a small game server

[goosmaster]

hey, I want to know how cheap I could trow a small gaming server together.

me and 7 other friends are planning to play more games with each other and we decided to create some dedicated servers for us to play on

we need a computer that can host these servers, the games are:

minecraft, space enigineers, terraria and modded minecraft

 

I got a internet connection of 200mb download and 10mb upload so there is no problem there, I only need advise in what computer parts i need to host those servers with 8 people and to problems what so ever.

[DeuS_CaNoN]

I'm not an expert on the subject but the most important thing for a server is its cpu and ram, however for 8 people I think just a low end pc can probably handle it.

 

I would suggest something like an $100 cpu and a cheap motherboard (make sure its network adpater is at least good though)

Get at least 8Gb of ram

If you want your server to be amazing, I would get an SSD to store the server data for maximum access speeds

 

you should be good since a server has no need for a graphics card.

[xXxYOLOxSWAGxXx_420BlazeIt]

A 3570k and 16GB RAM.

[goosmaster]

I'm not an expert on the subject but the most important thing for a server is its cpu and ram, however for 8 people I think just a low end pc can probably handle it.

 

I would suggest something like an $100 cpu and a cheap motherboard (make sure its network adpater is at least good though)

Get at least 8Gb of ram

If you want your server to be amazing, I would get an SSD to store the server data for maximum access speeds

 

you should be good since a server has no need for a graphics card.

but what kind of CPU do you mean? because $100 cpu doesn't say that much

and with good network adapter do you mean a pci network card? or something?

[DeuS_CaNoN]

I was aiming at price points for you to look for in, personally I'm a intel fanboy (just not outspoken about it), I would of suggested some kind of i3 deravative but an AMD equivalent will probably do just as well.

 

When I said network adapter I mean the motherboard's onboard network chip should be at least game-able, it just means don't buy the cheapest motherboard you can find as those probably won't have the best onboard network chip. That doesn't mean you need to get like a ROG motherboard or anything just find a motherboard that has reviews for it that says the network adapter is decent

[goosmaster]

I was aiming at price points for you to look for in, personally I'm a intel fanboy (just not outspoken about it), I would of suggested some kind of i3 deravative but an AMD equivalent will probably do just as well.

 

When I said network adapter I mean the motherboard's onboard network chip should be at least game-able, it just means don't buy the cheapest motherboard you can find as those probably won't have the best onboard network chip. That doesn't mean you need to get like a ROG motherboard or anything just find a motherboard that has reviews for it that says the network adapter is decent

and when looking for a cpu do i need to look for a cpu with high amount of threads? or high amount of speed? or amount of cores? and how big do you recommend the ssd to be?

[DeuS_CaNoN]

This unfortunately is where my experience ends, I'm actually not too sure how parallelizable game server programs are, if they're very parallelizable, more threads/cores is definitely a bonus, if not you want more speed, but for that SSD, just large enough to store all your server software on, just look up how much each server would take on a harddrive and plan accordingly.

 

HOWEVER I do want to mention that if you want to just run all those game servers AT THE SAME TIME and just leave the server on all the time I would definitely suggest a multi core'd multi thread processor (if you want this, you might want to consider that i5 YOLO suggest above), if you're willing to shut off one server and turn on another one for switching between games, then it might be better to get more speed and less cores.

[goosmaster]

well I've been searching and I've found the

AMD FX-6300 Black Edition

specs:

cores: 6-core

socket: AM3+

speed: 3.5GHz

max turbo speed: 4.1GHz

 

and I can get it for about €90,-
($122.46)

 

is that good for just server hosting *(turning the server off when we switch games and leaving it 24-7 online and only change it when we decide to play a different game)

I also found an ssd for €43 ($58.51) with 64 GB but I think I need at least 120 GB for all the servers

 

here is the specs for the pc for now:

CPU AMD FX 6300 Black Edition

Motherboard MSI 760GM-P23 (FX)

Memory Crusial Ballistix Sport BLS8G3D1339DS1S00

Storage Sandisk Solid State Drive 64GB

Case Fractal Design Core 1000 USB 3.0

Power Supply Cooler Master GM G550M (550Watt)

Total cost €321.33 / $437.23

let me know If i could safe some money on some parts or if some parts are weak

[DeuS_CaNoN]

You don't need 550Watts, personally you definetely need more storage than just 64GB, you must remember you have to have a OS behind the server, I run linux on my personal "mess around" server so its not too big, but if you're running windows ya you need more space. My suggestion of a SSD is the "optimal" solution, you can use a HDD definitely and may be more to your budget.

 

As a side note, do you know how to setup remote desktop/ssh on a server? Or is the first server you'll be building?

[goosmaster]

You don't need 550Watts, personally you definetely need more storage than just 64GB, you must remember you have to have a OS behind the server, I run linux on my personal "mess around" server so its not too big, but if you're running windows ya you need more space. My suggestion of a SSD is the "optimal" solution, you can use a HDD definitely and may be more to your budget.

 

As a side note, do you know how to setup remote desktop/ssh on a server? Or is the first server you'll be building?

well if you mean with remote desktop the remote desktop feature of windows then yes I know how to set that up, why?

and true that 550watts is a bit to much but I never know howmuch watts my pc needs

[DeuS_CaNoN]

Because remember, you don't have a graphics card on this machine, you will most likely need to do everything either through command line OR rip out a graphics card from somewhere and set up the server using that graphics card first before moving it back into its original place

[Opcode]

First and foremost, this is where Intel takes a huge leap on AMD. As a game developer and programmer, let me tell you this much. Do not buy anything but a Intel based CPU for a game server. The reason is core performance and power consumption will catch up with you extremely fast. Trust me I have ran game servers for several MMORPG's. I would suggest going with a Xeon E3-1230 v3 or something instead. It is going to cost you more but you'll get the money back on your power bill. Secondly, you will need to stuff the machine with memory the second most important part of any server. Minecraft has one of the most memory hungry game servers that I know of. The reason for that is the server allocates so much memory for each connected socket (player). You will also need lots of hard drive space for backups, a 64 GB SSD isn't going to cut it (will fill up quick).

 

Intel Xeon E3-1230 v3

16 GB DDR3 1600 MHz

1 TB + HDD

400 Watt PSU

~

 

Anything less than that and you're looking at a mediocre server. I would also suggest when you buy the memory to get it in a 2 x 8GB kit. That way you have the option to upgrade to 32 GB later. People like to think FX chips are great for servers since they have up to eight cores, when in reality they are power hungry and offer horrible performance (they are crippled) during CPU intensive game server tasks. Of course this may be "overkill" for what you might think you need. Tho if you ever go public with any (or all) of your servers, you'll regret not having the hardware to do so. The most expensive parts for a server is the CPU and memory. I am speaking from years of experience doing what you are trying to do (just with more complex and larger game servers).

[ohJey]

Core i3

120GB SSD

8GB RAM

400w PSU

all you need.

 

I run a 3 man minecraft server off a Dual Core ARM CPU (overclocked to 1.2GHz)

[EricPont]

depends on money if small budget get fx 6300 and any 8gb ram at 1866 if you got more money fx 8350 and 16gb of ram at 1866 for more cores is better for a sever then better single core performance

[911delorean]

Do you have any laying around any of your friends houses? that would be the cheapest, but depending on what kind of games are being served i would get either a AMD APU or a i5/i3 if you want newer stuff, or what I usually do is try to build off ebay, I made a core 2 Quad home server for files and games and it is great.

[Priller]

I run my server with an 8150 and 16GB of 1866 ram. It is quite a beast but I have never tried to run a minecraft server off of it and never will. I also run Windows Server 2012 R2 as well.

 

I would guess since Minecraft likes less stronger cores that their server would be the same.

[EricPont]

opcode clearly is a genius and knows everything that ever has and will be so the fx 8350 must be shit at running servers and not supers good a all and not a intel fanbot

[Opcode]

I run my server with an 8150 and 16GB of 1866 ram. It is quite a beast but I have never tried to run a minecraft server off of it and never will. I also run Windows Server 2012 R2 as well.

 

I would guess since Minecraft likes less stronger cores that their server would be the same.

There is no such thing as a game server preferring slower core performance. I think you will agree that was quite a bold statement to make.

 

opcode clearly is a genius and knows everything that ever has and will be so the fx 8350 must be shit at running servers and not supers good a all and not a intel fanbot

The FX line of processors are fine for running basic home servers, in this particular case a FX-6300 would be fine. I never said FX's were horrible CPU's that simply cannot do anything. For a home server that runs 24/7 and runs game servers, they are (in my opinion) one of the worst choices you can make. They lack core performance, which is critical to game servers. When your game servers switch on CPU heavy events you can expect there to be in-game lag due to a CPU bottleneck (every server I administrate runs on Intel based servers because of that particular reason). For games like Minecraft and a few other small MMO's sure a FX-6300 should be plenty for 8+ players. Tho a i3-4130 will still perform far better than the FX-6300 overall while costing less in power and also running cooler. When it comes to running game servers core count means next to nothing. With the amount of game servers he plans on running they will be fighting over thread priority either way. He would be better off getting a i3-4130 and stacking a ton of memory into the machine. With the four game servers he plans on running 8 GB is also just barely meeting the minimum spec. He should be fine since the machine will page file (something that should be disabled on a game server) if it runs low on memory. Minecraft server files are notorious for being a memory hog, tho most of it comes from allocating memory for each connected socket (player). Lastly, I don't claim to know everything. These are just the same waters that I have swam in every day for the past several years as a game developer.

[Priller]

There is no such thing as a game server preferring slower core performance. I think you will agree that was quite a bold statement to make.

 

 

Re read it. Minecraft likes less(meaning lower in number) stronger cores. So it prefers fewer cores that have a higher IPC. 

 

I think you will agree that you misread that.

[Bagmup]

Re read it. Minecraft likes less(meaning lower in number) stronger cores. So it prefers fewer cores that have a higher IPC. 

 

I think you will agree that you misread that.

 

Using a comma ftw..

[Priller]

Using a comma ftw..

 

No. Multitasking FTL! lol

[Opcode]

Re read it. Minecraft likes less(meaning lower in number) stronger cores. So it prefers fewer cores that have a higher IPC. 

 

I think you will agree that you misread that.

Most game servers run a large portion of their code in the main loop (1 thread) hence why core count is second priority to IPC for game servers.

 

I think you will agree that you need to brush up on your grammar. Your statement is poorly formatted and is implying that Minecraft prefers weaker cores.

[Priller]

Most game servers run a large portion of their code in the main loop (1 thread) hence why core count is second priority to IPC for game servers.

 

I think you will agree that you need to brush up on your grammar. Your statement is poorly formatted and is implying that Minecraft prefers weaker cores.

 

Nope. Working on coding ATM so grammar isn't as important since you've already posted in this thread.

[Opcode]

 

Nope. Working on coding ATM so grammar isn't as important since you've already posted in this thread.

Aren't you just full of yourself.

[Priller]

 

 

Aren't you just full of yourself.

 

 

Negative, ghost rider.