gaming server question...

[kopykat]

Hi all,
I want to buy a gaming server and I was wondering what is the max amount of players I can host on one server?
Im planning on a tyan mobo with a dual operton setup and 8gb of registered ecc pc3200 ram.
the server will mainly run counter strike (not source).
if anyone can recommend a good tyan mobo + ram to go along with it which would allow as many players as possible on a single server would be most appreciated.
btw, can a dual 940 socket mobo accept both dual single core opertons and dual-dual core opertons as well? or is it only one or the other?
if only some boards support both, what do i need to look for in order to know it?
thanks a bunch.

 

[kopykat]

anyone? plz?

 

[pickxx]

anyone? plz?

want toknow how to get a reply?

DONT POST IN SECTIONS....post in the generl Mobo section. you will get a repsonse within 12hours usually

Also....list your budget....because i can build you a server that could host 100+ players....but it would cost you a lot...lol

List a budget, target for players (a lot is not an answer....give something like "i watn 15players min, 30 players would be great and 45 is perfect.)

Have fun reposting this....
PEACE!

 

[kopykat]

welp,
I did as u said,
I posted my question on the general motherboard section and for a week i didnt recieve an replies.

 

[TabrisDarkPeace]

8 GB of RAM is total overkill for CS (non-Source) servers.

With 2 x dual-cores at 2 GHz each (eg: 2 x Opteron 270) expect to be able to host between 8 and 16 Counter-Strike (original) servers.

Depends on the gamers and how 'extreme' they are, and how many players per server. (More players per each server = closer to 8, Less players per each server = closer to 16).

You'll only need 2 - 4 GB RAM. (I only say 4 GB because 3 GB over 2 x ccNUMA nodes isn't going to scale performance well, unless you install 6 x 512 MB sticks, 4 on one CPU and 2 on the other).

You might even be able to host more than 16 x 32 player servers on it. But start with 8 x 32 player servers, or 16 x 16 player servers, and move from there.

Should handle 256 players in Counter-Strike (the original) on a Tyan Thunder K8WE easily, so long as you are using 2 x dual-core Opteron 200 series chips, and 2 x DIMMs on each CPU. (4 x DIMMs total).

 

[222Doc]

the cost of the serve(PC) is nothing compared to the type of bandwidth you would need 8O 256 on one box, sounds like lag to me, one server one game, no lag, few servers can run 60 people without issues in games like BF2.

 

[Pain]

My question: What game?

It really depends what you want to play on this server, with how many clients. I see you say CS. Is that all you want to play? How many clients? If you said it, forgive me, but I didn't see it.

 

[TabrisDarkPeace]

the cost of the serve(PC) is nothing compared to the type of bandwidth you would need 8O 256 on one box, sounds like lag to me, one server one game, no lag,...

The game he specifically stated was "Counter-Strike (Original, not the Source version)".

few servers can run 60 people without issues in games like BF2.

Few servers have 4 processor cores, each running a different server at the very minimum, affinity locked to a given core. We are talking a good 36 Billion (10^9) instructions per second, and 16 GFLOPS (16 Billion FLoating point Operations Per Second).

That is enough to run 8 x Counter-Strike servers at the least, or 16 with the teams set to 8 on 8. Chances are it is more than ample.

2 GFLOPS (in SANDRA) per gaming server process running is a good general rule of thumb to start with. In this case that gives 8 servers, and being an older game could even go to 1 GFLOP per gaming server if the player count is controlled. (Bearing in mind I've hosted Counter-Strike servers, of Beta 5.0 and up, until it went retail, in the past, on far, far, far slower hardware..... he can host at least 8 of them with 4 x Opteron cores at 2 GHz easily - 2 CPU Sockets, 2 cores per socket = 8) ).

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The reason BF2 lags with 64 players is because the client is not coded well, and with (up to) 64 players to render at once client video cards just can not cope with it. I mean heck, people complain a few basic WoW models on screen at once are 'lagging' the game.

LAG = Network issues only, not '1 person with well under 40 fps causing issues for everyone else'.

If players are getting under 30fps the game should force the resolution and detail settings down until their PC can keep up, or drop them from the server and let someone who isn't an idiot (running res + gfx detail on maximum settings on their low end client) play in their place.

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Heck, using VBS1 (v1.97+): http://www.virtualbattlefieldsystems.com or http://www.virtualbattlespace.com ; or even Operation Flashpoint: Resistance (1.96) you can host around 200+ players per server, and 100's of AI aswell. 8)

....and those server executables don't even run in isolated threads per core, the VBS1 example above is using just 1 CPU core. 8O

 

[TabrisDarkPeace]

Is going with Linux for game servers a given ?



The Linux OS is free (more money to go into hardware) and performs pretty well, can be a bit tricky to get used to but I find Linux dedicated game servers (even if they are running 8+ dedicated game servers) outperform their Windows cousins.

I suspect it has something to do with the length of timeslices in Linux, and the fact they can be configured (the OS) down the very small detail.

I've seen performance increases of +71% (no joke, seriously no joke) on the same hardware using Linux to run a OFP server instead of Windows. But that was purely because of timeslice length differences between the 2 OS's. Under load they performed similar, but under light load the Linux server, frankly, surprised the **** out of me performance wise. (+10% was sort of what I expected).

As far as I know that issue only affected Operation Flashpoint game servers between Linux and Windows, others games only display a +10% or so improvement on a clean, well tuned, Linux server platform.