Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Specialty Hosting and Markets : Game Servers : How much is too much?

[GSAD1]

Hi

I have a server which I will be running solely 8 slot left 4 dead 2 servers on. The servers will have no addons or mods... just plain old left 4 dead 2. There are no websites running on it - its 100% l4d2. running on Centos 5.4 and the specs are below.

Intel Xeon Quad
4x 2.83+ GHz
12 Mb L2 - FSB 1333 MHz 45nm
64 bits
8 GB DDR2
2x 750 GB - SATA2
GigaEthernet
SwitchPort 1 Gbps
Guaranteed bandwidth: 1 Gbps **
Traffic included
Traffic /month 10tb

At the minute I've set up 20 x 8 slot servers but I'm wondering should I stop adding servers now? Should I reduce the number I have? Or is there room to add more? If so, what would you say would be the limit before its beeing oversubscribed.

All slots at present are taken up during the peak period of the day. I asked the players and they said everythings fine but I wanted to get an opinion from the experts

[SBTE]

5 Servers per core already look oversubscribed.

[InsDel]

Have you done any measurements as to your load during peak hours? Try running 'top' at the hardest part of the day and look at the "Cpu" line. If the "%id" (percent idle) number is nearing 0, then you're maxing out your CPU. You might also want to try setting up a test server, connecting to it with L4D2, and measuring the 'ping' time.

[JonBiloh]

You're probably a bit beyond the limit right now. I'd say stick at around 16 total servers.

[Flumps]

I would say start out with half that and see what the performance is like. we only have 6 servers going atm and we are using up alot of bandwidth but dont notice any running issues. mind you the server they are on is dual quad with 16gb ram

[GSAD1]

Here are some peak time stats (all slots being used)

Server usage
Load CPU : 64 %
Load RAM : 51 %
Load SWAP : 3 %

Server processes

Server started from : 2 day(s) 21 time 45 minute(s) 42 second(s)

Average load ( loadavg1 ) : 0.10
Average load ( loadavg2 ) : 0.14
Average load ( loadavg3 ) : 0.15

[Flumps]

Originally Posted by GSAD1

Here are some peak time stats (all slots being used)

Server usage
Load CPU : 64 %
Load RAM : 51 %
Load SWAP : 3 %

Server processes

Server started from : 2 day(s) 21 time 45 minute(s) 42 second(s)

Average load ( loadavg1 ) : 0.10
Average load ( loadavg2 ) : 0.14
Average load ( loadavg3 ) : 0.15

is that with 20 l4d servers all full?

[BrianFarrell]

Originally Posted by Flumps

is that with 20 l4d servers all full?

If it is I'd be impressed. We have machines of similar specs running L4D2, but on Windows, and I doubt I could get that many on there. I'd run out of memory before anything else.

Sounds like I need to load up some L4D2 on a Linux server and do some testing

[jtaM]

For 20 servers thats impressive stats