Game Servers

[Ash!]

A few of my mates were considering setting up a small LAN event for about 15-20 people in the next few weeks. Previous to this we have just run my computer as a game server with no problems as we just plugged into a HUB and away we went

Leadtek Nforce2 Mobo
1gig PC2100 DRR RAM
Athlon XP 2400+
80gb IBM Hdd
Windows XP Pro.

If we want to run a few games at once is it best to have a standalone server. Secondly is it recommended to have a different PC for each game albeit different versions eg

1 PC for Quake 3 and have CTF, DM. 1 for Jedi Knight FFA, 1vs1, FFA etc.

Hope I have given enough info

Thanks

 

[Testin da Cable]

well, aye, I'd say it's best to have stand-alone servers (but then I'm rather partial to servers hehe). these machines don't have to be huge, but you have to mind memory usage, especially if you're going to be running several instances of a game at once.

for example, if you're going to be running a Q3/CTF and a Q3/FFA server at once you're going to need double Q3's memory footprint plus a bit for luck and (as you're going to be using windows I guess) another 100, 150 megs or so to keep the os running smoothly. games like bf1942 are horrible memorywise I hear, so you'll need even more ram for that.

I'd hazard a guess that the average pIII, say an 800~1gig with half a gig or so of ram can easilly run two Q3 servers. I haven't run a gameserver in ages though, so I'm not very current

 

[Will]

In addition to TdC's useful comments, BF1942 needs an entire CPU to itself, because its selfish like that.

 

[Testin da Cable]

Originally posted by Will.
In addition to TdC's useful comments, BF1942 needs an entire CPU to itself, because its a badly coded pile of shite.

 

[Ash!]

Thanks Guys (Ash wanders off and removes BF1942 from playlist)

 

[Will]

To the badly coded list, add any really up-to-date game, like Raven Shield, UT2K3 (guess), etc etc. They tend to hog CPU badly.

 

[kameleon]

barrysworld rentable server page gives you a good guide as to how many games you can run on a server

 

[Deadmanwalking]

It is best to have a standalone (Dedicated) server for many reasons the biggest being resource usage.

Anyway i assume ur gonna be sticking with win XP? while in ur case doesnt make much differance the more instances of a game you have going obviously the more resources the box needs. The differant operating systems have differant resource uses and also differing ways in which they run certain programs. In your case with a small LAN your not going to be running many instances at once. Obviously some PHAT server box would be best but im guessing you dont have one of those lieing around

As for the differant versions problem it depends on the game and your computer. HL for instance has freely downloable Dedicated sever that costs nothing and doesnt need HL as such. With this you can then download any mods you want on top, NS, CS, DOD etc etc as these are also free. I cant spea for Q3 but from what i gather Jk2 is the same or at least similar to HL.
Now this is all good and fine but you may have to have multiple installs of each Dedicated server to run multiple instances of differing games. This isnt the case for HL but not sure about the rest.

Phew

Sorry about going on

Hope this helps