Running A Server, Just Need Small Input
 

hello. i was thinking of hosting a 2k4 server on one of my machines and was looking for some input.

i have a Dual 1.7 Xeon Server with 74 gig 10k hard drive internal and 1.2 terabyte stoarge array. i know my system will handle the load but wondering if what i have as far as service provider will be enough for 18 man server.

im running Cable, 10 mbps / 2 mbps Commercial Cable with a Static IP.

im wondering if the system and connection would be worth the effort or do i just RENT ??

Thanks In Advance.
CHiLL

LO there,
Memory will be a must, with your upload speed u will host a few players and memory will make a difference. If your playing on the same machine then make sure u got good memory, put dedicated server on another partition to where your ut2004 game is installed and then run the dedicated from a bat or from dos using ucc command then run the game and connect to your server over lan. If you don't have a lot of memory and the server and game on different partitions it will have delay when changing maps or reloading the level.
On top of this it is best to have UT2004 game and server setup's on seperate partitions and not on C: or whatever drive letter your boot drive is.
Also with cable modem lines they tend to spike on heave loads so pings shoot through the roofs, try lowering your tic rate of the server a bit or use a win2000 as your gate way as this will spread the bandwidth better and help stop the constant spikes in the pings. Windows 2003 might be ok too but never tried it and u want to use balancing in the tcp/ip settings.
When u adjust the tick rate this will effect people play a bit.
Other way you could try is to have less players but give them lan speeds by increasing the maxclientrate to 10000 or more.
If u just ran a server I'd imagine on a 2meg upload u'd get about 6 to 8 connect before it spiked the pings intot the 1000s but if u get more from a standard server setup then let us know and which cable company your with, will be handy to know for anyone wanting to run a server and about to choose a isp.

I'm no expert on this but this has worked well for me in the past.

hey, thanks for the fast responce. im running Brighthouse Cable. it is cable but not residential but commercial. i have done the tests and all times of the day and night its right there, plus in order to get a static IP you have to get a commercial account. on the server side im running 2 gigs of pc800. the drive space is no biggie but was worried that it wouldnt be worth the hassle if my connection wasnt enough.

i do understand that with standard cable you see " spikes " with local usage but with my server running hosting a few webservers and being in the evening when the neighbors are watching TV i dont really see spikes. the game would be hosted on a different machine then the one i use and 1 36 gig ultra160 15k hard drive would be dedicated for the game only, along with website and forum, partitioned of coarse.

hope this helped.

CHiLL

Website + game server on the same machine = bad idea. Causes performance issues. It can be done, but not recommended.

Also, if you are going to be running AS or ONS gametypes, your machine may not have enough CPU power (it will be close) if the 18 slot server is full. If you add mods to the server, performance may get worse as well. You will be cutting it close on bandwidth as well, since you also host web servers.

Assuming this is a 5100-series Xeon I doubt CPU will be a limitation (at least before the network connection becomes a limiting factor). Opterons around the 2MHz mark sucessfully ran 24+ ONS and AS servers and the Core 2 should have better IPC. Memory won't be an issue either. Bandwidth will though. Especially, as Assraker pointed out, if you run a web server on the same connection (not necesarilly same machine). If on separate machines there's not much you can do to prevent the webserver from flooding other than a rather restrictive bandwidth limit. If on the same machine some traffic shaping should be able to prevent the webserver from hogging both bandwidth and CPU.

I agree, you'd have to have something on your gateway to distribute the bandwidth.
There must be something that allows u to plan your what time of the day what ip gets what.
This way you could set the bandwidth to the webserver very low when your server is most used
and much high when its not.

And no the mem you have should make things tick over nicely. :)