How to play LAN games online by Setting up a Virtual LAN.

Ever wanted to play LAN games but don’t have friends who live nearby? Well, the same was with me until I found this solution. Stick around for a while because here I am going to show you how you can play LAN games with your friends online using an internet connection.

It is a straightforward process and just involves downloading a free app to your computer. It works great and after setting the app on your respective PC’s, you can your friends can enjoy LAN games online via the internet. Here I will be using an app called Hamachi which is used to create a Virtual LAN Network.

 

What is Virtual LAN?

To play LAN games over an internet connection, you need to fool your computer into thinking that you and your friend(s) are connected on the same LAN network. This is where creating a “Virtual LAN” connection comes in.  To do this we will use Hamachi. Hamachi is a VPN client which you can use to create a Virtual network which you can your friend(s) can join together. Then the game will think that you are on The same LAN connection and it will allow you to play LAN game modes. There are other similar software which does the same thing, but hamachi is one the best ones and is available for free. It is not very hard to set up either.

As of now Hamachi only has five slots for free users, meaning you and your four friends can join a network. But they also have many premium plans with more slots and additional features which you can check out if you are satisfied with the base product. Now as for the setup of Hamachi, follow the steps below.

 

Setting up Hamachi:

Setting up Hamachi is very simple, and you can easily do it with a few simple steps.

Step1. Make sure that you and your friend(s) have hamachi installed on your System. Click here to download it. Install and Run.

Step2. When hamachi is open, start it by pressing the power button. After that, each one of you needs to create an account by putting in your email and choosing a password.

Step3. Once all done, one of you will create a network. Just click on “Network” TAB on the top-bar and select “Create a Network…“.

Step4. Once there, set up a network by choosing a Unique name and password. Next, click create.

Step5. Now give the Network name (ID) and passcode to your friends and ask them to join. They can participate by going to “Network” and clicking on “Join a Network…” & filling the info.

Once done you are pretty much good to go, launch the game on which you want to play the LAN mode on and Voila! You will now be able to play LAN games without actually having to be connected on a LAN.

 

Troubleshooting

Now for most of you, it will work fine, but on some games such as Counter-Strike Source, you might face errors. The game will not allow you or your friends to connect if Hamachi has assigned you different IP ranges. To solve this, you will need to set up VPN aliases on the hamachi app.

 

• Setting up VPN alias on Hamachi

To setup VPN aliases on hamachi, you or whoever created the network will have to set aliases for everyone connected to the network.

To do this follow the steps:

Step1. Open the app and note down the IP that has been assigned to you.

Step2. Right click on the person on your network for which you want to setup the VPN alias. Then click on details.

Step3. Once on details, select setting and then click on the “change” option which is next to VPN alias.

 

 

Now you have to paste your own assigned IP that you noted down here. Then change the last string(numbers) after the dot of the address. For example, if your Hamachi IP is 23.31.111.21 then for your friends VPN alias you will write “23.31.111.*”. Replace the star with any number you like but make sure it is not the same one as you.

Do it for every friend, remember to change the last numbers after the dots to a unique one. Example if your IP is ‘23.31.111.21‘, then set your 1st friends VPN alias to ‘23.31.111.22‘, the second friend’s to ‘23.31.111.23‘, thirds one to ‘23.31.111.24‘ and so on. Make sure that no IP address is the same and the last numbers are unique.

 

• High Ping?

If you are getting a high ping, ask one of your friends who has a good internet connection to host the network. It usually works, but if you still have high ping, it might be your ISP’s fault. You can also try disabling encryption and compression from the settings menu; it might help.

 

• Service Stopped

If you are getting an error which is saying ‘Service Stopped‘, like on the screenshot above, here is how to solve it (Win 7/8/10).

First open task manager, you can do so by pressing CTRL+SHIFT+ESC simultaneously. Or you can also right click on the Windows logo on start bar and choose Task Manager. From there go to Services Tab and search for Hamachi2Svc, Right click and select Start. Once it’s done close the Hamachi dialog box and Rerun it, It should be working now.

 

Conclusion

So I hope this little tutorial helped you in learning what Himachi is and how to use it to create a Virtual LAN network to play LAN games with your friends over the internet. You can also use Hamachi if you can’t port forward in Counter-strike. I tried it in Counter-Strike Source because of the lack of port-forwarding support on my router (or I wasn’t able to configure it.), and it worked great after using the VPN alias.

Generally, Hamachi will work with any LAN game and games that have LAN game modes. It is an excellent way of “Emulating” a LAN network using the Internet, but it is not the only one, I think. If you know any other way to play LAN games using the internet, feel free to leave a comment down below. That is it for this post, do leave a comment below if this post was helpful or if you are facing any problems.