Game server build

[WhoWhat]

I wanna host servers for a few games (Arma 3,Minecraft, and gmod). If it all possible at the same time. If not i will priortize minecraft, but i mainly wanna be able to run about 2-4 servers for each game. (most private so no more than maybe 10 people on at a time). What exactly do i need for specs?

[onlybuilt4cubanxlinx]

Look into a dual CPU setup.

[WhoWhat]

3 minutes ago, onlybuilt4cubanxlinx said:

Look into a dual CPU setup.

Being specific would be more helpful

[onlybuilt4cubanxlinx]

5 minutes ago, WhoWhat said:

Being specific would be more helpful

A dual Intel Xeon E5-2670 is a good start. Only issue is the MoBos are expensive. I think they also require ECC memory which normally runs high in terms of cost. I looked into this shit like 2 years ago but I didn't retain much outside of that.

[Slayer3032]

Ryzen 5 3600 would be fine, SRCDS is single threaded with a few things like networking being all that's actually multithreaded. So consumer/gaming hardware is actually better for source engine games. Ram might be a limitation when it comes to minecraft and/or hosting VMs but since you have physical access to it you can always add more if/when you need it.

 

I've hosted far more on far less powerful hardware, you don't even want to know how terribly oversold the popular gameserver providers and vps providers are that most of the servers you play on.

 

Provided your ISP has decent peering from your location, you'll probably be quite impressed at how well it will handle it. If most of the servers will be empty and they're not all going to have players all at once, your only real issues would be drive space and memory.

[Electronics Wizardy]

49 minutes ago, onlybuilt4cubanxlinx said:

A dual Intel Xeon E5-2670 is a good start. Only issue is the MoBos are expensive. I think they also require ECC memory which normally runs high in terms of cost. I looked into this shit like 2 years ago but I didn't retain much outside of that.

ddr3r is super cheap now, much cheaper than the normal ddr3 or ddr4 that desktops use.

 

There are pretty power hungry systems though, and the boards aren't cheap.

[WhoWhat]

38 minutes ago, Slayer3032 said:

Ryzen 5 3600 would be fine, SRCDS is single threaded with a few things like networking being all that's actually multithreaded. So consumer/gaming hardware is actually better for source engine games. Ram might be a limitation when it comes to minecraft and/or hosting VMs but since you have physical access to it you can always add more if/when you need it.

 

I've hosted far more on far less powerful hardware, you don't even want to know how terribly oversold the popular gameserver providers and vps providers are that most of the servers you play on.

 

Provided your ISP has decent peering from your location, you'll probably be quite impressed at how well it will handle it. If most of the servers will be empty and they're not all going to have players all at once, your only real issues would be drive space and memory.

So in the event i made a dedicated server (now that realize it my pc wont do since i wont have it on 24/7 and i want my friends to log on whenever) what would i be looking at in terms of specs for lets say 6-8 servers on at once with 20-30 players total? 

[Slayer3032]

15 minutes ago, WhoWhat said:

So in the event i made a dedicated server (now that realize it my pc wont do since i wont have it on 24/7 and i want my friends to log on whenever) what would i be looking at in terms of specs for lets say 6-8 servers on at once with 20-30 players total? 

It all really depends on exactly what you end up hosting and how it's being used. Used workstations are usually really effective for basic home servers and anything on HEDT/server/workstation chipsets are going to support ECC unbuffered memory which as mentioned you can find 8gb DDR3 unbuffered dimms for like $12 on ebay or registered/buffered dimms for a little less sometimes as well.

 

You could probably do something like an i7 Optiplex or try to build something else Ryzen based but more budget orientated maybe using some used 1st gen hardware. The Ryzen 7 1700 would be really nice in a home server. I definitely wouldn't recommend hosting multiple game servers from your personal computer though unless it's something rather light on resources. If you're wanting more conventional/new hardware there's a bunch of LGA1356/LGA2011 budget chinese boards and other similar hardware which can be bought new which will use readily available used server cpus. TechYesCity, Phil's Computer Lab and some other youtubers have explored these pretty heavily. There's also a lot of home server stuff going around lately, Craft Computing went over some of what he's built for himself with dual socket boards if you're wanting to mess around with that headache.

 

You could also of course just rent a VPS or a cheap dedi and see how it goes.