My last lan party was a depressing bust. Only two out of I think 9 ended up coming. We tried to make the best of it, but it just wasn't the same. I hope you and your crew have a blast!
this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2025
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The group is a bit smaller these days, just one buddy. We're doing some XP gaming. I got Battlefield 1942 running here, with the Battlegroup 42 mod. My Dimension E510 can really handle up to BG42 version 1.35b, but apparently they aren't hosting that on ModDB anymore. I had to find it on some shady ancient Russian file hosting site. But I got there in the end.
This is the first time out for my Precision 690, I've been working on it for about a month. I rescued it from a rage room, it was going to get beat to scrap. I asked, and they gave it to me! I swapped the single Xeon 5160 for Xeon 5355's. 2gb of ram for 32gb. The crappy display adapter for a GTX 980TI. It is an XP era powerhouse. I have not gotten XP x64 running on it yet, but it's running Mint 22.1 like a champ. I put an XP theme on it until I can dual boot the real thing. I am super stoked this thing is running. Mint might be the better option for it, actually! Good 32bit compatibility with Wine and Lutris, and full use of the 32gb of ram and 8 cores.
Thanks! That really sucks yours didn't pan out.. I've never really had a group of more than 4, I bet 9 would have been a great time.
The expectation v reality was the gutpunch that cut in to the weekend. We still had a blast with the smaller group. We just had to adjust our game plans.
All you really need is just 1 person to have a good time.
We transitioned to boardgame parties. Works much better as you can't do those online.
We tried Tabletop Simulator; it works, but it's not nearly as good as in-person boardgames.
A different group of friends and I did that for years, then I decided to move to the other side of the country. I just haven't had time to establish a local group here to do the same
Thanks for the memories!
I worked for DICE Canada, on the Battlefield 1942: Secret Weapons of WWII expansion, and Battlefield: Vietnam. And a little bit on the BF2 Special Forces expansion. I love that people are still playing the classics.
No way!! Really? That is so cool. Man, Secret Weapons and Vietnam were amongst our favorites. We never played vanilla or Road to Rome. Vietnam was really, really good. I actually installed everything from my original discs I got freshman year of college! You worked on a huge part of my college experience, and some really great memories with my brother. I made friends in my dorm I still have to this day. Thank you.
My pleasure! We had a great time with Vietnam. I still work with some of the people who were on that team -- different company, but still. Gamedev is a tiny world.
Sounds like automotive interiors tooling. Ive been with 3 companies over the last 13 years, and now I'm at a place that has gathered up 11 people I've previously worked with. Customers join the company as program managers. Coworkers leave to join customers. It's almost incestuous.
I played so many hours of the Desert Combat, Battlefield 1942 mod.
Desert Combat was so good man. So much time spent as a kid trying to master flying helicopters in it.
It's crazy that this mod is kind of the foundation of the entire modern Battlefield landscape seeing as its devs got hired by DICE for Battlefield 2.
Really? Wow, that's pretty awesome.
I love DC. I was the only one of my buddies that could fly the helicopters well.
I have a very specific memory of coming in with a jet to shoot one of my buddies in a chopper. Then he does a damn barrel roll, dropping well out of my cone of fire almost instantly.
The helicopters in Desert Combat gave you a ton of control. They were a quite simplistic compared to DCS, which is where I get my aircraft fix now, but I really enjoyed the wild shit you could pull with them if you got good.
May I join?
I'd love to let you, but I keep my XP machine gapped from the internet. You in the greater Detroit area? Lol
Secretly, I was hoping you'd ask that question ... But about my middle-of-nowhere village on the opposite side of the country.
Maybe another game, another time, online.
Having grown up in the middle of nowhere, I feel you.
Maybe! It would actually be pretty neat to get a group of Lemmings together for some online gaming.
Is Synergy still a thing? You could still fake LAN some older games through online.
Wasn't Synergy the software that let you use one mouse and keyboard between multiple computers? Not like a KVM but with them running seamlessly side by side.
I would think older games could be tricked into believing they were on a LAN using a VPN.
Yes, they totally can. My brother and I have played Battlezone II over LogMeIn Hamachi. That was probably 8-10 years ago, is there a better free VPN these days?
I'm no expert - I never leave the house so I have no need of one. However, I think OpenVPN is free and allows this functionality? A lot of modern routers even integrate it.
It does, however, require some - a little - technical knowhow.
Forever a fan of LAN partys, it's genuienly so much better than playing online. Hope you had a good time!
We sure did. I'll be honest, it didn't quite hit the same as it did 20 years ago. Still way better than online, though.
4:3 monitors! Perfection.
Edit: Rise of Nations is an excellent XP era RTS
Now that brings back memories of having to lug a big ass CRT back in the day.
I'll check that out, thanks!
What’s that beautiful looking kb on the left with the black and white caps? A keychron?
It's an E-Yooso Z-19, with Glorious Panda switches, and double shot pbt caps, the brand escapes me.
The top half of the switch housing I replaced with clear ones I had from some other switches when I lubricated them. The original ones didn't let a lot of the RGB through. Not that I ever really use it, but it better work if I do. I found the caps and the keyboard at a bin store, $12 each! Fantastic luck, as they are both just my style.
Edit: How could I forget about the damping o-rings from Captain O-Ring! They're the perfect thickness.
That’s a beautiful keyboard. Nice setup!
Thank you very much!
Null modem party
Now that takes me back.
I used to rent the building's party room for MIDI ring parties!
My brother and I used to sit face-to-face with our Compaq Armada E500's, playing Battlezone over the infrared ports. Good times.
no shade intended, I play with myself
What's a rage room?
You go and spend like, $50 to spend 20 minutes going full-on Office Space on some old breakable stuff. Glassware, old electronics, etc. I'm not a fan of the concept, myself.
I was at an escape room, and the facility also had a rage room. I saw this beast on a hand truck, getting ready to head to its demise. And I basically pestered the guy behind the counter to go ask the rage room employees if I could buy it. He finally did, and they said I could just have it. I think my wife was in shock when she saw me carrying the behemoth to the car. She was probably expecting a mid tower like my other computers and not this 55 lb, 18 year old space heater.
Note: The E310 has an E510 mobo. The E310 didn't have PCI-E.
Yes pls
It was a lot of fun. We really wanted to play some CoD United Offensive, but I just could not get that to install on Lutris. There must be a trick to it. My long-term goal is to get XP running on The Beast, but until then this is what I've got.
I also could not get Mod Manager 5 for Battlezone II to run properly in Lutris, either.