Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Dedicated Server : Hosting Game Servers

[Dedicatedone]

Its been a while since I've been here, how's everybody been? Changed the place a lot. This is a business question with a mix of dedicated server questions so I posted it here.

I've been out of the hosting business for a while too, GSP seem to have really lowered their pricing too. I see a lot of $1 per slot and crap that low, is the market flooded with people like that? Is there anybody out there still selling quality servers for like $3.50 or more per slot?

I'm looking to make a comeback as a quality host but just want to see what's going on before I do and hoping you guys can help out.

When it comes down to hosting Source servers, they have a tick rate. Now, I'm wondering, do we set the tickrate or do they set themselves from the amount of resources (CPU and RAM) left? If so, what difference is there from like a 66 tick to a 100 tick? Does it go any higher?

Is The Planet DC still a good place for game servers or what's the hot DC now? Also, what are good locations for Chicago and Toronto. I want a market around the Toronto area, but I was thinking Chicago is close enough and can go further.

I was going to go with Dual 2.8, 2 GB of RAM and SATA HD's. Would going with 1 GB of RAM be a bad idea, would 2 GB hold a significant amount more? Also, SATA or SCSI? I know SCSI costs more and obviously better but would SATA be more worth while when looking at the cost?

Thanks a lot guys, it's good to be back!

[Dedicatedone]

Also, what OS do you recommend? From what I remember linux is better for pings but windows handles a lot more servers per box.

Thanks.

[PixelManual]

100tick is only required for CAL matches, and you won't notice a major difference. yes, it does use more power but most people are satisfied with 66 tick. Make sure you sell private servers at a 100 though.

ThePlanet is a good DC, but personally i would grab a BGP mix of level3 and some other quality provider, always make sure you have more than one stream in case of emergency's. For gameserver providers SCSI is a must, and at least 2 gb ram; Preferably ECC reg'ed ram. Don't get a dual xeon...Grab a dual opteron system and it will run considerably better. Xeons are useless from personal experience.

Hot spots are generally Dallas, Chicago, and somewhere in NY or a bit north of it. Linux seems to be the standard at the moment for running gameservers.

I don't know how you figured windows can run more servers, as windows itself eats up enough to power one GS, whereas linux barely uses anything. I believe CentOS would be a good choice, or maybe FreeBSD.

edit; Don't sell at just $2 a slot, you will not make profit unless you overload your boxes. $2.50+ at least for servers, and charge even more for ones like BF2 who just eat up resources like there is no tomorrow.

Don't forget to pickup a CP like tcadmin so your users will spend less time sending tickets.

[Defcon|Rich]

I never heard of an OS making a difference on how someone pings.. That's very odd...

Windows or Linux would be fine. The only difference I see is certain games won't work on linux so that would be something to consider.

Other then that I'd have to disagree with about 90% of what the above poster recommends.. SCSI is great but you won't notice much difference vs IDE or SATA.. The current drives are light years faster then a few years ago so in my opinion it's not a big concern. We have machines with both and nobody can tell me the difference so I don't really see a point in spending more for the SCSI's..

Xeons are great machines for game hosting period. That comes from personal experience in hosting more gameservers then I care to elaborate on..

[Dedicatedone]

Ya i did some more research and saw that OS doesn't make a big difference.

Still not sure about SCSI, but I don't think I'm going to bother with it, SATA will be good enough.

As for hosts, I was thinking of going with The Planet for TX since I've used them before and they were wonderful but any other locations you would recommend? Also what about Chicago?

Figured 2GB of RAM is good enough and no need for more. Let me know if anybody thinks I should go with more.

I was looking at TCAdmin for control panel, but the control panel demo didn't allow me to do much so i was wondering if somebody can let me know what they think of it or what their customers think of it.

Thanks guys.

[ayksolutions]

You can also check out gamecp.com. I believe its a fairly popular panel these days for game servers.

As far as the server specs, 2gb of ram is surely a must. We currently have a few clients who run gameservers (although we do not specialize in them, only provide hardware). I believe some are using dual opterons and a few are even running pentium4 3.2 HT's with success. Using FreeBSD for the OS as well. Leaves a smaller footprint I believe.

[ayksolutions]

As far as recommending locations for game servers, ThePlanet used to be good, but from what I read on here, their quality has fallen drastically. I had a server with them about 2 years ago and it was, ineed horrible.

I think Colo4Dallas is a good spot. LayeredTech is also there, but they provide unmanaged servers, so, not sure if that will be ok for you.

In Chicago, I would recommend Fastservers or Steadfast Networks.

[sTag-Dan]

Have you thought about using Dual Core Pentium Ds?

[layer0]

I never heard of an OS making a difference on how someone pings.. That's very odd...

Neither did I, perhaps one server is configured to give lower priority to ICMP packets?

[Dedicatedone]

Originally Posted by elix

Neither did I, perhaps one server is configured to give lower priority to ICMP packets?

Well back when I hosted game servers, a linux box would handle about 5 or 6 game servers per box while a Windows box would handle 9-11 game servers per box. It also ran some games like BF1942 a lot more efficient.

[Dedicatedone]

That's another thing, I know dual code is more powerful than a regular CPU but how much more powerful? Does it perform upto a dual CPU, if not then how much less does it perform and would it be a better investment than a dual cpu machine?

I've heard of gamecp and seen it in action. It's a good control panel, but people have told me TCadmin is better. Just wanted to get somebody's opinion on that. Both are about the same pricing as well so it's not about that. I'm going to be hosting more on the HL2 side of games too if that helps.

Thanks.

[RedstarHosting]

No experience actually running a GSP, but in my experience with game servers on my own dedicated box I found that Battlefield games always seemed to run better on Windows.

[[inx]Olly]

Always wonder why people lurve Dual Xeons for gaming, but each to his own

We're watching the US market very closely at the moment, and it's very interesting to see the parallels between it and the UK base.

[Dedicatedone]

Alright how about control panels? I'm still trying to figure out which is better ... GameCP or TDAdmin? I'm most likely going with Windows based servers right now. Any experience or knowledge about any of them would be helpful.

Thanks.

[sTag-Dan]

Definitely TCAdmin for Windows.