Iv'e been reading these forums for awhile now and finally decided to make the plunge into renting a dedicated server, Due to alot of what i read here i went with thePlanet (Matrix) for the server, (SuperServer)

My question is, How many games would it be possible to host off the one machine? Mostly i run UT UT2003, AA and BF1942,

Also i have 5 useable IP's, What would be the best way to allocate the IP's, Meaning should i split them up between games? run all games on one IP and change the ports?

Last question... I am considering upgrading from the 2.4ghz P4 512mb, to the 3.06 P4 1gb, Would it be worth the extra $50 per month for a game server?

Thanks in advance,

I know very little about running gameservers, but I'd recommend you use all your IPs for games -- let each game 'listen' on all 5 IPs.

The reason is that it's way simpler to just enter the IP as opposed to having to specify the port as well. (ie, in counterstrike, it's far simpler to enter "1.2.3.4" as the gameserver than "1.2.3.4:27015")

If each gameserver can use all 5 IPs, you can get 5 customers for each game who get the 'default' port. (If you think you'll have more than 5 per game, you could charge a premium for the default port.)

Listening on things like 27016 (for CS) is nasty, as it's rather like having a webserver on port 81 -- it works fine, but http://website.com:81/ is just nasty and unprofessional looking. :-\

Just my two cents. (And appologies if it's incoherent. It's way too late at night...)

Playing around with numbers, going from a 2.4 GHz to a 3.06 GHz P4 gives you a 27.5% increase in speed.

I think the RAM boost (512 MB to 1 GB) would be more useful than the CPU boost, as I believe RAM gets gobbled up pretty quickly. (But take this with a grain of salt; I have no experience in the field aside from my desktop Linux box running CS on the LAN.) But you can never really have too much RAM; if you're not using RAM, Linux'll use some of it for caching of commonly-used files, which can be _really_ beneficial when you're dealing with things like maps, which would really stink if they had to be read from disk each and every time.

None of this really answers whether or not you should go to the bigger box, or whether it's a worthwhile deal, but hopefully you'll find something meaningful in it. :)

You can get 2, maybe 3 servers going before they start pushing each other out of the L2 cache and shredding performance. A faster proc won't measurably change that, although a switch to Athlon or Xeon may. I'm sure a few sadists here will suggest 5, 10, 15 servers. Feel free to follow their advice, instead; refugees make the best customers.

I'm curently running these games:

ArmyOps - 1-20 man 1 - 24 man
BF1942 - 1- 24 man
UT2003 - 1- 16 man
UT - 2- 14 man

Plus 3 Voice servers,

The games run very smooth so i figure i could run a few more, I wanted to find out from other gameserver owners what the max should be for this setup,

IMO you are stretching it out to much, wait until all those servers fill up, then check out the performance

If you are running multiple servers per machine you NEED multiple processors. You caould run maybe 4-7 (depending on game, slots and much more) on a dual Xeon or Athalon MP. But with a single proc I would be warry of putting more then 2 game instances on it.

If i can only run 2-3 or 4-7 games on this machine whats the point of paying all that $$.... I was under the impression that i would be able to run 10+ games no problem and figured i would rent out a few to offset the cost per month...

Also, was Matrix a good chose for what I'm doing? Are there other companies around that are comprable?

Originally posted by X-Gaming
If i can only run 2-3 or 4-7 games on this machine whats the point of paying all that $$.... I was under the impression that i would be able to run 10+ games no problem and figured i would rent out a few to offset the cost per month...

Also, was Matrix a good chose for what I'm doing? Are there other companies around that are comprable?

Don't even think about trying to run 10 servers off those specs. It's hard to make a buck renting a dedicated and selling servers off of it. To make any money you are pretty much forced to buy the hardware and colo it.

So what your saying is it would be better to buy a dual cpu machine and co-locate it? how many servers you think i could put on a dual? and wheres a good place to get dual servers, what would the specs i should look for? Sorry for all the questions but I'm new to all this stuff, I used to rent servers from comapanies and payed twice as much as now so in the long run I'm saving anyway...

ArmyOps - 1-20 man 1 - 24 man
BF1942 - 1- 24 man
UT2003 - 1- 16 man
UT - 2- 14 man

thats going to lag like crazy.

buy a dual xeon 2.4+ghz, with 1gb ram and 80gb 7200rpm 8mb cache drive.

you can run like 15 servers on it.

but not the kind you posted above.

Im talking about like, 15x12 private CS servers, so do the math with the requirments of the other games.

Originally posted by Mrdredd
ArmyOps - 1-20 man 1 - 24 man
BF1942 - 1- 24 man
UT2003 - 1- 16 man
UT - 2- 14 man

thats going to lag like crazy.

I had those servers up, not all full so i never got the chance to see the lag, I dropped it down to:

1 - UT
1 - CS
1-BF1942
1-AA

It seems to run fine with that amount of servers, Maybe I'll look into a Dual box.....

Where did that 10+ game per machine impression came from?

Originally posted by Mfjp
Where did that 10+ game per machine impression came from?

It's possible.

I've hosted over 11 HLDS/Counter-Strike servers on a Dual Xeon.

Originally posted by Mfjp
Where did that 10+ game per machine impression came from?

Just from reading different forums, Thats why i made the post so i could get a little feedback,

Even if you CAN fit that many on a server doesn't mean you SHOULD. If you get a dual zeon cap it off at maybe 7-8 if they are almost all privates or lower if they are all pubs.

Now this is advice if you are planning on selling servers. If it's for yourself dont worry about it put as many as you can till it caps out.

Sounds good, My idea was instead of paying another company $200+ a month to rent a few servers i would get a dedicated and run a few for myself and rent out a few to pay some of the cost of the dedicated, But yeah i understand what your saying about capping the limit to 7-8, That would be fine for me, Thank you

Originally posted by X-Gaming
Just from reading different forums, Thats why i made the post so i could get a little feedback,

Wtf ?

Which forums?

I'd like to make a note of all the companies whos business I can get.

Anyway, you shouldnt really be running game servers (atleast not as a business) unless your running dual cpu's. Its just not worth running single CPUs.

1) Unless you can get a box with decent specs for like $50, youll make **** for profit.

2) Your going to have get a couple good sized servers on it to cover costs and make a profit, if theyre lagging good luck keeping customers and getting more once you've built up a reputation.

Save the single CPU **** for when you get bigger and need seperate servers for things such as addons.

For example,
Right now, we run seperate machines for HLTV's, a seperate machine for all the voice servers, and a seperate machine for psychostats for CS seeing as when it polls all the stats it pins the CPU.


If your going to do game servers, you need to research

1) The region you're going into, will you be able to charge prices which will get you a profit?

2) Will you even be able to get customers? (not meaning 2 every month)

3) What kind of bandwidth do you have access to, and what kind of price?

4) If youll be able to break even by atleast the 2nd and at most 3rd month (this applies to dedicated server hosts)

IMO, if you dont previously have a very good estimate on the number of customers you can get at the prices you're going to charge, dont bother starting anything until you do.
When I say having an estimate, I dont mean just any old guess based on the fact of "I CAN DO IT!", I mean an educated estimate based on your marketing skills, contacts, ping times to certain locations, prices, and target market and if you have any pre-signups.

Originally posted by Mrdredd
Wtf ?

Which forums?

I'd like to make a note of all the companies whos business I can get.

Anyway, you shouldnt really be running game servers (atleast not as a business) unless your running dual cpu's. Its just not worth running single CPUs.

1) Unless you can get a box with decent specs for like $50, youll make **** for profit.

2) Your going to have get a couple good sized servers on it to cover costs and make a profit, if theyre lagging good luck keeping customers and getting more once you've built up a reputation.

Save the single CPU **** for when you get bigger and need seperate servers for things such as addons.

For example,
Right now, we run seperate machines for HLTV's, a seperate machine for all the voice servers, and a seperate machine for psychostats for CS seeing as when it polls all the stats it pins the CPU.


If your going to do game servers, you need to research

1) The region you're going into, will you be able to charge prices which will get you a profit?

2) Will you even be able to get customers? (not meaning 2 every month)

3) What kind of bandwidth do you have access to, and what kind of price?

4) If youll be able to break even by atleast the 2nd and at most 3rd month (this applies to dedicated server hosts)

IMO, if you dont previously have a very good estimate on the number of customers you can get at the prices you're going to charge, dont bother starting anything until you do.
When I say having an estimate, I dont mean just any old guess based on the fact of "I CAN DO IT!", I mean an educated estimate based on your marketing skills, contacts, ping times to certain locations, prices, and target market and if you have any pre-signups.

:D

Listening on things like 27016 (for CS) is nasty, as it's rather like having a webserver on port 81 -- it works fine, but http://website.com:81/ is just nasty and unprofessional looking.

No - what IS unproffesional is if we had 1 ip per gameserver - its wasteful and irresponsible.

Originally posted by wubwob
No - what IS unproffesional is if we had 1 ip per gameserver - its wasteful and irresponsible.

That is true...

but on the other side of the coin, a lot of customers want default port and recieving it or not can mean a lost sale.

I really dont see the big damn deal, hardly anyone connects manually through console in the first place, so typing in the port wouldnt even matter.


but what the hell you gonna do

Alot of customers want the default port do they?

I remember only 1 person ever asking if he could have the default port - so so thats about 0.3% of people in my case.

You could have the best server in the world, but if you don't have sufficient bandwidth, then you can't run more than a couple of games servers.

If someone could perhaps enlighten me as to what sort of bandwidth these game servers use per player?

Thanks Mrdredd, I see your point and understand what your saying in relation to starting a business doing gameservers, However my primary goal going into this was to off-set the cost of my personal gaming, I used to pay $200+ for a couple of servers that i rented from another company so to buy a "dedicated" server and run my games on it already saved me over $50 per month, Anything over that is profit as far as i am concerned,

I can't afford to buy or rent a dual machine, But would upgrading to the 3.06 P4 1024gb Ram be a good way to go? It's only a few $$ more?

Well, give me in detail exactly what your going to run on it, which games and max players and estimated load of each server

1- 10 man UT
1- 10 man ut2003
1 - 24 BF1942 DC

I'd like to fit one or two more of the above games on if i have enough room,

And a couple voice servers, They don't make a dent in load do they?

What i have running right now on a 2.4ghz 512ram box is:
1 BF1942 24 man
1 UT 14 man
1 CS 16 man
2 Ventrilo voice servers,

Server load gets around 50% combined when the servers are mostly full,
How can i tell the load from each game?

use "top" and look at the cpu usage for each game.

Ok right now my BF1942 32 man is at capacity and showing 34% load, the other servers are empty except for the 2 voice,

From this i can gather that at the current 34% load I should be able to host 200 players????

1- 10 man UT
1- 10 man ut2003
1 - 24 BF1942 DC


you should be fine

How come every time i ask a question i only get half of it answered?

How many servers do you think i can add since I'm only pulling 34% CPU usage?

because i usually charge for all this info? ;)

id say maybe two more, go ahead and try it and tell me what happens, im curious.
run a 20 man CS for fun.

hehehe, So if i pay you i get all the information? ;)

CS.... I don't have that much time on my hands to chase cheaters away....

I'll give it a try though..

This is not a support forum. No one is getting paid (hence responsible) for answering your questions. Just be thankful for the reply you get.

Running a gaming server is tricky. Like others have said, you need dual CPU's to do it effectively. And you don't want your CPU utilization getting too high. Even at 34% utilization, you could be adding noticible lag when the condition is right. Out of 6 games, if 4 of them need to be executed by your single CPU at the same time, then 3 will have to wait. One of them will wait much longer.

Originally posted by Yikes2000
This is not a support forum. No one is getting paid (hence responsible) for answering your questions. Just be thankful for the reply you get.



Sorry, I DO get paid, just not on the forums.

I do game server consultation.
So my point stands.

Well thank you everyone for replying, I have a clearer picture of what i need to do,

One last question, If i upgrade to a Dual 2.4ghz box 2gb Ram how many games (ballpark) do you think i could get on there>?

which game combos

Probably 2 BF1942, and the rest either UT/CS types