I'm planning to start my busniess soon. I want to host high power games (Unral Tournament 2003, Jedi Knight - Outcast... ect.) with the ability for many users to play one game at once. I want some help with how much preformance is needed for hosting about 300 medium to high power games, and the ability to hold 500 users for each game with no problem. I can do the programming, I can build it, but I am a little lost on how much power is really needed. I dont feel like spending 80,000... but I will if I have to. Help please.

Do those games support 500 players? I thought even the latest games only support a maximum of 32 players?

If your serious about the amount of game severs you need then perhaps you should consider building your own data center.

btw that will cost you more than 80,000

Originally posted by protecweb
Do those games support 500 players? I thought even the latest games only support a maximum of 32 players?

If your serious about the amount of game severs you need then perhaps you should consider building your own data center.

btw that will cost you more than 80,000

He does not need his own datacenter, do ppl such as wwx, 4u servers, jolt have there own datacenters? - No.

When you start to sell game servers you will quickly learn how difficult it can be. You also learn a heck of alot about general linux/windows and game server managment.

First of all, the operating system. Some games dedicated servers perform better on windows, others linux. Unreal Tourn for example performs better on windows (usually). Where as counterstrike is favourable on linux. Your need to read up etc and learn which games work well with which OS.

Game servers use alot of b/w. If you start by buying a set b/w limit, say 200gb a month, it will get extremly expensive. Your much better off getting your own connection. In the UK a good start would be 10mbit UK, 1-2mbit int. As if you advertise as a UK company, your get 90% UK customers. But your need to decide if your game servers are going to be publics. Public servers full up, almost 24/7 they will be full/ppl playing. Where as Clan Servers are only full when the Clan needs a match/practice, which is usually during the evening. A general rule of thumb is every port uses 512k up and down.

With that in mind, you need to decide how many ports (game server) on each server. If you have a server full of publics, say 4 publics all with 20 players happily playing counterstrike, you will need a fairly beefy server. But, you will be able to put more clan servers that will probably be password protected onto a pyhsical server. I know a company who puts 12 clan servers per box. That is fine, as long as there not all full at the same time ;) - Its like overselling with hosting, you need to make the right decisions, or your be in trouble.

Thats my 2p anyway, some may think different.

If you're asking those questions, IMO you shouldn't be getting into it.

With the questions you're asking now, I don't see your "business" being around for long.

ok perhaps i was a bit hasty :D

I still think that the numbers he is quoting is going to take some serious planning, staff, cash, experience, marketing etc.

I honestly dont think a 10mb line will host all that at peak times, but again it depends upon how popular these servers are.

MY original post was basically getting at the point clocker made.
btw are jolt not run by nildram who do own there own dc?

10mbit is fine, but obviously your going to need to expand the more servers added.

Originally posted by protecweb
MY original post was basically getting at the point clocker made.
btw are jolt not run by nildram who do own there own dc?

Jolt is run by Nildram, well done. But the servers are based in Telehouse Docklands.

I could probably give a list of about 10 game server provider that ppl use and based in the UK...

He didn't ask anyone's opinion about whether he should host games or not.

Kylibar: You need to provide us with more information. We can't guess how much power your gaming servers will use.

Or maybe we should guess just to make you happy. :blush:


Sure are a lot of people who want to get into game hosting lately...

Originally posted by kerplunk
Sure are a lot of people who want to get into game hosting lately...

Thats simply because the amount a client pays is greater to say a shell account, or web hosting.

I have to say....

You can host about that in
4-5

Xeon 2.4 Gz - 1(best it 2) GB

I recomend you get the servers @ www.unitedcolo.com

get like 1 our 2 and

Put something like 30 servers on each...


Are you goin to charge people for this ? If not you don't need that big off power to begin..

30 ports each?!???!

You obviously know alot about game servers dont you :eek:

It depends on how much use these servers will get. 30 servers could be possible if they are passworded/and no one uses them very often. Who knows.

I would never put more than 10 on a box myself...

There's no math problem for game servers, but for the ones that we sponsor for some gaming clans, we adhere to a generous ~5MB RAM and 10-20Mhz in processor per user. We also add 1 or 2 "users" for every game daemon we run.

For example, a single game server with 1GB RAM and dual Xeon 1.8Ghz processors can easily handle ~300+ users. We've also found that IDE RAID setups really help on the cost of gaming servers.

EVERY game host out there oversells their servers - if it holds 300 concurrently, they will put 900 on the box banking on the fact that not everyone will be on at once - but when the numbers spike, performance blows.

I think your pushing the 300 + users mark.

I load about 6-7 servers a box... You never want to over stack them... Plus if your using Premium bandwith :stickout:

gotta love how people come in, start up a controversial thread (if i read that right, he's custom modding/coding the backends for the gameservers to do 500 players, haha, good luck), and then never ever post again :D

Originally posted by Idgaf
There's no math problem for game servers, but for the ones that we sponsor for some gaming clans, we adhere to a generous ~5MB RAM and 10-20Mhz in processor per user. We also add 1 or 2 "users" for every game daemon we run.

For example, a single game server with 1GB RAM and dual Xeon 1.8Ghz processors can easily handle ~300+ users. We've also found that IDE RAID setups really help on the cost of gaming servers.

EVERY game host out there oversells their servers - if it holds 300 concurrently, they will put 900 on the box banking on the fact that not everyone will be on at once - but when the numbers spike, performance blows.

I have to disagree completly of almost everything you have said.

1GB ram is what I would use at a minimum. I would feel better if my servers had 1.5-2. This may bump up the price of the servers, but performance is worth it. RAID is a good option for game servers, but if your gonna spend the extra getting raid, why not get scsi raid!

A dual CPU is advised with game servers. If you had a dual p4 xeon then you probably could host aload of players. But 30 ports per server is, shall we say, overselling while tape rope walking.

Not every game host oversells. In fact hardly any do. Some judge usage differently due to different products being sold etc. The most I know a company puts on one box is 12. The box(s) they use are dual xeon, 2gb memory.

Aprrox how much bandwidth would game servers use? Let's take that 12 servers on one box for example.

Depends how many players are using it and how popular the servers are.

Use this calculation:

8 * 14 * 60 * 60 * 24 * 7 * 4 = 270950400 k /1024 = 264600 meg /1024 = 258.3gig

8kb/sec x 14 players x 60 secs x 60mins x 24 hours x 7 days a week x 4 weeks a month = the answer in k / 1024 = answer in GiB

This is a worth case secencrio (spelling). If its full with 14 players 24/7 for a month and every player was on ADSL/cable.