Windows Servers


PoisonedV

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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...
 
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.
 
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'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.
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
 
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I've got nothing but praise for Bytemark

CODE
http://www.bytemark.co.uk/


They specialise in Linux VMs, but do do dedicated hosts too (sadly at a much higher cost!)

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.

(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?)
 
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'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.
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:
(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?)
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.

If you want to run specialist mods etc. then you're looking at a dedicated server. You can get them from £100 a year, but that's about as cheap as they go without being absolutely useless (or run by a fly-by-night company). Even then, you're looking at a lot of work to be able to set it up and you'll want to test that you know enough about running a dedicated server before you get that far.

Shared servers (VM's, VPS's) etc. are normally no good for gaming servers and/or it's against most of their terms and conditions. You would have to check really carefully and then you're likely to hit memory/CPU time/bandwidth limits if you're not very careful. Don't forget - latency is the most important thing on a gaming server and sharing that server with a busy site, or a CPU intensive one (which you get NO say over) might mean the server is just plain useless.
 
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I've just asked the admin for a TF2 server I regular who he uses and he says he uses http://www.gameservers.com/ and that they are pretty good. They seem to have a couple of steam mods available. It might be worth emailing them to find out if they can host whatever one you're looking into hosting.

Out of interest, what mod do you want to host, or are you just wanting to be able to try a few different ones out??

Also, if you do decide to go with gameservers, could you go through this referrel link? http://www.gameservers.com/?ref=1625564.
 
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i think I'm just going to give up on it. I could pay the fees on the pay-by-slot server sites fine, but I can't afford to buy dedicated servers. One of the main reasons was that so the mod me and my friend are working on would have an official server, but i guess ill wait till that actually comes up to tackle this again.
 
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