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Thread: Gaming Servers

  1. #1
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    Gaming Servers

    I'm in need of opinions from other people that do game hosting or have knowledge of it. First of all, I'd really like to know how game hosts can charge $50 per month for a 20 person public server that could consume 150GB of bandwidth or more - the bandwidth alone costs much more than that doesn't it? I understand there isn't a "set limit" to the number of game servers you can have on one physical machine, but what do you typically stop at, server load wise on the high end and the average end, 1.5? 2.0? Still I don't understand how you can pack say even 3 20-person servers onto one dedicated box - that could be up to 450GB of bandwidth and usually good-quality low-ping gaming bandwidth will cost VERY much - we aren't talking Cogent.
    Any opinions on game hosting in general even are most appreciated.

    Thanks,
    Ben

  2. #2
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    Game hosting = grossly overselling in a highly competitive market.

  3. #3
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    Off curse if it's a public server than the price can be high but if it is a clan site you can over sales life 200 %

  4. #4
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    You should probably search for threads on the subject as there are a lot. There was one recently started by CDXSolutions. Hope that helps.

  5. #5
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    mushrew is absolutely right.. it's just like the laughable coin term "unlimited bandwidth"

    Worst of all is the server resources.. just 1 to 3 servers can leave you with 10 - 20% CPU Power and limited RAM, especially if you try to combine that with hosting..

  6. #6
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    Originally posted by Ophelus
    mushrew is absolutely right.. it's just like the laughable coin term "unlimited bandwidth"

    Worst of all is the server resources.. just 1 to 3 servers can leave you with 10 - 20% CPU Power and limited RAM, especially if you try to combine that with hosting..
    Have you ever hosted a gameserver?
    Because I am trying to figure out where you get that resource usage number.
    I use dual MP2000 CPUs with 2 GB of DDR in each machine, and don't see 50% usage until I have 5 or 6 loaded gameservers.
    We have been doing this for over a year now and I can tell you that the guys that are charging $50 for a 20 player public server are usually:
    a.) Overloading a low end box with 3 times its capacity.
    b.) Hosting their machines with a company like rackshack.com(which is a great company for colo and web, but not gameservers)
    c.) Trying to grab a market share by cutting the main companies to get clients in the door.

    All of the above will ultimately fail.
    You sell yourself cheap, you become known as cheap.
    It severely limits the amount of quality you can put into your service, since you would have to do twice the work to justify half the increase.
    If you are thinking of getting into hosting gameservers, I suggest you research it thoroughly. It has become a saturated market now, with alot more bad ones then good ones.
    Main thing is to make sure you are prepared to deal with the customer base that comes along with it.
    Us gamers tend to have a very strong personality type, and it will show.
    If you have any questions or want tips for getting started, I will gladly answer any questions you have, and tell you how I got started.

  7. #7
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    "c.) Trying to grab a market share by cutting the main companies to get clients in the door."

    What's wrong with that?

    "b.) Hosting their machines with a company like rackshack.com(which is a great company for colo and web, but not gameservers) "

    Do you know what you're talking about? Since when did RackShack ever have colocation? Please justify your claim that they are not suitable for game servers; I could list several game server companies that have 30-60 clients and one that has over 100 all on rackshack. I'm sure many more exist than what I know of.

    "a.) Overloading a low end box with 3 times its capacity." Not necessarily true; they could just be doing C, grabbing a nice market share by lowering profits per server. While initially they may not make much, later on they'll be sucessful as people will spring for the lower costs.

    "Because I am trying to figure out where you get that resource usage number.
    I use dual MP2000 CPUs with 2 GB of DDR in each machine, and don't see 50% usage until I have 5 or 6 loaded gameservers."

    Most people do not have such high spec servers for web hosting (why would they?) thus this is how they get their numbers.

  8. #8
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    You just confirmed that you don't know what you are talking about.
    He is asking about gameserver hosting.
    I meant dedicated machines, not colo. (My bad).
    And if they aren't running high end machines, then they are at the rackshack $99 machine level.
    They dont make a little money by cutting, they LOSE alot.
    Anyone with business experience can see where it leads.
    The major hosts, that were here yesterday, here today, and will be here tomorrow, make their pricing structure based on what it takes to at minimum break even.
    There isn't enough demand yet for this service to risk sitting on a loss for several months.
    I have been doing this over a year now, and have seen many startups come and go in this business.
    And they all used that same flawed philosophy. Its the same philosophy that led to so many sites and companies taking a dive in the dot com crash of '99-'00.
    I am simply answering this guys question about how and why they charge so little.
    Nothing I stated was untrue, or off the subject.
    If you saw that as an attack on you or the company that you represent, then that is your issue.

  9. #9
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    I'd hardly call RS's P4s low end. May not be as nice as your machines but definitely not low end. They can easily handle three or four 16 player CS servers with a RAM upgrade. Now say $50 per server, times 4 is $200. Subtract $140 for server costs and you'll have $60 in profit. Loss? Doesn't look like it. Yes you could argue that loading their P4s with 3 or 4 game server is too much but you'll find quite a few people on RS's forums that have that same amount on their old DL320s with absolutely *no* problems at all.

    edit: I agree (as posted earlier) that competition is very tough and the market is overcrowded with companies who don't know anything and will do anything for customers, I just find flaw in your presumption that affordable game server hosts cannot exist.

  10. #10
    i did some calculations on this and i remember coming up with a minimum of $4.25/player for reasonable quality gaming, though i admit that i dont know enough about it (the only game ive played was civilisation 2).
    * Rusko Enterprises LLC - Upgrade to 100% uptime today!
    * Premium NYC collocation and custom dedicated servers
    call 1-877-MY-RUSKO or paul [at] rusko.us

    dedicated servers, collocation, load balanced and high availability clusters

  11. #11
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    Im not saying they cant exist.
    I just haven't seen any of the "budget" hosts last more than 6 months.
    And you cant cal that $60 profit, unless you aren't going to have anyone to work tech support.
    There are more fees involved besides just the hosting cost also.
    You have support people, software licenses, advertising, state taxes and licensing fees(unless they aren't a real business) among lots of other things.
    And IMO using Intel for gameserver hosting is a mistake.
    We run exclusively AMD on our gameserver machines with the exception of the low end dedicated machine we now offer.
    We have found the AMD processors to outperform the Intels for speed and smoothness.
    We started on dual 1.26 Tualatin machines in the beginning. They were good machines, until we built our first dual MP2000. Now we won't even consider an Intel solution.
    But, as with any technology, Intel may change our minds any day now.

  12. #12
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    we host 3 to 4 game servers on avg per box.

    core's loads are:
    load averages: 0.24, 0.18, 0.17
    games running: 3

    nemises' loads are:
    load averages: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
    games running: 3

    i believe nemises' load avgs are low right when i did this was because either the servers were empty or had low players.

    we're planning to get our 3rd game server only box once soon after we see how the boxes handle another server.

  13. #13
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    We typically monitor the servers and place a cap at 65% usage to allow for bursting during map changes.
    With our dual MP2000 machines we can run 8 to 10 servers for HL based games and hit about 65% if all of them are running with at least half their max playercount. (Which I have only seen happen once)
    We found a multitude of ways to "tweak" the machines over the year we have been doing this to make them optimized for game hosting.
    Not an easy task. Alot of trial and error. If only the game devs would come up with sone type of standard for coding it would be simple. Something like the ISO for industries.

  14. #14
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    Don't forget men very ! important !


    You got to have a 3D video board.

    Beacuse makes the server run faster...it's true...


    I don't know boy but my ideia iss... get a 1.5 our + DSL
    ( good quality ) and host 1-2 servers it 2-4 game on each in each 1.5 MB DSL ( UPSTREAM/Downstream 1.500 )

  15. #15
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    Originally posted by hostingsp
    Don't forget men very ! important !


    You got to have a 3D video board.

    Beacuse makes the server run faster...it's true...


    I don't know boy but my ideia iss... get a 1.5 our + DSL
    ( good quality ) and host 1-2 servers it 2-4 game on each in each 1.5 MB DSL ( UPSTREAM/Downstream 1.500 )
    Your video card in the server means nothing for the performance of the game application. Its not processing any video so it doesn't matter.

    You cant host 2 good servers on a 1.5 Mb SDSL line because you will freeze on mapchanges because of the lack of curstability.

  16. #16
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    What does bandwidth have to do with map changes?

  17. #17
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    It has EVERYTHING to do with mapchanges.

    When a map changes, everyplayer has to be sent mass amounts of datapackets creating the new X,Y,Z coordinates and everything.
    I have seen CS mapchanges on a 20 player server burst over a Mb before.

  18. #18
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    Mapchanges has to do mostly with CPU usage...you don't find servers bursting when entire teams respawn at the beginning of a match. The same data is sent just as if a map changed.

  19. #19
    But don't forget that 3D video card in your servers!
    I think the map change bursting is nominal. While I've seen it to a small extent, it's still limited by the servers max_rate setting so it is manageble.

  20. #20
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    The
    3D
    Card
    Means
    Nothing!

    The gameserver doesn't process video files when its dedicated.

  21. #21
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    I belive potsie is being sarcastic with the emoticon

  22. #22
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    Missed that.

  23. #23
    Sorry... I should have made it more obvious
    It's amazing how many times I hear that. I got flamed in a CS Server forum when someone suggested that an operators server lag was video related and I tried to explain that a dedicated server console is text only

    But while I have some gaming operators attention, any recommendations for a 1U P4 HSF? I'm inheriting a couple 2.4 Ghz Mobo/CPU combo's and would prefer to go 1U rather than 2U if at all possible.

  24. #24
    Look, game server hosting is all about the PINGS, anyhow. A guy hosting a midrange server on a fast, redundant network is in far better shape than a guy host a gigantic, bruising box on a crummy network.
    I thank my Lord for all His wonderful blessings.

  25. #25
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    ^^ hit the nail right on the head.

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