Customer: Isthmian Gaming
Industry: Esports & Entertainment
Location: Madison, Wisconsin
Partner/Integrator: GameSync Consulting
In the world of competitive gaming and esports, fast isn’t good enough. When millisecond reactions determine the difference between victory and defeat, network latency is the enemy. Isthmian Gaming, a premier esports venue, partnered with GameSync Consulting to build a state-of-the-art infrastructure capable of supporting high-fidelity gaming for 30+ simultaneous users, while simultaneously allowing for full-HD game capture, to be broadcast online via a production PC.
The facility faced a unique engineering challenge common to high-end LAN centers: The Diskless Paradox. The massive data throughput required to boot operating systems over the network (iSCSI) and produce high quality broadcast streams was colliding with the tiny, latency-sensitive packets required for gameplay (UDP), causing invisible lag spikes.
By leveraging Zyxel Networks’ Multi-Gigabit switching hardware and the USG FLEX 700H firewall, GameSync Consulting architected a solution that eliminated buffer saturation. Through a strategic shift to a Core Switch topology and granular QoS packet prioritization, GameSync transformed Isthmian Gaming into a fortress of stability, delivering a flawless experience for competitive titles like Counter-Strike 2 and Valorant.
Customer Background: Isthmian Gaming
Isthmian Gaming was conceived with a singular vision: to provide an esports experience that surpasses what players can achieve at home. The facility features 30 high-end gaming stations, console lounges, virtual reality, and broadcast capabilities. Unlike a typical internet café, Isthmian targets the competitive demographic: players who notice a 5ms jitter and demand 240Hz+ frame rates.
To centralize management of so many endpoints, Isthmian utilized GameSync’s diskless boot infrastructure. In this setup, client PCs do not have local storage drives. Instead, they boot their Windows OS and access multi-terabyte game libraries directly from a central server over the local network. While efficient for retail gaming centers, this architecture places an extreme load on the network backbone.
The Challenge: The Diskless Paradox and Micro-Bursts
During the initial soft launch, GameSync Consulting identified a critical anomaly. Players in Counter-Strike 2 were reporting intermittent packet loss icons and micro-stutters, despite the facility having a pristine fiber internet connection.
Standard diagnostics showed no issues:
- Internet bandwidth was ample.
- Ping tests to Google were a steady 12ms.
- The firewall CPU usage was low.
The Diagnosis
GameSync Consulting, led by lead architect Agragati Siegel, dug deeper into the switch telemetry. The issue wasn’t the internet; it was the local physics of the network.
“We discovered we were hitting what I call the ‘Diskless Paradox,'” says Siegel. “The CCBoot server acts like a firehose, blasting 10Gbps of operating system data to the PCs. Game traffic, by comparison, is a trickle of tiny UDP packets. When a player fired a shot in-game at the exact millisecond another PC requested a texture file from the server, the switch ports were becoming saturated. The switch, overwhelmed by the massive server data, was dropping the tiny game packets. We call this a ‘Micro-Burst collision.'”
Furthermore, the initial network topology relied on a “Daisy Chain” setup—switches connected in a line. As player counts rose above 10 concurrent users, the single 10G uplink cable connecting the switches became a bottleneck, causing “Macro-Bursts” that would freeze games for seconds at a time during background server maintenance tasks.
Isthmian Gaming needed a solution that could prioritize a 64-byte game packet over a 10-gigabyte system file, instantly and automatically.
The Solution: A Zyxel-Powered Core Architecture
GameSync Consulting designed a two-phase solution utilizing Zyxel Networks’ high-performance hardware to restructure the flow of data.
Phase 1: The Architectural Pivot (Star Topology)
To eliminate the bottlenecks caused by daisy-chaining, GameSync deployed the Zyxel XS1930-12F, a 10-Gigabit SFP+ Smart Managed Switch, to act as the “Core” of the network.
“Moving to a Core Switch topology was the turning point,” Siegel explains. “Instead of traffic hopping from switch to switch, every critical component now feeds directly into the XS1930-12F. It acts as the central nervous system.”
The new topology provided massive dedicated bandwidth:
The server is connected via Dual 10G Links directly to the Core, providing 20Gbps of throughput to handle OS streaming without sweating.
Each bank of gaming PCs (connected to XMG1930-30 switches via 2.5G) received its own dedicated 10G fiber uplink to the Core.
The USG FLEX 700H fed 1G internet directly into the Core via 10G copper.
This physical separation ensured that heavy video traffic from the video production and NVR, and heavy boot traffic from the server, could travel parallel paths without colliding with the gaming traffic from the Access Switches.
Phase 2: Granular QoS (The “VIP Lane”)
With the physical pipes expanded, GameSync utilized the advanced features of the Zyxel switch OS to solve the Micro-Burst packet loss.
“We had to teach the switches the difference between a freight train and a motorcycle,” Siegel notes. “The Server data is the freight train—huge and heavy. The Game data is the motorcycle—fast and agile.”
GameSync implemented a strict 802.1p Quality of Service (QoS) configuration across the XMG1930 and XS1930 switches:
The Router Port (Source of Game Data) was assigned Priority 7 (Highest).
The Server Port (Source of OS Data) was assigned Priority 0 (Default).
Flow Control was strictly Disabled to prevent iSCSI pauses.
This configuration forced the switches to inspect every frame of data. If a game packet arrived from the Router at the same moment a file chunk arrived from the Server, the switch would “pause” the server data for a microsecond, let the game packet cut to the front of the line, and then resume the file transfer.
Products Used
Zyxel USG FLEX 700H: Selected for its ability to handle multi-gigabit WAN throughput with deep packet inspection enabled, without introducing routing latency.
Zyxel XS1930-12F (Core Switch): The 10G/12-port fiber aggregation unit that eliminated the daisy-chain bottleneck.
Zyxel XMG1930-30 & 30HP (Access Switches): These provided 2.5GbE to every client PC, ensuring the local LAN was faster than the internet connection. The H” model provided PoE++ to power the WiFi 6E Access Points.
Zyxel WAX650S (WiFi 6 Access Points): Deployed to provide high-density wireless coverage for mobile users and console lounges.
Zyxel XGS1930-28: Managed connectivity for consoles and auxiliary devices.
The Result: “Zero Latency” Achieved
The transformation was immediate and measurable.
1. Elimination of Packet Loss
Following the implementation of the Core topology and Priority 7 QoS, the “Packet Loss” icons in Counter-Strike 2 vanished. Ping stability leveled out, providing a consistent experience regardless of whether the server was under load or idle.
2. Seamless Scalability
“We stressed the system with 30+ simultaneous users,” says the Operations Manager at Isthmian Gaming. “Previously, if we booted up a row of PCs, the active players would feel a lag spike. With the new Zyxel Core setup designed by GameSync, we can boot the entire room at once, and the players in-match don’t feel a thing. It’s rock solid.”
3. Video Production
The 10G backbone allows Isthmian Gaming to deliver high quality video production and NDI streaming to a production PC and then to the wider internet. The XS1930-12F Core switch has ample overhead to handle 4K video streams alongside gaming traffic, putting Isthmian years ahead of the competition.
Consultant’s Perspective
“Esports infrastructure is unforgiving,” says Agragati Siegel of GameSync Consulting. “You cannot simply plug cables in and hope for the best. You need hardware that allows for granular control over queues, priorities, and topology. Zyxel provided the exact toolset we needed—specifically the XMG and XS series—to solve the physics problem of diskless booting. We didn’t just build a LAN center; we built a competitive arena.”
