Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Specialty Hosting and Markets : Game Servers : Looking for information for a game server

[WickedShark]

I have some customers that want game servers but I am not sure what type of BW they use on a regular basis.


There is a total of three servers that are wanted and I know 2 of them can be on the same box but I am not sure if I can put the 3rd on the same box as the other two.

Need some advice/information

1 24 player CS source server that will be running the most poplular maps so assume it be busy half of the day or so or more

1 24 player DOD source server running the same as above running popular maps so assume same as above

1 America's Army's server that is 16 players that is not really busy

I am looking for BW estimates and server spec needs to make this happen

The BW does not have to be really accurate just something in the ballpark. It can be 150 or so GB off and that would be close enough

The server I thinking about using is a Dual Xeon 3 GHz with 2Gb of RAM. This is not a dual core server.

Please give me some advice thanks

[MarioCin]

I'm hosting a fair numbers of Source servers, and yes, if they are full they'll consume about 15-20% of the processor on a dual Xeon 2.8GHz system (HT-enabled). They aren't overly large memory hogs though; the Source game engine will only use about 100MB. Realize though, memory and CPU consumption depend heavily on the mod that is being run. If there are bots or lots of extensions loaded the memory used can be quite a bit higher, and CPU and bandwidth usage is also affected if you run the Source servers at higher tickrates. Do you know what mods are going to be run, or just stock DoD Source and CS Source?

As for America's Army, most of the above data is the same, although I believe you'll see a slightly higher processor usage on it.

Bandwidth on both servers is going to be relatively the same. You can assume that each player is going to consume about 4 to 8Kbits/sec both incoming and outgoing. A 32 person CS Source server, for instance, will consume about 300-400GB per month of incoming+outgoing data transfer. Once again though, your numbers can vary greatly if you run the server at a higher tickrate or the individual servers have higher maxrates.

Hope this helps. Feel free to PM me if you need more information.

[Phluxual]

MarioCin:

Source servers only use 100MB of RAM per dedicated server instance? Is that constant, or when they're under high load will it increase substantially?

Also, what about an 18 player 100tic 500FPS CSS server? Can you roughly tell me how much CPU / RAM they use up under load?

Thanks in advance,
Ian

[JonBiloh]

Ian,

An 18 slot 100 "tickrate" 500 FPS CSS server will consume 40%+ of a Dual 2.8Ghz Xeon WITHOUT HyperThreading on.

The increased tickrate sends CPU requirements through the roof.

[Phluxual]

Ah, interesting. Do you know what kind of a difference Hyperthreading would make? I am also interested in Opterons. I am trying to get benchmarks on different things right now to see how they stack up against an equally priced Xeon. Does anyone have any experience with them?

[JonBiloh]

With HT on, a 18 slot 100 tickrate server would max the virtual core at 25% and the game server performance would suffer.

The Xeons can do it, HT just needs to be off. We have tons of clients who run 20 slot 100 tickrate CSS servers off Dual 2.8's they rent from us.

You just need to know a few things first.

[MarioCin]

Source servers only use 100MB of RAM per dedicated server instance? Is that constant, or when they're under high load will it increase substantially?

Each game instance will consume less than 100MB of memory when it starts up, but it'll slowly creep up as time goes on. I've noticed that there are many mods which leak memory and will wind up consuming 500MB to 1GB of memory, so keep a close eye on things if you aren't sure.

Also, what about an 18 player 100tic 500FPS CSS server?

The default tickrate of Source servers is 33 tick, so at 100 tick you can assume that things are going to consume about 3 times more bandwidth and processor power. If you aren't aware of it, the tickrate refers to how many world updates the server does per second. At a tickrate of 33 the server updates things about every 30 milliseconds (1000/33), whereas a 100 tickrate server will update things every 10 seconds (1000/100).

Do you know what kind of a difference Hyperthreading would make? I am also interested in Opterons. I am trying to get benchmarks on different things right now to see how they stack up against an equally priced Xeon. Does anyone have any experience with them?

Like JonBiloh said, HT might hurt your server if the individual game instances are maxing the processor out. Xeons with HT as compared to Opterons aren't as powerful (the Opteron bus is faster and most benchmarks put the Opteron out in front), however both the HT Xeons and their Opteron substitutes are of previous processor design generations. I'd recommend just going with a newer Conroe-based Xeon, like the Core 2 Duo E6600 or the higher end Xeons. If you are going to be running these games for a while why not have the latest hardware to run it on?

[WickedShark]

Would 2 GB of RAM be sufficient or should I be considering more.

I assume that 2 servers will run well with 2 GB of RAM but not sure about the 3rd game server.

I will use most common mods like stats programs and mani admin mod. That is most likely it for the DOD and CSS server.

Not sure about the AA server.

I am considering starting with 2GB but I could do 3 or 4GB to start with also.

[Defcon|Rich]

2GB Ram would be plenty.

[WickedShark]

Ok so I think I have decided on using a dual Woodcrest server using 5120's and 2-4GB of RAM.

From what I am reading this would be more than enough to host the following servers at the same time. Please correct me if I am wrong.

1 24 player CS Source server running 100 tick with usual stat mods and mani mod
1 32 player DOD Source server running at 66 tick with same as above
1 16 player Americas Army server that is not very busy

What is the best OS for game servers to run on? we primarily use Cent OS 4 for most of our shared and VPS servers.

Is there a better OS to run these games on?

[MarioCin]

2GB should be more than enough for those games. You shouldn't have a problem.

I always favor Windows, mainly since a lot of game studios and publishers release Windows versions of games first. Having said that, there are always exceptions, and some mod developers release linux versions first. It's really up to you though; if you are comfortable with CentOS then go for it. The trouble of having to deal with an OS that you aren't as comfortable with isn't worth the effort. Since you are working with games and engines which have been out for a while you should have no problem running it on CentOS.

[Fessca]

Hello guys.
I need to host 3 game servers:
1st CSource 32 players 66tic
2nd CSource 24 players 66 tic
3rd CS:1.6 32 players 66 tic+

Server config that i'm looking on right now is:
Dual Core Intel® Xeon® 5130, 4MB Cache, 2.00GHz, 1333MHz
2 Gb Ram
Is this enough? or should i switch to 3GHZ? another question is 2GHz Dual core or 1.6GHz Quad core?

I found very good LOW latency hosting provider in Toronto...but they don't know much about game servers.

I think servers will be half-empty first 2-3 months...so how much bandwith do i need? and how big my chanel size should be? I allways can switch to bigger one. so what's the minimum one?

[JonBiloh]

A Dual Core Xeon 5130 (1 Chip) will not be enough. The Quad Core 1.6Ghz will also not be fast enough for the 32 Man 66 Tickrate CSS.

I'd recommend a Core2Quad 2.4Ghz chip. It will get the job done real well for you.

[Fessca]

Originally Posted by Jon

I'd recommend a Core2Quad 2.4Ghz chip. It will get the job done real well for you.

it will be enough to run all 3 servers right?

[Defcon|Rich]

Consider that when the games you mention first came out the Dual Xeon 2.8-3.0 was the hottest setup around and could run several instances of CS/CSS without a problem, So with that being said I fail to understand how the new Dual/Quad core machines would have a problem since they are faster and able to handle more load then the older legacy core xeons.

Nothing has changed in the game code people..