How Dedicated Servers Work

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matiasht

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Oct 17, 2011
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Hi guys I was wondering if you know any articles or maybe someone could explain to me how a dedicated server for games such as CoD or WoW works? I know RTS games for instance some of them still use peer to peer connections.

My questions in specific for these dedicated server topic are:

Are these common server PCs? what operating system do they run? Do they run a copy of the game or other things?

I tried to google but there is no actual detailed explanation on this.

Any help?
 
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getochkn

getochkn

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If you are running it yourself, it's usually just run on a PC, either running windows or linux. Usually linux if it's a more dedicated sysytem just for the game.

If you are renting a server for a particular game, it's usually run in a virtual machine. This means they have a PC like a xeon 16 core with 64GB ram and that PC is broken up into virutal machine that meet the game requiresments, say 2 cores and 8gb of ram, so the above PC they could run 4 games on at once. you can login and update and change stuff and when you login, you only see the virtual machine, so you don't see anyone else's games running.

It's usually more sophisticated than that. They have 20 PC's like the above one and the "load" of the game may be distributed across multiple PC's if needed, or the virtual machine will grow as needed. So if you need 2 cores and 8gb for 64 players and only have 32 on, the other half of those resources may go to another game running.

Lots of different options.
 
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noise

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They are unlikely to be common PCs but they could be. Typically they run on linux as it is free for the host therefore keeps costs down. They run a dedicated server executable. This isn't a full version of the game, there are no graphics being displayed on the server - it merely crunches all the numbers to serve the game to the clients.
 
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matiasht

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Thanks for the answers. Can anyone have access to that executable? Let's say for example I want to host a game for Dota 2 on a dedicated server on my own instead of Valve's. So if I had access to the server executable and make it run on my server, I could connect to that one and run it from there. I could guess that this applies for all other kind of games such as CS GO maybe or CoD.

If you guys happen to come accross an article explaining this on detail, or maybe instructions on how to set up a server for a specific game (as an example) that would be very much appreciated.
 
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getochkn

getochkn

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It's game by game specific. Some games give you the files, some don't. Some you can host a basic game, but if you want a "ranked" or official server that uploads your stats to an official server, like BF4, then you have to rent it as they control it all.

As for a guide for a game, google it. If it's possible, it's out there on google.
 
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