Servers are hard and host are crap. What is the solution?

m9365428 · July 3, 2022

Hi all 1st post but been lurking for a while.
I have a group of 4-6 friends that like to get together and game on the weekends but our schedules don't sync up all that great. We love to play survival coop games but if the person who is host isn't there then it limits our progression. We have tried formal game host companies but we (as a group) kinda have A.D.D. and change games about every 3 weeks. Every game host I've found does a credit refund and +charge to change game.

Here is the question.
1. Is there a game host that rents a server slot per year and allows you to freely switch running game session?
or
2. Is there a decent way to build a low/no maintenance server that can run basically any game servers with mods for up to 10 users?

I build my own pcs but I'm a complete moron when it comes to networking. I have set up PieHole and a VPN but thats where it ends.
I want to help enable my friend group to hang out more but I don't want to drop 200+USD a month on server host. We normally have about 4 game types running at a time but we focus on 1 or 2 at a time. So realistically we would need to build an easy to admin automated box that could run 2 or 3 servers at once with 10 people spread between them.

Anyone got a decent solution or am I just ####ed?
Honestly i'm willing to drop $3k on a box with a low power/heat cost or go up to $100 a month if I have too.

Shimejii · July 3, 2022

I mean you could literally just built a system with a ryzen 3950x Used, get a cheap b550 board, and be able to run multiple servers no problem. You just have to learn a bit about how to host a server in each game you play, although that shouldnt be too hard, and you have full control over it

I say 3950x just cause 16 cores, but if you only need one game at a time, 3900x, 3700x still works fine. Or You could try intel boards and cpus, but they tend to be a fair bit more expensive..

I reccomend at least 32 gigs of ram, although you could go 64 at 3200 mhz for just stability purposes, have 3 Drives, one for OS, one for the Games that you want to run, and one for the backup files. Keeping everything organized in that manner will help you in the long run.

Overall it should cost you around 1000$ if you buy used

Every game requires different software and such, so as long as you are willing to learn a bit about how to do that, make sure your router has the right ports open, its pretty easy.

MrMase · July 4, 2022

9 minutes ago, Shimejii said:

I mean you could literally just built a system with a ryzen 3950x Used, get a cheap b550 board, and be able to run multiple servers no problem. You just have to learn a bit about how to host a server in each game you play, although that shouldnt be too hard, and you have full control over it

I say 3950x just cause 16 cores, but if you only need one game at a time, 3900x, 3700x still works fine. Or You could try intel boards and cpus, but they tend to be a fair bit more expensive..

I reccomend at least 32 gigs of ram, although you could go 64 at 3200 mhz for just stability purposes, have 3 Drives, one for OS, one for the Games that you want to run, and one for the backup files. Keeping everything organized in that manner will help you in the long run.

Overall it should cost you around 1000$ if you buy used

Every game requires different software and such, so as long as you are willing to learn a bit about how to do that, make sure your router has the right ports open, its pretty easy.

If going down this route looking into the use of virtual machines may be worth considering so that you can power on / off the desired servers as needed.
This could come in handy should there be software or port conflicts to the more you look into.

m9365428 · July 10, 2022

Sorry for the late reply. Nutty week at work.
Ok so after a week it looks like no good rental options so I'm building my own server. I will update a little closer to order time but the rough guidance on a direction is appreciated. Not gonna lie I have never had luck on the used market so i'm gonna go new.

Any reason for ryzen 3000 vs 5000 series processors?

Virtual machines is a definite route I was looking.
I ran a headless minecraft server for about 6 months but i was a shit admin. Any advice on a direction or info source for this? I mean windows is probably the worst idea possible so that means linux but which one and do i run a standard os with high lvl v-machines or go hypervisor, or something that I haven't even heard of before.
I'm honestly gonna be supper new to this side of things and would love to set it up to be as hands off and self administrating as possible so any level of help would be great.

Pipe dream would be a box running all of our games and any server with no users goes deep sleep until someone tries to connect but for now i just need to get started.