As for the specs… I’d say way off. I run L4D2 on a Dual-Core Pentium, 2.4GHz, 3 gig DDR2 800MHz RAM, and a 10Mbit-down/~1Mbit-up network connection. I’ve hosted Listening servers (I play, not just run a Dedicated), and played with 8 friends across the Internet, all of them located withing 10-20 miles of me, no problem with lag whatsoever.
“Sister loads up Limewire and starts downloading the latest Pete Andre song, ouch lag. You have a few firefox windows open, lag” – Well, usually, when I play, everyone in my family is online(sister, brother, mom, dad), with however many firefox tabs – FaceBook, GMail, whatever just usual internet browsing – no problem whatsoever. And anyway, I don’t know about most folks, but who plays games while running other programs that use a lot of CPU? When I play a game, I “dedicate” my computer to that. Who would play L4D or whatever when, for example, rendering a video in Adobe After Effects? In that case, you would need a Quad-Core Xeon… but who does that?
In short… For most home users: Do not bother with having equipment such as this. Yes, it would be awesome, but unnecessary. Unless you want to play L4D2 AND play around in Adobe After Effects at the same time.
]]>Example: Just yesterday, I played L4D2, hosting a dedicated server on the same machine on which I was playing (Athlon 64 x2 6000+), with 2 of my friends connected, AND my wife was watching netflix on the same internet connection (which clocks in at a measly total of about 300/50 kBps down/up – notice capital “B” for Byte, not bit), and there was not a hint of lag. Now, where I “cheated” was having dd-wrt on my router, and iptables commands set up to guarantee my computer approximately one fourth of total available bandwidth at any given time.
Anyways, my point is that that the ridiculously high specs outlined in this article are WAY OVERKILL! I’m sure M$ Word would run better on that Xeon too, but it’s not even close to being the recommended spec.
Now, for the other side of the argument… No, it certainly won’t hurt to have wonderful specs like that. I agree that it is always nicer to have super-high-end equipment that can handle everything you throw at it five times over, and that removing bottlenecks is always something that one should strive for.
So, in summary, you rich people can go ahead and buy an overkill connection and hardware. It’s obviously way more than is needed, but there’s no harm in having it. Meanwhile, we people who know what we’re doing will keep hosting our servers on “crappy” computers because there is absolutely no indication that it works any worse than a Xeon with 100mb/s connection. But yes, the people who don’t know what they’re doing (no QOS on connection; bittorrent running in background; etc) need to quit hosting servers.
The key here is to understand the limits and act accordingly. There is an extreme to the both sides: those who ignore the limit and ruin user experience because of ignorance, and those who have cash to blow and would rather make sure they’re miles away from where the limit might be so they don’t have to put the effort into figuring out where that limit is. I like to lie somewhere in the middle. Research and learn the limit, and adjust accordingly. I don’t have the spare cash to buy a Xeon. If you do, then good for you, but I simply can’t afford it, just like most people. ]]>
Quake II CTF server 16 player limit: PII 300MHz with 256 MB RAM and fast-ethernet LAN connection; server located in server room in a major Canadian university: measured packet rates using SNMP probes into server room core switch… less than 2% utilization of a fast ethernet connection, less than 500kb/s data. Those numbers were averaged across several dozen clan ladder matches, 8 ppl per team, each match was three games.
Also – LATENCY IS WEAKLY CORRELATED WITH ETHERNET LINE SPEED. Ethernet, fast ethernet and gig-E have increasing data transfer rates in the order listed. But any properly installed species of ethernet will have better than sub 10 mS latencies.
Latency is largely an architectural artifact. Ethernet will get you very roughly latency on the order of 1 mS. If you want order(s) of magnitude less latency you use different tech: infiniband or such.
Further: the most important network segments contributing to overall latency are the Internet itself and the endusers’ local loop (cable or DSL or dialup). The contribution of the server-to-hosting-company-external-router segment is (had better be) insignificant… and will be even if 10 Mb/s ethernet is used.
]]>N+1 CPU/Cores (minimum of ~1.9 ghz phenom I or equivalent)
(N*400mb)+300mb RAM
N = instances of dedicated server
Running a dedicated server on a single processor/core will open you up to lag spikes and stalls on the server side that will effect gameplay, as any service, network packet processing, or other background process can pause the processing of the game environment.
As for bandwidth, for a 8 player game the max needed connection is an upload of 1.1 Mbit/s on a very low latency connection.
A T1 connection at 1.536 Mbit/s > 100 Mbit/s cable connection.
Also, for good gameplay, you need to move out of your sisters house and dont use limewire. This will get you 3,400 more.
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