Centos 5.1 ( 32bit ) vs Debian 4.0 (32bit ) for SRCDS

[mora]

Hello,

what kind of Linux distribution would be better for hosting SRCDS ( TF2, DOD:S, CS:S )
1. Centos 5.1 ( 32bit )
2. Debian 4.0 (32bit )
Server machine will be on AMD platform ( ex. Athlon X2 4800 )

Should I consider above 64 bit Linux version for AMD Phenom X4 based server? What about plugins such as Metamod, Sourcemod etc. on 64bit platform?

[joshua]

Both will offer about the same. 64 bit will yield little performance boost as I've not yet seen 64 bit srcds.

[reffle]

It depends on how much RAM you have installed in the machine. If you have over 3GB RAM then go for the 64bit version as the 32bit won't be able to use more than 3.2GB effectively.

Personally I use debian.

[css]

@mora
I suggest you install 64 bit OS on a 64 bit processor. That's because you'll probably run the same system one or two years from now and there will be 64 bit version of srcds then. Also if you decide to host another type of game server it could support 64 bit already.

@reffle
You are wrong.

I've written more information about memory usage on 32 bit systems at http://forums.srcds.com/viewpost/48654#pid48654

The bottom line is that modern processors have extra bits for 4+ GB memory references, which enables them to use more than 4 GB memory. The only limitation is that single process can't use over 4 GB memory, which never happens. Only very large databases require gigabytes of memory. If there weren't other bottlenecks to limit the system, then you could run 20 game servers which all take ~400 MB memory on a "32 bit system". That's because CPUs have PAE support.

I hope people on this forum would stop recommending 32 bit. That's because they'll be old in a year. Server admins who install now 32 bit system will then face big migration problems to a 64 bit systems. That's why it's better to go 64 bit now even though there's that very marginal 64 -> 32 performance gap (from which I haven't seen any hard evidence).