Smartlaunch Forum / General Non-Smartlaunch Discussion / Hardware

New gaming computers

neotran — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 03:39:58 GMT

We are looking to buy at least 5 new desktops to renew our olds XPS 720 and I would like to know if someone got anything to suggest with the build I got for now:

Antec Sonata III (with 500w psu)
GIGABYTE GA-Z68A-D3H-B3
Intel Core i5-2300 Sandy Bridge 2.8GHz
CORSAIR XMS3 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600
GIGABYTE GV-N56GOC-1GI GeForce GTX 560 (Fermi) 1GB
Western Digital Caviar Black WD7502AAEX 750GB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s

I try to keep the price as low as 800$ for each desktops.

Thanks for all your comments!

Desks

sarah — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 14:12:36 GMT

I'm close to starting my game café and don't know what to use for desks. Originally I was planning on getting individual desks, since I found a good looking, sturdy one for $32 (actually an L desk for $64, just using it as two desks without the corner piece). After deciding on that desk though, it seems to have been discontinued. Now I can't find anything similar for less than $50. I've seen pictures of many other cafés with what looks like one continuous desk (more like a shelf) along the wall, but I don't know where to find something like that. I could build something like that for about $50 per seat, but if there's already an existing product for around the same price, that would save time. If I search for computer lab tables, all I get are $300+ tables, which I think is ridiculous.

Cable vs ADSL

Syberscream — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 05:41:43 GMT

We are currently on a ADSL setup:5 dn 1.5 up and with usage fees are paying $900 per month. We can go dedicated but the extra fees we feel are not worth the expense.

We can go to cable with 6 dn and 1.5 up with burst up to 10...The upside is it is only $85 a month with unlimited. Maybe a network guru can give us the upside and downside to this solution. I have heard this kind of setup slows down the more people are on the network. The cable guys claim that this is false and they are on the same network as ADSL.
Can someone give me some informed questions I should be asking these guys before going ahead with this. They also offer dedicated twisted pair for 1/3 the price of our ADSL provider.

Network Guru Help is appreciated.. :)

Taking food and beverage orders

foaad — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 09:34:18 GMT

Guys,
How do you go about taking orders for food and beverage
I can see some options

1) Customers gets up and order, if its ready he/she can pick it up, otherwise it will be delivered to the PC he/she logged in at
2) Use Smartlaunch to order
3) Use a buzzer system, has anyone come across one? I am looking for RF based buzzer ?

What is the best solution for cleaning mouses and Keyboards ?

rudd-o — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 16:20:32 GMT

I was wondering if anyone has a good solution for cleaning keyboards and mouses...

Headsets, how do you manage them?

genesis — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 00:13:49 GMT

Just thought I'd get some insight on how other gaming centers are organizing and managing their headphones and headsets. With long cords and the odd shape that a headset has, I've always found them to be a bit hard to manage.

This is what I do:
I have some left over Peg Board after installing behind the front-desk for magic cards and other inventory. I cut a piece out sized 13inches wide X 25 inches high.

I took a couple of 1X1 wood (lying around in my basement) and mounted them on the outside (side) of my front desk, it's accessible by anyone. Left over silver spray paint was used on the Peg Board to give it metallic look, just like the one behind my desk. Then I put the Peg Board on the 2 1X1's with wood glue in the back, screwed it in with 4 screws. Let it sit for a couple of hours, then mount a few Pegs on the board and I have my good looking Headphone rack.

Good thing, I didn't spend a penny doing this.

I have my headsets outside the desk because I don't inventory them, take deposit or anything like that and they are cheap 9 bucks headsets, so I don't care if they get lost/stolen. I've only lost 2 headsets and got 2 headsets broken in over 2 years.

How do other places organize their headsets?

Considering a game server

Mty — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 20:14:28 GMT

Looking for some suggestions of hardware, software and setup for our server before we go ahead with it. Thinking of setting up RAID for 2x500gb HDD's not sure of which RAID configuration to choose or how to go about it.

Operating system - windows server? What other software would be useful to me in this situation?

Thanks for any help/suggestions :)

A server for games

Kyosukekano — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 10:20:26 GMT

Hi guys!

I need your help, so please be kind and answer as soon as possible :)
For few years now I have been handling a café on my own, and I installed games individually on each PC. Im sure all of you know its not an easy thing to do all the time, and I have come to the point where I can no longer do it because I'm fed up.
For some reason I have always considered that method to be most effective, and didnt think about other options. Then I bumped on a thread where people say they use single server as a host for games, which people run trough network.
If I could implement that in my café it would help me oh so much.. But the problem is i dont know anything about it (how to setup, what hardware to use and so on).
I have been saving some money and the server seems like a great investment. So could please someone that knows about these things help me with these questions:

1. What OS to use on server? (Win server 2008? , you just intall the games on one of its disks?)
2. What hardware to use? (If someone would be so kind to give me a configuration I could give to my retailer to get it for me) (what processor, NIC, how much ram? how much disk for 20-25 clients..)
3. When i get the server do I also need 1mb network cables and switches to connect all the computers to the server? (i think its obvious but..)
4. How big disks do you need on client PC then when youre running games from server?
5. I was thinking to install commonly used games souch as CS,WC3 and some singleplayer games that dont need updates on clients to lower the load on server? Is that a good idea?

Please help guys. If I dont solve this soon I'm going to have to close my Café because the stress of installing the games is just too much to handle for me nowdays..

OnlineGames servers introduce

xxalsonxx — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 13:26:47 GMT

Hi i'm from malaysia...because we have one question...

What is online games server hardware..introduce

We want installation online games in server...then all client can use in one server at the time

We have 100 computer client in internet cafe...

if can please sender E-mail to me xxalsonxx@gmail.com thanks

Wake on LAN

clueless — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 17:22:51 GMT

Hello. I have set the bios on all my computers to take advantage of the wake on LAN feature. About 1/2 of the computers refuse to work, even though an identical computer with the same settings works fine.

Can someone please point me in the direction I should be looking to fix this issue?

Thank You

Epson TM88 as POS Printer

Blaumeise — Mon, 21 May 2007 13:29:22 GMT

Hi,

as im running my cafe for a few weeks now, i got a used POS pinter Epson TM88 as a gift from a friend...

Now my problem. The printer works well under Windows, i can print text and graphics.
Smartlaunch will find the printer but it is not working correctly.
When printing, it prints either nothing (just cuty a small piece of paper) or only a part of the logo.

In the setup-preview windows in the administrator the window just shows just a small black dot. I tried to play with the columns and lines paramters but had no luck getting it to work...

My cafe-wide used laserprinter is working without problems and i can adjust everything.

Any suggestions or help?

Stefan

heres a picture of the setup-screen (dont care...the text is german :cool: )
[img]www.gamespot-internetcafe.de/tm88pic.jpg[/img]

WOL Vista

Syberscream — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 05:21:33 GMT

We have a Nvidia nForce Networking Controller on our Vista systems. Smartlaunch will not wake these up.

In the computer management center it shows IP for all XP Systems but the Vista Sytems show..PC15 fe80:0000:0000:0000:1873:7dcf:90.21.246.23%8

Could not turn on PC15. Reason: An address incompatible with the requested protocol was used

Anyone know how to get this to WOL.

Thanks

POS Hardware to work with the SmartLaunch

kane3162 — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 06:05:03 GMT

Hey,

We just got the Quickbooks POS system, we are not using the Quickbooks software however.

Now the question becomes... how do i setup my hardware to work with smartlaunch...

I have the receipt printer working correctly and fine however I cannot find out (weather it supports it at all) how to make this barcode scanner work, or this magnetic card strip reader, or this en-crypt 2100 for CC charges (or what do i need separate software for -sucks if i do)

Thanks for any help you can give me

Servers

j3bacha — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 18:23:01 GMT

I am just wondering if anyone could let me know what kind hardware you guys would recommend for a server , and what do you use your servers for? Was planning on having around 25 pcs running on the network . I was gonna use it to store and hand out images and control the userfiles and saves and what not, along with random uses of other programs like office etc.

Looking 4 more U are U 4000 USB Fingerprint Scanners

Syberscream — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 01:17:14 GMT

If anyone has any U are U Fingerprint scanners please message me. We are curently looking for 6 more of these. Also would be interested in purchasing a Smartlaunch compat cash drawer and thermal printer.

Thanks all.

Looking to Open A Center, Good Hardware Configs?

Wired_Gaming_Center — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 10:17:35 GMT

Hello everyone, first post after doing a whole lot of research. :)

Right now, I'm in the process of pricing out the different parts that I need to build up a gaming center with 40 PC's. I plan on building the setups myself for both cost and quality control :). Right now I am looking at the following config:

Core 2 Duo E6300
ASUS P5N-E SLi (nForce 650i SLI)
2GB Corsair XMS2 DDR2 800
GeForce 7950GT 512MB
Sound Blaster XFi ExtremeGamer Sound Card
Seagate 7200.10 500GB harddrives
720W OCZ Power Supplies
Cooler Master Cases

I have a couple of questions:

1. I haven't seen a center yet running anything but integrated audio. Is that mainly for price concerns or just simplicity? The rigs I want to setup will beat any other gaming center in town, so I'm not too worried about losing the sound cards, especially because it would free up like $4,000 :)

2. If I plan to have each system running about 60-70 games, will the 500GB be enough? Or will it be overkill? Again, I notice 250GB hard drives being the "standard" I keep seeing, but then the games library looks smaller too. I certainly don't want to overspend but I don't want to buy 250's just to run out of space halfway through :)

3. Software wise, does anyone have a recommendation for an easy way to image these machines? I was thinking about Ghost over the network, but I've heard mixed reviews about that.

Thanks for any and all help you can provide!

Best CD Writer?

Syberscream — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 00:55:07 GMT

I would appreciate any insights into the best CD Writer out there. We currently need to replace all our writers because the cd tray just wasnt holding up to use. They were pretty flimsy and people tend to push them closed with their hands rather than push the button. What we need is:

Sturdy trays

CD Write speeds of 52X

DVD Read capability

Reliablity for creating Image Files

But mostly something rugged and durable...

Thanks all....information is much appreciated

Game Server introduce

xxalsonxx — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 05:57:21 GMT

Hi i'm from malaysia...because we have one question...

What is game server hardware..introduce

We want installation online games in server...then all client can use in one server at the time

We have 100 computer client in internet cafe...

if can please sender E-mail to me xxalsonxx@gmail.com thanks

Cables

Stalk — Thu, 21 Sep 2006 09:44:25 GMT

We are looking at removing our stations from our tables and racking them at either end.
We have twelve stations per table so we want to rack six at each end.
The tables are approx 4.5 metres long.
So
Can we use cable extensions for monitor mouse keyboard joystick headphones etc.
The only time I have tried in the past it seemed like the mouse didnt receive enough power over time, ie: initially worked but soon failed.
Does anyone here have any experience / opinion on this ?
thx

Its all about the box ?

Stalk — Mon, 19 Dec 2005 13:40:16 GMT

Ok so Im tired of seeing this marker with nothing in it so Im going to start it and hope for another 11K reads. LOL
User station hardware setup as we all seem to be suffering some memory/lag/dropout probs with some titles. Some are slow loaders some just hang. Any way we use
Asus A8VE Deluxe mobo
AMD 3000+ CPU
1 Gig DDR 3200 Matched pairs Ram
ATI X800 Bravo 256mb PCI Express
Western DIgital 200 Gig SATA drives (2 of) no raid
Mavell Yukon Gigabit ethernet adapter (on board)
AC 97 sound (on board)
Samsung Syncmaster 913n 19" Flat panel monitors 8ms response
Microsoft Intellimouse 4.0a with Microsoft Multimedia Keyboard 1.0a
Headsets ( as cheap as we can get em) Lol (not all of em but mostly)
a few other descriptors are
Cat 6 Ethernet cable
Netgear 16 port gigabit ethernet switches ,currently 4 but can stack more as we need (copper)
3 seperate ADSL lines (ADSL 2+ ready)

Laptops/desknotes
Acer Ferarri 3400 MLI

a few PSPs , Xbox, PS2.

and thats about all Ive got to brag about.

Most of our lag issues seem to be Internet related but some stations are showing signs of on board lag causes.
What would you suggest as the next upgrade Item Ram / Cpu ,(cant afford video Just now)
or what about particular configs ie PEG mode ,acceleration etc.

regards
Stalk_U

Receipt Printer

D-Tuck — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 21:58:43 GMT

We've got a little receipt printer, an iDP 3541, which I've installed and configured in Windows XP (the test-page prints perfectly), yet when I try to print receipts to it through SmartLaunch, it shows only the right-most text of the receipt.

I've tried fiddling with the margins, but that only seems to push the text even farther out.

Any suggestions?

David Tucker
[url=http://www.area51-igc.com]Area 51 Internet Gaming Center[/url]

smartlaunch display on logitech G15 ?

rberndt — Mon, 08 May 2006 10:06:03 GMT

Anyone tried displaying Sl info on the G15 lcd? Having the users remaining time and/or balance right there would be awesome. I think the hardest part is figuring out how to poll the information from the SL client.

http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/products/details/US/EN,CRID=2166,CONTENTID=10717

PS- before anyone flames me, I DID a search for logitech and it only came up with 1 other post which wasnt about the G15.