Setting up a gaming server (1st time)

N

Nicholas Mark

n00b
Joined
Apr 27, 2011
Messages
12
So.
Say I wanted to set up a gaming server for me and a few of my friends over a long distance. What's the best way to achieve this (please be as elaborate and literate as possible).

One of my old man's friends had achieved this with one of his friends via roof-mounted dishes pointing at each other's houses that allows data transfer (not sure how well it supports gaming though), would that be a good option of is there a more effective way?
 
first off what kind of internet do you have (dsl? cable?) and what kind of speeds do you have? If you don't know you can go to www.speedtest.net and see!

If you have a decent internet connection, I just would host a server that way! I have cable internet here and host a public sandbox mod server here for 4 people max, and all I have is 1.5Megabits upload connection

Oh and what game were you planning on hosting?
 
ADSL here.

I went to that speed test thing and it rated me as the following:
ping = 42ms
down = 7.27mbps
up = 0.32 mbps
Should I try running it at different times of the day to get an average? (running it 9pm on a saterday night - such as it is - is probably the worst time to have run it)

Game? Probably just Age Of Mythology at this point.

We have a wireless network here that supports 4 devices but I'm more interested in getting it long distance, so multiplayer can be achieved without people having to come to one location.
 
You may be able to host the server on your DSL connection, but the number of players will need to be small in order to reduce lag. You and your friends should see who has the best upload speed and/or lives in the most geocentric location (which would give all players a better chance at the same/similar ping times). As it's an RTS you may not need extremely low ping or much bandwidth but depending on the number of players and number of units on the screen at once (which I can't say for sure as I've never played this game before) you're upload speed may not be enough.
 
You are not hosting nothing with that upload speed. I host games with only 4 people and I wouldn't go anything beyond that. My Internet connection speed is 25 Down / 5 Up and my guest have an average of 70 ms ping.
 
ElvisG said:
You are not hosting nothing with that upload speed. I host games with only 4 people and I wouldn't go anything beyond that. My Internet connection speed is 25 Down / 5 Up and my guest have an average of 70 ms ping.
Click to expand...
I really find it hard to believe that your 5 up is bottlenecking 4 clients.

What game is this?
Have you tried more than 4 clients before? what was the ping?
what machine?
 
Upload on home connections is usually a killer.

You'll want to get a dedicated server somewhere. That usually runs you around 100 bucks for something half decent.

I was hosting a UO server at home for a while, anything more then 10 players would start causing dropouts. Even MSN and stuff would stop working. With a FPS I can't have more then like 4 players.
 
Is the computer your speedtesting plugged directly into your router? (It should be)
 
If you are looking just to run source games, I would look at a VPS, or even a dedicated gaming server company. You will pay between $10-40 depending on what you get and it will be much better then what you can run on your current connection.

Here is a decent guide on setting up CS:S that goes into depth on system requirements.
http://www.cstrike-planet.com/tutorial/1-Creating-a-Counter-Strike-Server
 
Last edited:
You will need more bandwidth.

You could try openvpn but I don't think that will help you guys...

I've put game servers in a VM and it works.
 
serpretetsky said:
I really find it hard to believe that your 5 up is bottlenecking 4 clients.

What game is this?
Have you tried more than 4 clients before? what was the ping?
what machine?
Click to expand...

My upload speed is only a percentage of what needs to be factored in. Of course, you need to have a certain minimum of bandwidth per player. I was told this was an average of 80 KBps per player. This was from a guy who runs a data-center. Whether this is true or not, who knows? I think other factors play into this like the game itself and latency. Speaking of latency, this is what really matters when it comes to online gaming. I could have a 50 / 50 throughput but if I have a 1000 +/- ms ping (latency) then I can't host any game.

As for your question, yes, I could host more players. In fact, I normally can host any where between 4 - 8 players depending on the game and the time of day.
 
adam30k said:
Is the computer your speedtesting plugged directly into your router? (It should be)
Click to expand...

Now I feel like an idiot.
Answers no. I was running that test off of a way our of date wire-less card. I'll plug in tomorrow and run the test again.

It fluctuates, as someone else was saying, depending on where the down is coming from, but I was sort of wondering why it rated so low when I'm pretty sure I've peeked at 1mps-down at times.
 
I have a co-located server for learning (using Citrix Xen) and I host my game servers ther as well (thats learning :D)

I used to try and run one from home and a 2.5Mbps up connection but the latency was not good enough.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top