Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Specialty Hosting and Markets : Game Servers : Game server advice

[front-hitter]

Hello, i want to know if i can get here some advice.

I'm in the process of searching a dedicated gaming server for my clan, and i want to ask some questions.

First of all the server is only for private use, and it will not be used for public tournaments and such, and it will not be used also for databases and/or hosting services.

I would like to have 3 to 4 game console (is this the right term?) at once, with probably and average of 15 to 25 players at once, and once at a time 35 players or so (it will be rare tought, since is for private use).

What requeriments should i be looking for, in terms of bandwith or hardware?

One thing that would be nice, is a location in Europe. I know it's probably more expensive, but it would be preferably, altought if it was in the US i could still the job i think.

I know that some of this questions could be vague, but i'll give more info if it's needed to get more advice.

Thanks for the attention.

[rustelekom]

you forgot about name you game "Clan" may explain something but you ask techinical specification without clarifing where your gamers located and are your game is "ping", "latency" sensitive or not. It is hard to answer without knowledge what we discuss here...

[Defcon|Rich]

I believe the OP mentioned Europe would be preferable.


All games are latency sensitive. I never met a gamer that enjoys playing with high pings.

[GLucas]

Originally Posted by Defcon|Rich

I believe the OP mentioned Europe would be preferable.


All games are latency sensitive. I never met a gamer that enjoys playing with high pings.

There's a lot of players that play MMORPGs just fine with a ping of 150 - 200.

[arkin]

I know alot of hosting companies from the UK (within Europe) offer unlimited Gaming bandwidth which may be something for you to consider looking into.

I have a dedicated server with INX-Gaming.co.uk and whilst I do not host any Gaming servers on it, just Apache/DB, they are reliable and the loading times & speeds to the server seem to be very fast.

[SBKevinPink]

I would always recommend getting a bit stronger server then your needs as you may want to use it for something else in the future also.

2000GB bandwidth should be plenty as gameserver shouldn't use that much bandwidth.

Gameservers needs fast cpu, good amount of ram, 15k RPM hard drives and good latency network. Pretty much every server needs.

[Mambug]

Originally Posted by GELucas

There's a lot of players that play MMORPGs just fine with a ping of 150 - 200.

You do realize that Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games are less dependant on server specifications and latency?

For instance, on a First Person Shooting game, lets take Battlefield 2 for instance...

Every bullet shot, every grenade thrown has to be calculated at it's exact instance it was thrown or shot. Then the server calculates it's debris, the radius of explosion or penetration. This is not a controlled environment by a server.

You take a MMO for instance, like World of Warcraft... You would notice a thing called Hot-Keys, right? Do you know what those are for? Spells and skill of course! Correct, but you also notice they are not instant actions and are actually in a server controlled-environment.

How does this play in effect with latency? On an MMO, you don't calculate real-time combat and trajectories, you simply click and auto-attack and do an occasional skill. It plays a lot in latency, where as Battlefield 2 requires real time calculations and latency can play a big role between life and death. (Don't get me wrong it still plays a part in World of Warcraft, however you are not as susceptible to the problems.)

[MarioCin]

What requeriments should i be looking for, in terms of bandwith or hardware?

I'd definitely recommend at least a dual core and/or dual processor server. Stick with more memory, although if you were trying to keep costs down (or just didn't want to spend a lot to start out) I'd skimp on the hard drives. Most of the games load everything into memory and don't depend heavily on an extremely fast hard drive access.

I've got some dedicated game servers in Europe through 49pence.com. Great guys and they give you tons of bandwidth (3TB). The prices are pretty comparable to what you'd pay in the US.