ok if you havent read anything about this project of mine, then heres the quick outline:

were building some basic flight simulators and we need to find out what the best method of networking is. heres the layout (formatted for neoseeker):

|------|_____|------|
|Sim1|_____|Sim2|
|------|_____|------|
|------|_____|------|
|Sim3|_____|Sim4|
|------|_____|------|
|------|_____|------|
|Sim5|_____|Sim6|
|------|_____|------|
|------|_____|------|
|Sim7|_____|Sim8|
|------|_____|------|
_________________
|--ATC--|__|Server1|
|--ATC--|__|Server2|


ok so basically, there are 8 simulators in total, each having one or two computers (i need networking layouts for each set), an air traffic control (ATC) section, with 2 computers in it, and 2 servers. how would it all connect up?[color=#eef0f9][size=1]

[size=1][color=#666666]This message was edited by hiigaran on Jul 20 2008.

Are you just wanting to connect them all together with some ethernet cable so they can all communicate with the server and ATC? I think the best way would be to get a 24 port Gigabit switch, along with a box of 1,000 feet of ethernet cable (plus the cripers/cable ends) and run cable from each computer to the switch.

well i want them connected in the most efficient way (cost and performance) so that all the sims, atc and servers are able to see eachother and interact with eachother. and we have many of those gigabit switches. i think there are about 8. we have these four however, that have only about 5 ports to plug anything into. what could they possibly do? and lastly, we also already have those blue CAT5 or patch cables or whatever you want to call them (as far a i know, theyre the same thing). what would you use a crossover cable for though?

How many ports do the largest gigabit switches have? The less you can use, the better. If you can use 2, then I would split the load exactly on each switch then connect the 2 switches together with a cross over cable.

ahhh, so thats what crossovers do, connect one xx port switch to another. ok well there are 6 24 port switches. now does it matter where the server connects to? is there a specific location for it?

so you know, all this stuff was just given to us because the company went bust and they couldnt liquidate anything, so we got the lot. monitors, computers, gigabit switches, and a ton of different cables.

now, if i were to use 2 computers for each simulator instead of one, how would i get the two to interact with eachother so they run FSX in sync with eachother (or however it works)?

You could connect every computer/server to one of the gigabit switches and run it fine. As for the 2 computers connecting to each other, how often do they need to communicate with the server and ATC computer? If they dont need to very often, then you could put 4 simulators, a ATC, and server one switch each, then connect them with a crossover cable. It dosnt matter which port it plugs into. It may take some tweaking to get the best performance though.

alright. but i still dont exactly understand how two computers work with eachother to run one program. and what about the controls? do they connect to both via some kind of splitter?

EDIT: for all my inquiries on this, im going to move it here, because i have three threads in different forums for this.

EDIT2:In the next few days, this thread will be deleted - a better thread for this project is found here

[size=1][color=#666666]This message was edited by hiigaran on Jul 24 2008.