Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Specialty Hosting and Markets : Game Servers : 3 Game servers

[Fessca]

Hello guys.
I need to host 3 game servers:
1st CS: Source 32 players 66tic
2nd CS: Source 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?

[Fessca]

Almost all CSS servers using Linux. I feel more comfy with Windows. Is there any difference in performance Win vs Linux?

[tnndotnet]

I am not sure what you mean by chanel size?

But for bandwidth, mostly depends on client rates, and usage...

As for the machine, it depends on your budget... If the price is nearly the same for Quad Core, then go Quad core, and allow for some overhead... if your budget does not allow for Quad Core, then... it does not allow for Quad Core...

But your provider should not make it too difficult to upgrade, so if you needed to move to a new machine, you should be able to pretty easily.

As for Windows and Linux... Linux is a much more stable environment for serving, as anyone will tell you... If you do use Windows, you want an OS like Server 2003... also you will need an application to change the windows timing to allow for higher FPS. I believe the application you need is called srcdsfpsboost?

But boosting your servers as you know uses more resources.

Hopefully I touched some concerns of yours... I know you really want to know if the machine is good enough, but unfortunately I only have experience with multi-processor machines...

[Adam H]

The first time i setup a Linux gameserver using the source engine i used this tutorial.

http://www.cstrike-planet.com/tutorial/1/5

You will also want to install mani admin for your servers admins.
This is quite simple just look at the readme's.

[Fessca]

By chanel size i mean connection speed in/out....

[tnndotnet]

You need a 10mb burstable port... alot of colo providers allow for a 100mbit burstable at no extra charge (if you get 100mb you will never have any issues running this).

Bandwidth... if those servers get full you can run about (using the average 6KB/s)

Around 1400 GB a month in bandwidth
Around 4.22 Mbps sustained

Dont buy that much bandwidth up front... Always start small, but work your way up... Make sure you know bandwidth increment costs before you sign your contracts.. monitor bandwidth usage using RRDTool or MRTG. Bandwidth is quite expensive, overages are outrageous!

[tnndotnet]

I forgot to add, that is IF the servers stay full 24 hours a day 7 days a week... those are the only calculations I did...

[Fessca]

yeah thnx
It's 8Kb/s per slot usually. and server will be empty from 5am till noon(mb 2pm) so i'll stick with 1000GB.
Thnx for ur advise....i'm newbie to this

[HG-Daniel]

Originally Posted by Fessca

Almost all CSS servers using Linux. I feel more comfy with Windows. Is there any difference in performance Win vs Linux?

I believe CSS runs its best on Windows because of the developers (from what I've been told they're more experienced with windows programming and its not optimized for linux). Other than that I believe most other games will probably run better on linux when compared to Windows.

[xesjay]

Those games definitely run better in linux. You can get higher FPS rates in freebsd, redhat etc... windows only allows a max rate of 500 FPS, 550 FPS if lucky and its hard to keep the fps stable. Id suggest getting nothing but a dual xeon 3.2ghx 2+gig ram and some scsi hd

Thanks
Jason