Game server network needs

G

Gh()st

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 31, 2003
Messages
473
I've been toying with the idea of setting up a RTCW:ET game server with the spare parts I have laying around:

Dell OEM 915 775 mobo (mATX)
D 520 P4 ( 2.8G 1MB L2 )
40GB SATA
( need to round up 1 - 2G of DDR2 )

My question is in regards to the neccessary WAN bandwidth capacity to run a decent game server. I currently sit on a Verizon FTTP FiOS internet connection, 15Mbps/2Mbps. Would that be enough bandwidth? I can bump the service up to 30M/5M if not. ( although I'd rather not pay the additional $135 )
 
the key to game server is never the download speed at the server. it is the UPLOAD speed.

2 Mbps is good for about 8 users without choking the server bandwidth.
 
2Mbs should be enough for 12-24 players at least, as long as it's a good connection
 
The main concern I always had when running game servers was more of latency. I had one located on a network of T1's directly into Sprints backbone, worked great. But later moving it home to a cable connection, where actual bandwidth was faster, the latency was too high under multiple connections be very playable, ended up having to cut the server down to 8 players instead of the 32 I had on a T1.

Run some pings and traceroutes to various places around the country, I've never used FIOS but I'd imaging pings aren't even really much of a concern due to it's nature. You should be good on bandwidth IMO.
 
shaft said:
2Mbs should be enough for 12-24 players at least, as long as it's a good connection
Click to expand...

nope

not even UT could handle that without throttling ALL connections down
 
RTCW? Return to Castle Wolf? If we're talking about Return to Castle Wolf, that's on the old Q3 engine...2 megs should be more than fine for that with 24-32-ish players. It's not like each client is pulling 60K per in that game....like the Battlefield series.

If we're talking about some other game...you want to look at required bandwidth per client.

Long as it's a solid 2 megs.

Thing's you'll want on a game server....

Run it DEDICATED...do not play on the same box. For a small server like that, a desktop OS is fine. If you want to get much above 32 players or so..move to a server grade OS, a server grade NIC, SCSI drives.

Lean out the OS, shut down un-needed services..make it lean' n mean.

Software firewalls bog things down, use a good quality SOHO grade router (meaning...not something under a hundred bucks). You're dealing with bi-directional throughput of a lot of concurrent connections here.

A very lightweight antivirus product, set with the game's directory in the exclusion list.
 
YeOldeStonecat said:
RTCW? Return to Castle Wolf? If we're talking about Return to Castle Wolf, that's on the old Q3 engine...2 megs should be more than fine for that with 24-32-ish players. It's not like each client is pulling 60K per in that game....like the Battlefield series.

If we're talking about some other game...you want to look at required bandwidth per client.

Long as it's a solid 2 megs.

Thing's you'll want on a game server....

Run it DEDICATED...do not play on the same box. For a small server like that, a desktop OS is fine. If you want to get much above 32 players or so..move to a server grade OS, a server grade NIC, SCSI drives.

Lean out the OS, shut down un-needed services..make it lean' n mean.

Software firewalls bog things down, use a good quality SOHO grade router (meaning...not something under a hundred bucks). You're dealing with bi-directional throughput of a lot of concurrent connections here.

A very lightweight antivirus product, set with the game's directory in the exclusion list.
Click to expand...


QFT


I'm running a CS:S server that only sees 3-8K per player.
My colocation provider is amazed when I call him up complaining about lag.
He pulled the logs and told me that my total transfer for the past month was only 13 GB.
And this is on a server that is hosting our web site, ftp for files, Public CS:S - 22 slots, online 24/7, Private CAL server and a TeamSpeak server. And our stats show nearly 400 active returning players.

Our lag was being caused by the betting module we were using - and the fact that our server is a dual P3 1.0GHz computer. It's getting replaced soon!

 
YeOldeStonecat said:
RTCW? Return to Castle Wolf? If we're talking about Return to Castle Wolf, that's on the old Q3 engine...2 megs should be more than fine for that with 24-32-ish players. It's not like each client is pulling 60K per in that game....like the Battlefield series.

If we're talking about some other game...you want to look at required bandwidth per client.

Long as it's a solid 2 megs.

Thing's you'll want on a game server....

Run it DEDICATED...do not play on the same box. For a small server like that, a desktop OS is fine. If you want to get much above 32 players or so..move to a server grade OS, a server grade NIC, SCSI drives.

Lean out the OS, shut down un-needed services..make it lean' n mean.

Software firewalls bog things down, use a good quality SOHO grade router (meaning...not something under a hundred bucks). You're dealing with bi-directional throughput of a lot of concurrent connections here.

A very lightweight antivirus product, set with the game's directory in the exclusion list.
Click to expand...


Yeah, it's the Q3 engine based Return to Castle Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory. I think the needed speed per player is apprx 5k. The bandwidth availability is very solid. I run speed tests through 4 different external sources on a regular basis, and they all hover around 17-15M/3-2M. Never anything less than that. I'm about a mile from the Verizon CO/PoP. :D

I'll definitely run the box dedicated just for the game server work. ( Well that, and a added heat source in my office. :p ) I was thinking of using a Linux distro, and maxing players out around 20-22.

The router may be the tricky part. I also subscribe to Verizon's FiOS TV/cable service. ( Screw you Comcast! :mad: ) It rides the same fiber to the prim, and the copper drop to the router. Per Verizon, the router closest to the ONT ( fiber to copper conversion box ) connection needs to be their D-link router they provide. Some BS about it has a certain code/revision that allows connectivity to the NIM that's used for "On Demand" programing. It's from the NIM that the TV signal runs via coax to the set top boxes. When I talked to the tech/installers they weren't too sure how well things would work using something other than the D-Link. :(

I doubt we'll ever use the "On Demand" stuff, but I just haven't gotten around to removing the D-Link ( and using my own ) to see what does/doesn't break.
 
tdg said:
The main concern I always had when running game servers was more of latency. I had one located on a network of T1's directly into Sprints backbone, worked great. But later moving it home to a cable connection, where actual bandwidth was faster, the latency was too high under multiple connections be very playable, ended up having to cut the server down to 8 players instead of the 32 I had on a T1.

Run some pings and traceroutes to various places around the country, I've never used FIOS but I'd imaging pings aren't even really much of a concern due to it's nature. You should be good on bandwidth IMO.
Click to expand...

Yeah, the FiOS connection is definitely smooth and sweet. I haven't been keeping tabs on my average latency to 1 of the servers I play on, but I have noticed it down in the sub 15ms for a large portion of the time. ( I've been accused of playing on the server, or real GD close! )

Now the only thing I have left to do is consider the WAF.
( Wife Approval Factor )

I may only be able to run the server at later times at night, as she'll most likely dis-approve of somethning that will impact her ability to shop online. :(
 
Haven't gotten my hands on their fiber setup yet....it's not been deployed up in my area yet.

They're doing DLink routers eh? Ugh. Well, hopefully some higher end CPE version they sell to Verizon.

Duallie P3 giger should plenty more than ample for that. People get so caught up in the "gotta have a fire breathing monster of a CPU on a game server". A well tuned, leaned out computer running on less of a CPU, but having good quality hardware like SCSI drives, a server grade NIC, properly setup antivirus and good hardware firewall, on quality upload bandwidth...can run circles around many game servers that are dual Xeon 2.8's that people have running on sloppy setups built by someone without a clue on tuning servers OS's.
 
YeOldeStonecat said:
Haven't gotten my hands on their fiber setup yet....it's not been deployed up in my area yet.

They're doing DLink routers eh? Ugh. Well, hopefully some higher end CPE version they sell to Verizon.

Duallie P3 giger should plenty more than ample for that. People get so caught up in the "gotta have a fire breathing monster of a CPU on a game server". A well tuned, leaned out computer running on less of a CPU, but having good quality hardware like SCSI drives, a server grade NIC, properly setup antivirus and good hardware firewall, on quality upload bandwidth...can run circles around many game servers that are dual Xeon 2.8's that people have running on sloppy setups built by someone without a clue on tuning servers OS's.
Click to expand...

Verizon's way too cheap for that. It's the same thing you can buy at the local BB/CC/CompUSA/Fry's/etc... I don't know the specific model # off the top of my head. When I get home tonight I'll post it. I do know that, per the installers/techs, once Verizon runs out of the pre-purchased alotment of DLink wire only routers they will start to give out DLink Wifi's. ( G's )

Which brings up an interesting question....

I wonder what sort of performance impact would occur by moving the server's connection over to wireless. Probably a stupid question, but it's worth asking. ( A Super G 108Mbps. And yes I know you don't get anywhere near that true throughput given all the different variables/overhead. )
 
Milenko said:
its only dynamic if you reboot the router when the lease expires :D
Click to expand...


Exactly! :p :D

If it becomes an issue I can just order a static account.
 
Gh()st said:
VI wonder what sort of performance impact would occur by moving the server's connection over to wireless. Probably a stupid question, but it's worth asking. ( A Super G 108Mbps. And yes I know you don't get anywhere near that true throughput given all the different variables/overhead. )
Click to expand...


Even if you were using Pre-N/MIMO...I wouldn't. Wireless = too much CPU utilization. Remember...you want server grade hardware controller based goods....which means less CPU utilization. "Lean and mean".
 
YeOldeStonecat said:
RTCW? Return to Castle Wolf? If we're talking about Return to Castle Wolf, that's on the old Q3 engine...2 megs should be more than fine for that with 24-32-ish players. It's not like each client is pulling 60K per in that game....like the Battlefield series.
Click to expand...


I did a capture on Battlefield 2 and was seeing between 109 and 115 K. I think it is in the readme as well that if you plan on hosting a 16 player is 2.5 Mb bandwidth, which is more that 115K. Firing squad also mentiones this in their how to run a balltefield 2 server guide.

Somebody who knows somwthing about mmorpg's needs to go and teach the FPS people some things.. Maybe the guys from planetside could teach them a few things.. a MMOFPS.
 
Yes the Battlefield engines are quite an exception. Battlefied 2 being even more bandwidth hungry than the prior series which is quoted at 50-80KB/s
http://planetbattlefield.gamespy.com/View.php?view=GameInfo.Detail&id=128&game=4


I've built and managed a few public gaming servers, I even had one for Desert Combat and BF:V running in the data center next my office for a while..and when it filled up, that server would often bang 11 megs of upload during peak playing time. 11 megs! :eek: :eek:

It depends on how the server manager was set to cap the max server rate, as well as throttle max client connect rates. I had mine wide open, since at night time, I was on a leg of the network which had a 20 meg slice of OC-3 feeding it.



moetop said:
I did a capture on Battlefield 2 and was seeing between 109 and 115 K. I think it is in the readme as well that if you plan on hosting a 16 player is 2.5 Mb bandwidth, which is more that 115K. Firing squad also mentiones this in their how to run a balltefield 2 server guide.

Somebody who knows somwthing about mmorpg's needs to go and teach the FPS people some things.. Maybe the guys from planetside could teach them a few things.. a MMOFPS.
Click to expand...
 
YeOldeStonecat said:
I've built and managed a few public gaming servers, I even had one for Desert Combat and BF:V running in the data center next my office for a while..and when it filled up, that server would often bang 11 megs of upload during peak playing time. 11 megs! :eek: :eek:
Click to expand...

That's the part that scares me. It's been many years since I have run a game server on the internet (Tribes server on a t1 (God I loved that game!)). I have my new testbed server ready to put out at a Colocation, and I decided that since it's only a test bed server that I would run BF 2 on it. Well the package I have allows for a Terrabyte of transfer a month. I'm a bit worried that wont be enough if it's popular.

On that note I think I am going to put up another post about weather this Colo I have chose has good pricing..
 
moetop said:
On that note I think I am going to put up another post about weather this Colo I have chose has good pricing..
Click to expand...

I've delt with a few of them, by far my favorite is UltimateGameServer.com. Great pricing, several locations, excellent performance, and a rare thing to find...excellent service. E-mail the dude and you get replies...heck, when we were keeping a game server there, more than 2 or 3 times if I called for something and Ronnie wasn't there...he'd call me back on my cell phone. :eek: How rare is that to find?

"Two thumbs" up for him!
 
YeOldeStonecat said:
I've delt with a few of them, by far my favorite is UltimateGameServer.com. Great pricing, several locations, excellent performance, and a rare thing to find...excellent service. E-mail the dude and you get replies...heck, when we were keeping a game server there, more than 2 or 3 times if I called for something and Ronnie wasn't there...he'd call me back on my cell phone. :eek: How rare is that to find?

"Two thumbs" up for him!
Click to expand...

Darn it doesent look like he does Colocations.. I already have the server.. I started the other post.
 
moetop said:
Darn it doesent look like he does Colocations.. I already have the server.. I started the other post.
Click to expand...

He does..or at least he did last year. I had a Dell PowerEdge dual Xeon 2.8 1U box with him...shipped it to his Chicago location.
 
Gh()st said:
I've been toying with the idea of setting up a RTCW:ET game server with the spare parts I have laying around:

Dell OEM 915 775 mobo (mATX)
D 520 P4 ( 2.8G 1MB L2 )
40GB SATA
( need to round up 1 - 2G of DDR2 )

My question is in regards to the neccessary WAN bandwidth capacity to run a decent game server. I currently sit on a Verizon FTTP FiOS internet connection, 15Mbps/2Mbps. Would that be enough bandwidth? I can bump the service up to 30M/5M if not. ( although I'd rather not pay the additional $135 )
Click to expand...

You live in Carrolton and have FIOS???

Those bastards, I'm calling Verizon tomorrow.
 
YeOldeStonecat said:
Duallie P3 giger should plenty more than ample for that. People get so caught up in the "gotta have a fire breathing monster of a CPU on a game server". A well tuned, leaned out computer running on less of a CPU, but having good quality hardware like SCSI drives, a server grade NIC, properly setup antivirus and good hardware firewall, on quality upload bandwidth...can run circles around many game servers that are dual Xeon 2.8's that people have running on sloppy setups built by someone without a clue on tuning servers OS's.
Click to expand...

Any advice or links for server tuning would be greatly appreciated. (hint,hint)(server 2003, hint, hint) :D

But what I think we're seeing is Valve constantly rebuilding the SRDS engine ( their stand alone server). The downloads have gotten larger and larger and they are adding more and more features like the HDRL that shipped in DoD:Source and is now being embedded in the newer CS:S maps. The great thing about it is the weekly or monthly updates....they are really staying on top of Source.

This server didn't experience any lag just 6 months ago. And almost never locked up during play. Now it does all the time. And I mean that the game server app locks, not the OS. When that happens we have to remote in and manually shut down the application and restart it. A real pain. :(



 
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