Last weekend, over 12,000 LAN party goers turned up at DreamHack Winter 2011 in Jonkoping, Sweden with a PC under the arm, on their back, or packed carefully in the trunk of their car. Every single attendee is squeezed into just three massive halls -- the largest holding 5,000 computers -- for four days, only taking brief breaks to sleep or check out one of the many stages (including some of the largest e-sport tournaments of the year).
DreamHack(Opens in a new window) is by far the largest LAN party in the world (or "digital festival" as the organizers like to call it), and as a result the infrastructure is second to none. Wiring up more than 12,000 devices to a single network is difficult -- and keeping them sufficiently watered with plenty of internet bandwidth is even harder. Fortunately, this year, Telia and Cisco provided no less than 120 gigabits of internet bandwidth(Opens in a new window) -- or about 10Mbps per attendee; not bad.More importantly, though, DreamHack's truly monumental scale means that there's tons of awesome, geeky photos to sink your teeth into. Have you ever wondered what 5,000 PCs in a single room looks like -- or what it looks like when gamer geeks start partying... or when they fall asleep in their chairs? Just how big are those central, 120Gbps Cisco routers, anyway, and how long does it take to lay enough CAT5 cable for 12,000 devices?
Read on for the best photos from DreamHack Winter 2011. Remember, you can click every photo to see a larger version (including the one at the top of this page!)
There's a loooot of cabling to be done...
With the lights up, you can see just how many people are in the main gaming hall.
Sadly, girls are still rare creatures at LAN parties -- except for booth babes; there are plenty of those.
We wonder if the sex doll is part of his rig, or just a temporary addition.
It's perfectly acceptable to fall asleep at your computer, rather than trudge off to the sleeping hall. Update: Apparently it's not OK to fall asleep at your computer, in case there's a fire -- even so, many people still do it.
Duct tape AND pink headphones. There's a story here -- I'm just not sure what it is. Swedes are odd creatures.
The sleeping hall, which has capacity for a few thousand or so.
This is labeled "the temporary NOC" -- but I'm not entirely sure what that means or entails.
Live music by "Vizay"
A room in the DreamExpo, where commercial entities show off their latest gear.
Another room in the DreamExpo
A fancy case in the DreamExpo
The StarCraft 2 finals, presented by Day[9]
Adoring fans watch the SC2 final
The DreamHack set up takes days
The core switches for the DreamHack 120Gbps internet connection.
[Image credit: DreamHack(Opens in a new window), ALifeWorthEating(Opens in a new window)]
