Results 1 to 10 of 10

Thread: Game Servers

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Sep 2008
    Location
    North of San Fransico
    Posts
    33

    * Game Servers

    So you may have noticed im starting a few threads..

    my boss told me that he wants to expand our market into hosting

    im going to be putting some servers togeter and starting from scratch so to say

    we'll be running alot of 2003 VM's for the hosts

    _____________________________



    games games oh wonderfull games!

    how much bandwith would a typical "Clan" server eat?

    we will be moving into dedicated clan servers

    and need some startup advice..

    all input welcome!!! =-D

  2. #2
    Join Date
    May 2008
    Location
    Brantford, Canada
    Posts
    133
    It really depends on the number of slots you are wanting to provide.
    For MOST games each client connected uses anywhere from 70kbps-128kbps.

    Most team/clan private servers are 10-14 slots, again depending on the game (using Counterstrike: Source or Call Of Duty 4 as examples).

    ~75kbps-128kbps * 10-14 slots = 0.750mbit to 1.7mbit
    These are just rough figures, from past experience its much better to look at the total number of slots you want to put on a server and provide enough bandwidth for the average number of connected slots.

    Also, I wouldn't recommend running game servers on VM's, they just dont perform the same and you'll run into cpu load issues.
    Many of the game server providers out there use http://www.tcadmin.com to provide automated server control and setup as well as a client login panel to control it.
    ~

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Sep 2008
    Location
    North of San Fransico
    Posts
    33
    TCA admin...

    seems VERY cool

    thanks much for that link!!!


    and as for Vm's

    all of our interal testing (on older P4's) show they proform the same

    unfortunally our test run simply scripts to test things like websites and VOIP but cant stress games...

    we will have to look into this more...

    as of now our roadmap will open a free public beta to see how well VM's can holdup


    my biggest concern is that with say 10 Vms on a single physical box the ESXI makes a single virtual switch that then bottlenecks at the physical Nic

    it make me concerned about latency... mainly for VOiP but also for games..

    im personally play the granfather of al MMO's and the combat can be soo high speed that i can tell the differance between a ping of 12 and 25.

    (game is ultima online.... about to hit 11 years old )

  4. #4
    Join Date
    May 2008
    Location
    Brantford, Canada
    Posts
    133
    Is there a specific reason you want to run 10 VM's on a box all with game servers? You can run multiple instances on the same Host Operating system with no issues.
    ~

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Sep 2008
    Location
    North of San Fransico
    Posts
    33
    Quote Originally Posted by BroadlineTim View Post
    Is there a specific reason you want to run 10 VM's on a box all with game servers? You can run multiple instances on the same Host Operating system with no issues.
    10 was more for examples sake.

    i havn't played many FPS latly but i seem to remember some only allowing you to host one game per PC

    is this still true or have game devs finally caught up to servers with enough power they can host mroe then one game at a time?

  6. #6
    Join Date
    May 2008
    Location
    Brantford, Canada
    Posts
    133
    Quote Originally Posted by starshooter10 View Post
    10 was more for examples sake.

    i havn't played many FPS latly but i seem to remember some only allowing you to host one game per PC

    is this still true or have game devs finally caught up to servers with enough power they can host mroe then one game at a time?
    Gotcha,

    You can host pretty much as many server instances on ONE operating system as the server hardware can handle. There is no need to segment them off, the ports can be changed, or more typically you can simply bind each server to a different Ip address.
    ~

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Sep 2008
    Location
    North of San Fransico
    Posts
    33
    Yup!

    ^_^


    now i get to figure out what the top 10 games are...

    and if they have game server apps or if I "get" to buy the game so i can host it =-P

  8. #8
    Join Date
    May 2008
    Location
    Brantford, Canada
    Posts
    133
    You can host any of the Steam owned games for free, simply by using the hlds system.

    http://store.steampowered.com/about/

    Links are on the bottom right.

    Non-steam games like Call Of Duty 4 have a dedicated server package available, you will need game files from the dvd to use it though.

    As for the most popular games Call of Duty 4, Counterstrike: Source, Call of Duty 2, and Counterstrike 1.6 are generally a good place to start.
    ~

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Sep 2008
    Location
    North of San Fransico
    Posts
    33
    yeah i figure i'll hit up IGN and a few other sites.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    May 2008
    Location
    Brantford, Canada
    Posts
    133
    Quote Originally Posted by starshooter10 View Post
    yeah i figure i'll hit up IGN and a few other sites.
    http://www.xfire.com/

    Gives pretty accurate average usage statistics for most games.
    ~

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •