. 1gbps is great for mass data transfer and laning. I have also found that you dont have to disable your onboard lan, windows will read them sepratly and you will then have to lan ports to use.
Re: 1000mb LAN Cards...

Posted:
Tue Mar 07, 2006 5:24 pm
by MWISimmer
[quote]
Re: 1000mb LAN Cards...

Posted:
Wed Mar 08, 2006 4:13 am
by Si_Combat
Ohhhhhh dear...... I wonder what PC World have done to Charlottesdad for him to warrent them a foul word...

Spill the dirt mate....
Anyhow..... Thanks to Candle_86 for his feedback....
Just one other question if I may...? Do you notice a HUGE significant improvement when LANing in FS9. What I mean is, are all the animations from the other player shown in real time like afterburners, smoke trails, airbrakes etc...

cause with 100mb LAN everything is bog basic, animations are poor & the other player seems to hop about the screen a lot. I just get the impression that FS9 can't be improved on where LANing is concerned...
Will 1Gig LAN cure my grieviences...?
Si
Re: 1000mb LAN Cards...

Posted:
Wed Mar 08, 2006 4:33 am
by candle_86
Having never lanned FS9 I couldn't say. I have lanned CFS2 over both a 100mbps and a 1gbps and it preforms better on 1gbps with more flowing data. My main lanning though is usally CS 1.6 or Command and Conquer Generals though
Re: 1000mb LAN Cards...

Posted:
Wed Mar 08, 2006 8:00 am
by Si_Combat
I suppose it six-of-one-and -half-a-dozen-of-the-other...
My mate and I like to LAN Age of Empires II and we have no problems on our current 100mb/sec LAN setup. Our FS9 is, obviously, no where close to how we would like it to run on LAN but I reckon I'll just go ahead and by the two 1Gig LAN cards and give them a go, thet're only
Re: 1000mb LAN Cards...

Posted:
Wed Mar 08, 2006 8:04 am
by candle_86
I said CFS2 and make sure your cables are at least CAT5e though if you can afford it get a CAT6.
Re: 1000mb LAN Cards...

Posted:
Wed Mar 08, 2006 3:01 pm
by 4_Series_Scania
Ohhhhhh dear...... I wonder what PC World have done to Charlottesdad for him to warrent them a foul word...
The fact they claim to be "Stamping down on prices" when they clearly don't is enough for me.

Goto your local PC world, check out some equipment prices and then do just a small bit of internet comparison, you'll be surprised.
I'm lucky, I live very local to
www.overclockers.co.uk so I'm not likely to be fleeced by the "Purple shirt people" it does amaze me when I go shopping near the local Purple Shirt people store, their carparks always full!
People eh?

Re: 1000mb LAN Cards...

Posted:
Wed Mar 08, 2006 3:40 pm
by kipman725
Getting a 1000mb/s won't give you any network speed advantage unless you both have 1000b/s cards and are using at least CAT5e cable. IF you have any switching or routing equipment they will also have to be 100mb/s for any speed advantage.
The faster cards will only help with file transfers, fs dosen't send enough data to even saturate a 256kb/s "ADSL" account so I doubt it's filling up your already 100m/s network.
Where the 1000m/s network cards will help is in large file transfers between the pcs, not gaming.
As for the jerky animations lack of smoke ECT. thats how everyones FS is on multiplayer because MS are lazy and didn't make it work smoothly. Hopefully FSX will improve this.
So in conclusion only get the card if you like transfering files and the rest of your network is running at that speed. Personaly I can transfer 125gb of data in an hour and a half on 100m/s so thats fast enough for me.
Re: 1000mb LAN Cards...

Posted:
Fri Mar 10, 2006 5:04 am
by Si_Combat
I completely comply with you on your point of pricing by PC W**** 4_Series_Scania... They are impossibly pricey across all categories of their stock AND the staff are usually LESS THAN HELPFUL... I was there that day to collect a copy of Age of Empires III @
Re: 1000mb LAN Cards...

Posted:
Fri Mar 10, 2006 6:19 am
by candle_86
Well back in 04 gigabite connections still were uncommon, and still are not as common as you think. If a user has it, it usally came with his Nforce 3 250gb or Nforce 4; I'm sure cj knows which intel chipsets support it. But most users dont bother with an expansion lan card. I myself dont even have a lan card, im using super G wifi
Re: 1000mb LAN Cards...

Posted:
Fri Mar 10, 2006 6:43 am
by AnGeL_MaKeR
Anyone know if some of the major retail stores in the States carry those cards? (i.e. Best Buy, CompUSA, WalMart, Target, etc., etc.)
Re: 1000mb LAN Cards...

Posted:
Fri Mar 10, 2006 7:56 am
by town
Do you both have exactly the same addons and such?
Re: 1000mb LAN Cards...

Posted:
Fri Mar 10, 2006 10:20 am
by Si_Combat
Yes... My mate and I make sure we both have the same addons in our FS9 Aircraft folder. Tiz an important factor that.... The main reason behind my optimism for better LAN performance is to be able to record video's of my mate and I flying in formation with various exotic aircraft...
As it turns out it, now, looks like I may dream on till FSX shows its undercarriage...