Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Specialty Hosting and Markets : Game Servers : Newbie Help If Possible.. Game Servers

[xDanx]

Hey my names Dan

ive been a keen pc gamer for many years,renting servers for years from the early days of CS 1.6 to COD4.

Anyways i want to start my own business renting out game servers,using my own dedicated server. Now ive found my ideal dedicated server for 139.99 a month. here are the specs:

Quad Core 2.33ghz
8GB Memory
500GB Hard Disk

now according to the business,i can have 40 busy game servers running at once,now im confused as to the Slot's that servers have,i know obviously 1 slot=a connection/Gamer. But if i can hold 40 servers,how many slots per server could i get?

I hope they're are people willing to help a noob,because we were all once noobs,we just learned over time to not become them haha

cheers xDanx

[leeware]

There is information online regarding how much bandwidth each player will require. I know that game servers don't require as much bandwidth as some people think. I think that you should probably do some modeling so you can get some metric information on how many games you can run per core without lagging out. I think that you might find it difficult to run 10 Game servers per Core without getting some serious lag when they are busy. Once you do the modeling and collect the metric information you will have some better ideas about the total number of players you can serve.

Hope this helps.

[xDanx]

thanks lee,but how do i go about modelling and aquiring the metric data that i need?

[ABMX]

Every game has different server requirements, as well as different bandwidth requirements. Realistically you should probably get in contact with someone that already runs a game server rental company and see if you can get some of their real world data to use as a baseline for figuring out what kind of equipment your in need of.

[leeware]

xDanX:

If you are using linux you can use top -i or even better is a tool called htop (like the Task Manager for Windows but on linux.) I assume you are using linux.

(1) Make note of your idle system performance

(2) If your game servers supports bots you can load your game server up with bots and let them play without a human player. You can configure your server to kick the bots for a real person and you can play with the bots to observe the in game experience as well as record the system load using the tools that I talked about in my first point. This method will give you some pretty accurate information on CPU/MEM/Performance.

(3) Because game servers are processes that require processor time keep in mind the following information. Every time you run a process on a core that requires 100% CPU time you can pretty much divide your clock rate by the number of processes you have running on the system. Therefore, if you were to run 40 Game servers on a Quad Core machine with 2.33Ghz x 4 = 9.32Ghz / 40 = 233Mhz per server (could work) but the only way to know for sure if to follow the recommendations outlined in point 2.

Hope this helps.

[integrii]

In my opinion, the only way to stress test a server is to do it! When servers change map it causes a blip in server performance. If a few servers are loading, that factors in too.

Also, people will run mods and record demos, have spectators... the list goes on.

all in all, you should not run your server past 70% load. Not having lag is expensive!

[edge100x]

You will not be able to run 40 busy game servers of any type on that configuration -- not even close. You could do 40 mostly empty ones, though .

[PatrickN]

Okay, first of all. Assuming that the minimum number of slots is 10 slots per game server. 10 x 40 = 400. You're going to be hosting at least 400 slots worth of game servers on a quad core..ACTIVE slots. I don't even think 8-core machines can handle 400 ACTIVE slots. For HL2 game servers, most clients require 100 tick rate on their gaming server. This is going to take in more CPU usage on your server. I recommend that on a Quad Core machine you host about 30 active slots per core. 30 x 4 = 120. 120 active slots should be perfect if you're aiming for quality. I'd say you can get by with maybe 200 active slots on that machine though. You can't really just say how many slots/servers you can put on one machine. There are many settings that a game server requires that could easily take up more CPU usage.