PoisonedV
Yeah, I'm a GIRL gamer, what of it?
Where would one go about finding a windows server that would be suitable for hosting servers of various source-based games? Preferably one with low overheads, if not low fees overall...
The problem is, most of the games I play are mods, and they commonly dont have linux servers, and what adds to the problem is that none of the 'game server' sites have mod hosting, just the average bf2/tf2/css layout. I've been doing some googling to search around but thought I would check here to see if someone has any suggestions beforehand'ledow' said:Google for "game servers" in your country. There are usually dozens of companies specialising in game servers and they normally charge per slot on the server.
If you want to make your own, look for a full dedicated server (not a VPS - virtual private server). You're looking at a bit more money for that though.
I used to run my own Counterstrike server on a dedicated Linux server and it used to cost me about £100 year. Good luck finding it for much cheaper, because it's usually classed as a high CPU / high mem / high bandwidth application and thus you'll incur charges or problems if you just use a cheap host that doesn't realise you're hosting games.
P.S. If you're only running it as a Game server, you'll be better off with a Linux server. It takes literally minutes to install a Steam server on Linux (I suggest you practice on an offline Linux machine first) and costs a lot less because it doesn't need your host to buy a Windows license. If you're not up to that, you're going to want to be buying a managed game server anyway, from a specialist company.
Colocation. Normally as expensive or more than just hiring their dedicated servers (and surely a lot more hassle as ANYTHING that goes wrong is your responsibility to go and fix, on their schedules, when they let you.'benjymous' said:Something else to consider, is there are some places that'll let you take your own server, and install it at their data centre (bytemark do this, anyway), so you're not paying rent on the hardware, just on the electricity and bandwith used.
You need a GOOD upload to be able to do that. ADSL and cable just aren't good enough at that sort of thing for the average user, unless you're on a particularly good package - the reliability, bandwidth, latency and bandwidth limit requirements just aren't there.'benjymous' said:(If this is for a clan, can you not find a member with a decent connection who could sit a spare server in their basement?)