I'm wondering if I should. I'm gonna charge him $100 US / month + $50 setup for a CS server - 20 players. My server is getting about 15k uniques / day, so I don't know what kind of performance he will get. Traffic is pretty high right now and I'm getting a pretty good ping, so I don't know if it will be a problem. Are there are any security risks in installing the linux version of the half-life/cs server? Thanks for the counselling guys.

EDIT: I'm not planning on hosting many game servers. Just this one.

Is there counter strike server going to be a big resource hog?

I don't know much about CS server. That's the purpose of this post. :)

Counter Strike servers consume a lot of resources.

the worst part is you have to maintain your server's load to "below 0.90" or his cs sever will lag like hell.

also, which map is he going to host ?
larger maps consume even more resources (like de_dust ` de_aztec)

right now I have a 22-man cs server hosting fy_iceworld (a map , in case you dont know) and it eats 60% of the cpu.
although that server is a cheap one (duron 1GHZ ` 512MB RAM) ,
this gives you some ideas

and fy_iceworld is one of the smallest map in CS

and if someone is uploading or downloading files, then the server starts to lag even though the server load is about 0.65

don't jump into things you have no clue about

clocker1996, ur post wasn't really helpful...

from my experience with game servers (don't really know much about 'em at all, 'cept a few clients of mine were game server hosting companies) is that they don't use much CPU power during gameplay... just when games start n stuff...

anile8, if you think fdc is going to give you good pings, ur a funny dude... lol

Actually, I have the same questions about Game Server hosting, and one additional question, namely:

How much bandwidth will a Game Server consume? I'm thinking Battlefield 1942 and/or Quake 3. Assuming a popular server hosting 20-30ish players - how much would that use?

If anyone has experiences hosting game servers, it would be great if you could weigh in here. :-)

Thanks - Brian

Originally posted by netdude
clocker1996, ur post wasn't really helpful...

from my experience with game servers (don't really know much about 'em at all, 'cept a few clients of mine were game server hosting companies) is that they don't use much CPU power during gameplay... just when games start n stuff...

anile8, if you think fdc is going to give you good pings, ur a funny dude... lol


sure it was
i feel bad for the guy who he is going to be providing service to
i would imagine it wouldn't be good

well... this client must not be too discriminating... if this client is thinking that cogent is going to provide the excellent latency required for a game server... heh

Hi anile8, I run a couple of gameservers as well as my site on a dual P3 box with 1GB of RAM. I have to agree with sonic that it will cause performance problems with your site(s) as well as the Counter Strike server unless you are using a high end machine. A single 1.4 proc and 512MB RAM won't cut it.

bteeter, it's hard to give you an estimate on bandwidth usage because different games vary as well as the continous traffic on the server. I have spoken personally to a guy that has a successful game server hosting business and he says that one machine alone uses 800GB per month. The server will have 60-100 player slots hosted depending upon the game.

You guys are welcome to email me if you need additional information.

I know a lot about game servers, and this is a bad idea.

For starters, Cogent bandwidth and game servers do not mix. He and the players that use the servers are going to complain about lag like you wouldn't believe.

Second, Counter-Strike uses quite a bit of CPU resources. I've run a number of them (have 2 up right now) and I can tell you that it isn't "just when the game starts up". CS, DOD, etc eat CPU time under load, period. An active 20 player server will nail 60% of your CPU (assuming single P4 1.6ghz, like I use). And dual CPU's make no diffference because those game servers are not multithreaded.

Battlefield 1942 is the WORST for server hogging. You don't have to believe me, check out the readme that comes with the demo server - "This server will consume 80-100% of your server processing power. You should not run a BF 1942 server on a server running anything else".

BF 1942 also uses twice as much bandwidth as CS. For a 32 player server, they recommend a 10mb circuit (no, I am not kidding). I don't know if that's entirely true but I had one up for 2 weeks and it went through 210gb all by it's lonesome.

If you run a 20 player public CS server on the same machine as a very active 15k/day page view web site you are flat out insane. It will NOT end well, believe me on this one.

The game server/hosting business is a bad one to get into. I've looked into it. Margins are razor thin and competition is tight. You could say the same about the web hosting business, sure, but the game server business uses a ton more resources, server and network wise, than web hosting so your exposure is much higher.

Originally posted by netdude
well... this client must not be too discriminating... if this client is thinking that cogent is going to provide the excellent latency required for a game server... heh

netdude, you kill me! :D You actually bothered to do a traceroute and check out the bandwidth provider. Good move! There are some hosts that can sucessfully run a game server on Cogent, but I only had problems. Your friend would be better off renting from a gameserver hosting company. It would save both of you much grief.

what can i say? i have no life... lol... afterall, its 9:25AM right now, i didn't sleep last night... and i been posting jokes in the lounge forum all night

lol

can ya tell i'm a bit off my rocker? lol

*now, done with the jokes... time to look up guns on the internet*

Why do you guys bitch about FDC and Cogent so much? My experience with them has been great. I would be paying a LOT of money on additional bandwidth if I didn't have them. I thought their prices were too good to be true, but they're not. My new ad campaign is paying better than anything I've tried so far. http://www.freeezinebucks.com/ <- ADULT. I'm placing hentai banners. I'm making about 30-40$ a day. I have the ad code from Gorilla Nation but apparently I'll make the same amount or LESS STUFFING my site with popups. Right now it has 0 popups. I can easily pay off the server, I just thought an extra 100$/month would be nice. I can always refund the kid.

don't ask for advice and whine when it doesn't go your way peewee... u asked if what u had was good enough for game serving and we answered... the answer was no... general consensus is no... k? clear? got that? comprende? never said it wasn't good enough for hosting a website... said it wasn't good enough for game servers...

*looking at: http://world.guns.ru/handguns/hg16-e.htm... drooling*

hmm... i don't understand why that url says the desert eagle is made in minesota... the gun was designed in israel... hmm

there... this one is better: http://remtek.com/arms/imi/desert/index.htm

anile8, I was not flaming FDC or Cogent. I have personally tried to run a gameserver with Cogent bandwidth and had nothing, but complaints about pings and lag. I live 20 minutes from the server and would have pings over 500ms! My site and server traffic increased 300% after switching to premium bandwidth. My ping now is a constant 14ms. It looks as if FDC and Cogent are serving your purposes well, but adding a gameserver to the mix is trouble. Save yourself the time, the kid's disappointment, and decline his request.

netdude, maybe you should join my gameserver, destroy some things, and hopefully cure your boredom :D

dude... xenos... i gotta call ya... can u PM me a number i can reach you at? hehe... :) stuff regarding hostin'... :D tried calling number on whois, but only got answering machine...

hehe

LMAO...don't be filling up my answering machine. I'm at work for a while, but we can chat on ICQ, AIM, Yahoo, or whatever.

ICQ - 127275610 (locks up like crazy at work - last resort)
AIM - IAMDAX
Yahoo - umxenos

good luck , I tired this once and seen it's worse than webhosting trying to make any money , so don't quit your day job thinking your gonna be rich.

Just like rackshack in webhosting there are gameserver companies who offer unheard of pricing. I decided it wasn't worth the hassle and went with www.recongamer.com for 4 months there , service is cheap , cheap for what they offer and some might say it can't be good , well it was awesome . I did have onetime there was trouble when they moved Datacenters and had a small period where service wasn't as good and they gave me a 2 week credit.

No I don't work for them , just a word of a happy customer who paid for there service. No it's not cheap bandwith they use , they use Verio, qwest and some other top bandwith providers , maybe congent can be good but I wouldn't enen take a chance using it for a gaming server IMHO.

Recongamer was careful to not allow public servers for the true resource intensive games like the Half Life mods. Even though it's typical for those public servers to be inactive for several hours a day, they are still a drain on resources. Sticking to private servers for those and public for the less intense hogs was a smart move that allows them to keep costs down and profits up in that market.

Another thing to watch out for on those game servers are the player stats. They tend to grow until they take up an awful lot of room on the drive.

And to top it off without a good tight user interface the gamer admins "could" get into things they shouldn't and really mess up a server too.

Disclaimer - These comments are based on the ugly first hand experience of the poster. }:>)

anile8, I was not flaming FDC or Cogent. I have personally tried to run a gameserver with Cogent bandwidth and had nothing, but complaints about pings and lag. I live 20 minutes from the server and would have pings over 500ms! My site and server traffic increased 300% after switching to premium bandwidth. My ping now is a constant 14ms. It looks as if FDC and Cogent are serving your purposes well, but adding a gameserver to the mix is trouble. Save yourself the time, the kid's disappointment, and decline his request.


500 ms ? thats bad

my duron server is using cogent too but its not that bad.
data center is in Texas and I live in Vancouver. it's about 110ms.
Not very smooth but ok.

my cs server is full all the time . I got two maps - iceworld and iceworld 2k:D

you can speed test FDC game servers

also, we are currently running:
Medal Of Honor
CounterStrike
Quake 3

all 3 can be found under gamespy, their names are:

FDCServers - www.fdcservers.net

hey bummer6666

as for your DUAL Pentium 3 1Ghz server ,
can I upgrade RAM ?

if so, price please? (hopefully its one time fee. I dont want to pay monthly)

our hardware upgrade fees are always "one time" only

extra 512MB Micron is $109

I've read your posts, and as a regular Counter-Strike player, a CS server admin, and a private clan server owner, I will say this:

1. CS uses a lot of bandwidth.
2. I have ran a 20 player continuously used CS server on my old 1ghz amd t-bird, 512mb ram, 40gb, freebsd 4.3 server just perfectly. I have some very popular websites online too which were hosted from that exact server. The loads were never over 2.00.

If you know nothing about CS, don't even bother trying to do this...

...and one last thing is I will agree that the game server hosting competition is very tight. How can ANYONE compete with griffinrun.com? Seriously.

"...and one last thing is I will agree that the game server hosting competition is very tight. How can ANYONE compete with griffinrun.com? Seriously."

Who the heck can afford their outrageous prices?

griffinrun.com= overpriced :eek:

There are plenty of better qualtity places and cheaper servers than griffinrun.com that's a fact.

recongamer comes to mind and they use Verio bandwith and still have a cheap price :stickout

here is one of there ip's 146.20.86.251 ..hitting about 40ms from my location right now :)

No I don't work for them , just one happy customer:D