Server specs for TCAdmin!!!

[Wingdemon]

I'm in the process of starting a GSP company and I wanted to see base off this hardware (2.13 ghz xeon 3050 dual core and 2 gb of ram with a 100 mbps connection) servers, using TCAdmin. if I can get an idea of how many slots and game servers I can run on a single server in a colo.

 

I plan on running 50+ games over 50 servers, how many slots and game servers could I run in a single server, with having 50 servers how gamers could I sign up?

[studeggle]

This question has been asked an insane number of times.

You MUST do more research and provide more information.

What other apps/services will be running?

Will you be tweaking windows or just doing a standard installation/

What games will you be running?

What rate will you be running the games at?

What mods will be allowed on the games?

Will you be running top quality game servers, barely playable servers cuase the machines are jam packed, or something inbetween?

It also depends on what your customers sign up for. It is easier for a machine to run one 20 slot server then two 10 slot servers in most cases.

 

Number of slots is an art more then a science. Simply research the games you want to host and you will find articles regarding minimum and ideal resource for different sizes of games. Then just estimate from there!

[DougK94]

I could not have answered any better.

[swish]

People dont realize you cant just say....yep...that box will hold 150 Player slots.

 

It just depends on the game, specs, load, ect. See post # 2. shesh. We need a bot that scans new posts for "how many slots" and just deletes it lol.

 

BTW...have fun running 50 Game servers on 1 box. You will be in business for about 1.5 months

[adamnp]

swish, I think he was referring to 50 different types of games, on 50 machines. Which also would completely dictate how many slots/instances of the game(s) you could host.

 

[swish]

Ahh ok. Thnk about that still though...what "new" GSP pops up and has 50 machines? lol. IMO someone just needs to step back and maybe learn a bit more about the GSP world before stepping into something. Rethink your business plan and get a good slid foundation first.

[DougK94]

How many existing GSP's have 50 machines .... There are some, but they are definitely in the minority......

[jbiloh]

Probably 10 in North America I would guess Doug.

[DougK94]

LOL...I know there are not many at all, and there are a couple here that I would suspect are in that group, or at least close.

 

I know I received an email from the OP asking the same question as he posted here. After I replied to him, I saw studeggle's post and wish my response would have been 1/2 as good as his . The OP has grand ideas, but as studeggle pointed out, he has a long way to go if he is asking this type of question. Is it possible for a new GSP to plan for having 50 machines?...yes possible, but it is not a realistic goal for most IMHO.

 

I would love to be one of those 10 or so with 50 machines, but I know realistically that my chances of that are VERY slim.....

[qwidjib0]

If you're buying the hardware new, my only advice to you would be to forget the dual core, and go quad core. You don't need to buy the proc that came out last week that's 50x the cost of the last, but right now from our distributor, the 5130's are the same price as the 5310's. That makes it so absurd to buy one of these Woodcrests right now, that we just started giving away Clovertown's for every dual-core order for free. Some applications of multiple cores/procs are better than others - gaming and VPS work probably better than anything. A quad with enough RAM can pretty much double your game server capacity over dual.

 

Also, it probably won't matter much early on in your colocation, but later down the line your servers' power consumption will be probably a bigger deal than anything (especially on these big gaming systems). Newer Intel hardware has been (generally) much better on power consumption - that means more servers to a rack - and a lower MRC that you have to shell out.

[Daersun]

Im actually sitting about 15 feet away from some of the Chicago ubiquity racks

[Monk]

I don't like woodcrests. Slow locking performance, shared FSB and MCH is located off somewhere far from the CPU.

 

AMD opterons still perform better in my tests (as much as a factor of 10)

[Wingdemon]

Thank you all for your input. I know my question has been asked an insane number of times. And I know that 50 servers is small number compair to the other providers. This is all new to me as I learn over time, I'm just in the starting point of my business plan and ideas needed to start this GPS. Again I do thank you all for your ideas and tips. The more I learn the more this business plan will work.

 

Over time I plan on adding more servers (200 to 300 servers) over two or three datacenters. At this point in time, I know it's hard to ask about game servers and slots for each box, but I'm just seeing if others like your self have ideas or tips from running your own servers and games.

 

Please feel free to contact me with any ideas or tips: wingdemon_serverhelp@yahoo.com

 

Thanks again for all your help.

 

Wingdemon

[studeggle]

Hello Wingdemon,

 

Couple things your numbers seem way off. While its true some machines can handle 300+ slots that is only the upper level machines and only when they are running upper game slot count like 32 slot servers. Then it only takes 8 – 10 servers to hit that many slots. Generally you are going to have trouble with lag when you start to get more then about 10 servers on a box. There are some machines that can do it, but they aren’t your bargain servers they are top notch servers designed for it. And most of the time the majority of your customers are not going to sign up for 32 slot servers. If I was to hazard a guess I’d say the average slot count is about 15

You also need to strongly consider the economics involved, starting and running a GSP isn’t a piece of cake. Go to google and type in game server you’ll see pages and pages of companies. That’s not cause the market can handle an infinite number of providers. The factual supply and demand economics still applies to GSPs. The reason there are so many is because everyone hears the rumor that GSPs are easy money, as has been stated on many forums many times this is not the case. Most of those rumors are started by sleaze bag individuals/companies that buy a coupe servers, overfill there machine with game servers to the point they won’t run. Then just take off with the customers money and without paying there bills. Because if they paid there bills or refunded the complaining customers they’d be worse then broke and they don’t care about the results they have a fist full of cash and that’s all they care about. Running a GSP can make you a living, but its hard work and the pay is such that if you don’t enjoy working with computers and customers I’d really consider other things.

If you enjoy those things, then take the time at home where it costs nothing to grab some of the games you want to run, and install Windows 2003 or even try windows 2008 for free right now since its in beta and will eventually be the new server OS (You can partition your hard drive if you don’t have to erase your current OS install and you don’t have a free computer). Play around with the games and the operating system. When I first started messing with games several years ago I had times where a measly single 32 server would have lag problems on a dual xenon it wasn’t until I really learned the games that I started being able to run the games and get good numbers of servers on a single machine so I could actually turn a profit. And I already knew computers and the windows OS, I’d been tweaking them up one side and down the other since being a teenager, but the game server software was a whole new piece of the puzzle and you have to be able to master both.

You will also need to understand networking. Switches, Routers and such, even if your not handling the network you just use dedicated servers, you need to be able to tell when a clients problem is network related or server related. There are even times where it’s the clients router that is the cause, I’ve had to help several clients reconfigure their own home grade router so they could get good game play. If you push every customer who initially has a problem away you’ll have a bad name long before you have a good one.

 

I may not be the oldest, or biggest GSP out there, I don’t claim to be, but if you listen to any of the big well established companies they’re saying exactly the same thing

 

Best of luck to you.

[DougK94]

studeggle hits the nail on the head again.

 

TCAdmin has been here for 2 years, take a look at the members registered here and their websites, a vast majority are invalid links now, so if that gives you any clue...... This is a tough business to get into ant takes major planning and also deep pockets. You cannot fire up a server and website and be a GSP unlike many think.

[qwidjib0]

Im actually sitting about 15 feet away from some of the Chicago ubiquity racks

 

Don't break anything.

 

Was great meeting you and the Gnax guys this year Jordan, hopefully we'll all catch you around the 'Con next year!