game server

[wilsonian]

what would people recommend (hardware wise) for a game server?

the games will be BF 1942 etc..

@ the moment i have a p3 450 server but i'm unsure if this will strong enough for it.

[Swafe]

should do it alrite id say - my mate runs a CS box, 10 ppl connect and its a 133 and copes alrite

battlefield a bit better - but should easy do it on a 450

[Agent]

isnt it based on the Unreal engine ?
If so, the server specs for it will probably be about the same as ut2k3's - 600mhz & 256meg of RAM minimum.

[chrisf6969]

operating system? Linux or Windows__

current specs? ram, etc?

you may need more ram with BF with those big maps.

[TiG]

I have to say the game server hardware is pretty unimportant to ensuring the server is sitting on appropriate bandwidth.

Lan games then i'd say your going to be fine with anything above a p2 400mhz imo.

But if you've got a lan with less than say 10 people the most powerful machine should run the server.

If however its on the internet, just remeber that you'll be killing your upload bandwidth just as hard as your download bandwidth.

So unless you've got a 2mb each way connection you are probably going to be limited to under 16 people, I think EA quotes normal 512/256 adsl connections as being able to support 4 people.

TiG

[wilsonian]

ah right - no laughing as it's just a DHCP but it's

p3 450
256mb
J7BXAN mb
Several hard drives (ranging from 20gb to 60gb)
crappy ati gfx card
3com NIC
running windows 2000 server


will that be ok?

[Lexeus]

Originally posted by chrisf6969

you may need more ram with BF with those big maps.

True, now i have a gig of RAM bf1942 likes to take up to almost 600 megs!!!

[TiG]

But thats when you are playing, thats all the textures, sounds, bots etc. A dedicated server won't need any of this. It just needs to do the calculation of bullets flying over the place, bots etc.

TiG

[chrisf6969]

it still needs to calculate for the whole map. (I know the difference between playing and serving)

Playing you need a minimum of 512 for smooth play. 768MB or 1Gb is even better.

Server you probably need 256 or more depending on the # of people, OS, etc (less if you're running linux)

I've got a T1 here at work that I want to put a game server on.
1.5Mbps up & down. The only problem is the router is controlled by the telecom company, so I need to pay like $25 to have the port forwarding set up. And then someone may ask why I have port 25790 forwarded... etc.

[Gr44]

Havent read all the posts, but i used to work for a gamehost company.

BF is a VERY demanding game for starts, both server side and client side, a 133mhz machine would be lucky to start the server tbh... a 450, well i sure as hell wouldnt play on that server!

For the comment that Hardware is not a big factor, it IS a VERY big factor, its like saying aerodynamics isnt important on a car.

Anyways, BF eats ram, i would say 512Mb would be OK, i wouldnt recomend any thing less than 1Ghz for a BF server ( but 850 or so may be OK ). i would choose over 1Ghz personally. As for conection speed, im not sure of the useage per client, but a google job should find it nps. most games use around 5-10KB/s so you will need a fairly big connection. if you plan to run it on 512/256 i doubt you can get more than 4/5 people on without lag. and from what iv heard BF is a very big game, so may use quite abit of bandwidth... hope that helps abit