Cheap gaming server

[Sirmonas_]

I've been wanting to build a server to just run some game servers for me and my friends to play, games like minecraft or rust or fivem, stuff in that range, what would you recommend in terms of specs?

[LostInSpaceThings]

You mean a vps / a dedicated server? If I remember right, OVH is stil legit. You will need knowledge of Linux. Otherwise your going to need to buy individual servers for each game which is expensive .

 

If you want to host more than like 2 games I would probably recommend a dedicated server but that's just me. They have one for like 114 a month, or you can go with their vps which starts at $14 a month.  It's thier essential vps

 

[Sirmonas_]

Yeah basically a dedicated server but like build my own

 

[LostInSpaceThings]

2 minutes ago, Sirmonas_ said:

Yeah basically a dedicated server but like build my own

 

Do you think you have the physical bandwidth to host servers? You can get a hosted one for not that much 

[Rpetey317]

If you can get a deal on a used PC from someone like a company replacing a fleet of machines I think that'd probably be enough. If you are only gonna run the servers for some friends you don't need a very powerful machine. I can't think of any specific part names right now, but maybe a 4-5 years old workstation? For stuff like that you'd probably find a better deal buying a mostly pre-built used computer and some extra parts if you need (usually storage + some extra RAM) than buying parts separately

[Takumidesh]

2 minutes ago, Rpetey317 said:

If you can get a deal on a used PC from someone like a company replacing a fleet of machines I think that'd probably be enough. If you are only gonna run the servers for some friends you don't need a very powerful machine. I can't think of any specific part names right now, but maybe a 4-5 years old workstation? For stuff like that you'd probably find a better deal buying a mostly pre-built used computer and some extra parts if you need (usually storage + some extra RAM) than buying parts separately

I ran a multi purpose server (games, media, file storage) with an old lenovo thinkstation i paid $60 dollars for at an it auction for years.
before that I ran a minecraft server off of a dual core asus laptop with 8gb ddr3 ram.

[Sirmonas_]

Oh okay, so basically any old workstation prebuilt with some slight upgrades to maybe memory or storage should be good enough?

 

[Sirmonas_]

19 minutes ago, Takumidesh said:

I ran a multi purpose server (games, media, file storage) with an old lenovo thinkstation i paid $60 dollars for at an it auction for years.
before that I ran a minecraft server off of a dual core asus laptop with 8gb ddr3 ram.

Did you play any modded minecraft? if so, would the current types of modpacks run fine on it? i heard minecraft got a lot heavier and modpacks got more intense so idk

[Takumidesh]

this was years ago, there were some mods, mostly server side stuff, so I couldn't tell you about modern modpacks.

I can say that in a mostly vanilla server I could reliably host 5-10 players. much more than that and it became pretty unplayable.
 

[Rpetey317]

20 minutes ago, Sirmonas_ said:

Did you play any modded minecraft? if so, would the current types of modpacks run fine on it? i heard minecraft got a lot heavier and modpacks got more intense so idk

Fabric servers run very well. I've actually been running one on and off for my friends on my local PC and I don't notice it unless I do heavy workloads (AAA games or video editing). Forge servers are a bit heavier on resources. But most servers are mostly CPU intensive workloads so I'd say to prioritize that. A nice GPU can also be good for other purpose like hosting a media server or smth, but for minecraft it's not a priority

 

[Sirmonas_]

15 hours ago, Rpetey317 said:

Fabric servers run very well. I've actually been running one on and off for my friends on my local PC and I don't notice it unless I do heavy workloads (AAA games or video editing). Forge servers are a bit heavier on resources. But most servers are mostly CPU intensive workloads so I'd say to prioritize that. A nice GPU can also be good for other purpose like hosting a media server or smth, but for minecraft it's not a priority

 

I am more likely to play forge modpacks, so what kind of cpu should i go for? im looking for a budget option, what would sort of the recommended/minimum specs for a decent machine

 

[Jdnoss1234]

On 12/15/2022 at 10:01 AM, Sirmonas_ said:

I am more likely to play forge modpacks, so what kind of cpu should i go for? im looking for a budget option, what would sort of the recommended/minimum specs for a decent machine

 

So I have an All the Mods 8 server running on an old i3-4370 and it runs well enough for just me and maybe a couple friends. I think CPU wise you can probably go with anything with at least 4 cores made in the last 5 years if it is just you and a few friends. However, I would max out the ram 16GB minimum for a dedicated server. My server wont even start on less than 4GB, and the more chunks you plan on keeping loaded and the more players will require more ram. And old OptiPlex and a couple sticks of ram will get you started.