Gaming Center Thin client

[Tenzin023]

Greetings.

I need help to set up a server for thin clients. How powerful of a Server need I Buy/Build? 

 

Our gaming center planning to build server for ~200 thin clients.
Main requirement is to run all clients on high graphics settings at 2K in the same time via LAN. Session games FPS (Apex, CoD, Valorant, Overwatch 2, etc.), MOBA (DOTA2, LoL, etc) oriented. 

[Blue4130]

20 minutes ago, Tenzin023 said:

Greetings.

I need help to set up a server for thin clients. How powerful of a Server need I Buy/Build? 

 

Our gaming center planning to build server for ~200 thin clients.
Main requirement is to run all clients on high graphics settings at 2K in the same time via LAN. Session games FPS (Apex, CoD, Valorant, Overwatch 2, etc.), MOBA (DOTA2, LoL, etc) oriented. 

It's not going to be one server. It's going to be MANY servers for 200 clients. Like dozens if not more. Each one is going to need multiple enterprise gpu's (I don't think commercial gpu's can be shared/divided) So you are looking at rtx a6000 or the like.

 

How rich are you? I don't see this happening for less than $200,000 minimum. Likely higher.

[Tenzin023]

11 minutes ago, Blue4130 said:

It's not going to be one server. It's going to be MANY servers for 200 clients. Like dozens if not more. Each one is going to need multiple enterprise gpu's (I don't think commercial gpu's can be shared/divided) So you are looking at rtx a6000 or the like.

 

How rich are you? I don't see this happening for less than $200,000 minimum. Likely higher.

Approximately how much servers? I believe it should be more efficient to run multiple servers for 200 thin clients than having 200 normal gaming PCs in a long-term

[TylerD321]

1 hour ago, Tenzin023 said:

Approximately how much servers? I believe it should be more efficient to run multiple servers for 200 thin clients than having 200 normal gaming PCs in a long-term

I am not super familiar with high end commercial grade components/servers/pcs, but I would imagine it would be quite expensive either way. You might save money in terms of physical footprint but I don’t think the cost would be that different between buying 200 computers or buying a dozen high end commercial grade machines.

 

You might save a little bit of money long term from electric if you are splitting power between multiple computers but with the added cost of the machines I don’t think it will matter in the lifetime of the hardware.

 

You have to remember that commercial stuff usually has warranty/support baked in that raises the price of product. Another thing is these machines usually have some proprietary components/compatibility that can Jack the prices of stuff up absurdly as well - usually ram or storage specifically.

 

Depending on how these machines would be set up you would have to factor in OS licenses, though buying gray market windows keys for 200 machines is still going to be way more than 12 copies of windows at full price. I would expect a server/pc of that caliber and use case to be running some district of Linux though. However, I could be completely wrong on this point as I previously mentioned my general lack of expertise. I am however familiar with office grade technology and I think it would translate well to your use case.

[Blue4130]

1 hour ago, Tenzin023 said:

Approximately how much servers? I believe it should be more efficient to run multiple servers for 200 thin clients than having 200 normal gaming PCs in a long-term

Let's assume that each person requires an experience that matches a pc with roughly 4 cores, 8gb of ram and a 4060. Would that be a valid assumption and a decent baseline to start with?

 

I would guess that with an rtx a6000 you could split it into 4 vGPU chunks each with 6gb of vram. So that is 50 gpus x $6500 Total = $325,000 on GPU's alone.

 

Then go with an epyc cpu for pcie lanes and core count. (shitty speeds though for gaming, but you need the cores) AMD 9554 gives you 64 cores. With 4 gpu's per machine that is 16 users, each getting 4 cores with none left over for background tasks. $7100 each. You need 13 to get your 200 users. Total = $92,300

 

Then you need motherboards for those 13 servers. Supermicro h13ssl boards are solid choice at $800 each. Total = $10,400

 

Next you need ram to feed all of these. This is pretty reasonable right now. 16gb sticks of registered ddr5 server ram is only $50 per 16gb stick, so load up all slots for best performance. 12 slots per server, 13 servers. Total = $7800

 

Storage, psu, fans, cases, etc lets just say a very conservative $1000 which is being generous. Total $13,000

 

Total cost = $448,500

 

Half a milion dollars.

 

It would be cheaper to build budget gaming PC's probably less than half the cost. Not to mention that we haven't even factored in the cost of 200 thin clients or software.

 

 

[Blue4130]

1 hour ago, Tenzin023 said:

Approximately how much servers? I believe it should be more efficient to run multiple servers for 200 thin clients than having 200 normal gaming PCs in a long-term

Just to give you an example of how much you'd save by going stand alone PC's, I found this on microcenter. A MSI complete gaming PC for $1000

It would likely give each player a better experience and it would be WAY easier to deploy. Just look at all of the trouble that both Linus and craft computing had with multiple gamers one PC.

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Intel Core i5 13400F (1.8GHz) Processor

16GB DDR5-4800 RAM

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Graphics Card

1TB M.2 NVMe Gen3 SSD

2.5GbE LAN, WiFi 6E (802.11ax)

 

https://www.microcenter.com/product/669833/msi-codex-r-13nuc5-071us-gaming-pc

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[TylerD321]

1 minute ago, Blue4130 said:

Just to give you an example of how much you'd save by going stand alone PC's, I found this on microcenter. A MSI complete gaming PC for $1000

It would likely give each player a better experience and it would be WAY easier to deploy. Just look at all of the trouble that both Linus and craft computing had with multiple gamers one PC.

---------------------------------------------

Intel Core i5 13400F (1.8GHz) Processor

16GB DDR5-4800 RAM

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Graphics Card

1TB M.2 NVMe Gen3 SSD

2.5GbE LAN, WiFi 6E (802.11ax)

 

https://www.microcenter.com/product/669833/msi-codex-r-13nuc5-071us-gaming-pc

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Having many of the exact same computer has benefits as well. You can order an extra computer or two for parts and on the fly swap out computers if you are having issues. Try doing that with a server.

 

Software deployments would be far easier as the computers have the exact same hardware and theoretically programs installed. If something works on one computer it’s safe to assume it will work across all computers as well. You could make this argument for server as well, but it would be hard to assume that if it works on one client that it would work across all clients on the same machine at the same time without testing it.

 

You could even get crazy and have a base set of games preinstalled that cannot be uninstalled or messed with (frozen) and the computer resets to that when turned off and then have a steam cache set up.

[Echothedolpin]

Not to dimish what others have said, but you are well within ‘need a professional service or consultant’ territory.

 

 

[Blue4130]

Honestly I think 200 is a stretch. Be very realistic with your numbers. I've been all around the world and never seen a 200 seat internet/lan cafe. Even the LTX lan was 300 seat. So getting 200 regularily would be a large stretch.

 

And here in lies the benefit of single machines. It's easy to scale up. Start with 20 machines. Then add 20 more if you are booked solid. Then keep adding as needed. With a server set up, you can scale up, but it take much more forethought.

 

And we haven't even discussed the option of using a cloud service. It's 2023, for better or worse, cloud is the future. Set up each station with a thinclient and then use GeforeNow or other such service. It saves you the cost of buying $500K worth of servers all for the cost of decent internet lines.

[Tenzin023]

On 9/30/2023 at 7:40 PM, Blue4130 said:

Honestly I think 200 is a stretch. Be very realistic with your numbers. I've been all around the world and never seen a 200 seat internet/lan cafe. Even the LTX lan was 300 seat. So getting 200 regularily would be a large stretch.

 

And here in lies the benefit of single machines. It's easy to scale up. Start with 20 machines. Then add 20 more if you are booked solid. Then keep adding as needed. With a server set up, you can scale up, but it take much more forethought.

 

And we haven't even discussed the option of using a cloud service. It's 2023, for better or worse, cloud is the future. Set up each station with a thinclient and then use GeforeNow or other such service. It saves you the cost of buying $500K worth of servers all for the cost of decent internet lines.

It seems that's regular for Asia. LOF got 174 seats in one of those centers. Well not all of them gonna run PUBG, CoD and etc. Most of the people still play CS GO and Dota 2

[Blue4130]

4 minutes ago, Tenzin023 said:

It seems that's regular for Asia. LOF got 174 seats in one of those centers. Well not all of them gonna run PUBG, CoD and etc. Most of the people still play CS GO and Dota 2

I live in Asia, I can assure you that it is not "regular". You may find one or two, but the vast majority don't have 200 seats.