I see these Pentium III Dell OptiPlex GX150 machines on Craigslist all the time. Government agencies and schools had those I think. They are usually pretty cheap, like under $50 each or so. That would probably be your best bet. You won't be able to fit a full size video card in these though.

That depends on how many groups you have and the max Amp's per group, In this case the group to you'd basementry. Usually 3Kw shouldn't be a problem (presuming pre p4 een computers which only use a max of 300W per computer (my p1 and p2 both have only 300W which is overily on both tbh)

I've pretty much decided due to multiple factors, that it probably makes the most sense for me to forget about playing counter strike go, and to make one awesome XP rig, and pick up a bunch of cheap laptops.

This way I can slowly collect monitors from goodwill and such as deals arise. I still plan on picking up XP PC's as well and eventually obtaining 8 of them.

So if anyone has suggestions on cheap laptops, I'm still interested in hearing.

I also decided I'm probably just getting the majority of my games from gog. It's just cheaper when I need 8 copies.

Maybe you can do the setup with virtualized machines. You need to get a motherboard and CPU that supports IOMMU or VT-d and a graphics card per seat. Use host software like VMware ESXi or unRAID.

Some videos showing the consept:
https://youtu.be/LuJYMCbIbPk
https://youtu.be/LXOaCkbt4lI

Kamerat wrote:

Maybe you can do the setup with virtualized machines. You need to get a motherboard and CPU that supports IOMMU or VT-d and a gr […]
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Maybe you can do the setup with virtualized machines. You need to get a motherboard and CPU that supports IOMMU or VT-d and a graphics card per seat. Use host software like VMware ESXi or unRAID.

Some videos showing the consept:
https://youtu.be/LuJYMCbIbPk
https://youtu.be/LXOaCkbt4lI

That's definitely pretty impressive, especially the second video. I don't want to know how much that rig cost.

jforrest1980 wrote:

I've been toying with the idea of setting up a dedicated LAN gaming station in my basement. This would be a "you only need to br […]
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I've been toying with the idea of setting up a dedicated LAN gaming station in my basement. This would be a "you only need to bring the beer" setup.

I'm looking to play old XP stuff like Diablo 2, Counter Strike, Starcraft, Unreal Tournament 2004, Warcraft III, Titan's Quest, Halo 2 if possible. Just some fun games to play with a group.

I am hoping to eventually get an 8 man setup.

Here's the problem.

I'm not sure if I have the power to hookup 8 PC's in my basement, plus all the gear, monitors, etc...
If laptops are not a good option, please point me in the direction of a solid old desktop that eBay is littered with that I could throw a cheap graphics card in. If worse comes to worse, I can run a few extension cables from outlets throughout my home to make sure I get the power I need.

Thanks in advance.

Oh! Feel free to offer me great LAN game suggestions! RPG's, Shooties, Strategy, Racing especially, anything goes really.

I've actually ran extension cables before I moved to my current house. Remember that you'll only need the extra cables when the game is on! 😁
Think cable management, but bigger! 😁
Afterwards you can clean up all the mess (be sure to have enough empty trashcans 🤣 and have everyone bring their own foodstuffs).

But if the power problem is solved, another one (which imo is often overlooked) is the amount of room you'll need. I've noticed it's easy to overestimate the amount of people you can put in a single room in a comfortable fashion.

I've had setups to about 4 PCs, but my main problem was having enough table space and also to somehow have the room usable when not in use for the LAN setup. I did use full PCs as I already had all the parts I needed. I only needed to actually complete the builds and lets go.

Personally I don't really like gaming on a laptop (it's kinda like camping in the garden in a tent compared to the comforts of a living room, but tastes differ), don't you have some more retro rigs you could use for this purpose?

Right now i have a win 98 rig, and i think 2 xp rigs that need upgraded. I also have a win 10 laptop and my win 7 gaming rig.

Laptops do kinda suck for gaming. So I would hook up external mice, monitors, and illuminated keyboards.

jforrest1980 wrote:

I'm looking to play old XP stuff like Diablo 2, Counter Strike, Starcraft, Unreal Tournament 2004, Warcraft III, Titan's Quest, Halo 2 if possible. Just some fun games to play with a group.

My most favorite laptop is Lenovo B460, with 2.4 GHz Intel i5 CPU and GeForce 310M GPU. Even the lowly GeForce is fast enough to play the games mentioned above. For example, I played WarCraft III with all details maxed, with AA and AF, and it still ran smoothly. And the Intel CPU is still way too fast for some Windows XP games.

Socket 478 CPUs are more period correct, but low powered i3, like 2100T, has 35W TDP, which is lower than any socket 478 CPU I know. Generally, with the games mentioned above, you wouldn't need fast CPU, low power is what you should aim.

GeForce GT 220 has 58W TDP, which is pretty low. With 5 Gigapixel/second and 10 Gigatexel/second fill rate, as well as 25 GB/s memory bandwidth, it is already twice faster than my laptop's GeForce 310M. It's also Tesla generation, so it belongs to the same generation with my 310M, which is backward compatible with most, if not all, Windows XP games. Furthermore, it's quite plentiful on ebay, so you would probably go for it.

Good luck.