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Me and my brother are avid TF2 players and have been toying with the idea of hosting our own TF2 server.
Now for a connection I am looking to get the Verizon Fios 20/20 package which gives me 20 Mbits up and down. How many Kilobits per player are necessary? I have roughly estimated a single player will need at most 140 kbits/sec upload and about 40-50 kbits/sec download. This works out to be a whopping 4.5 Mbits/sec upload and 1600 Mbits/sec download. Am I correct or am I overestimating? I arrived at these numbers by waytching the traffic graph of my router when my brother was playing TF2.
Now on to hardware. What exactly do I need in terms of CPU and memory? Will a 3GHz single core P4 satisfy a 32 player server? I have 3 motherboards from a friend with 1gb ram and P4 3GHz each. How much ram per player is necessary?
Now my next question might sound crazy. Is it possible to run more than one srcds server on the same system? My idea is to do a base install of Debian Linux, assign a few IP's to the network interface and bind each server to a different IP. Is this possible? I want to see if I can buy a single processor motherboard, quad core CPU, 4gb ram and a 1U server case to house it. It would be great if I could run four 32 player servers on one box.
Also is it possible to run srcds as a daemon so it starts when the server starts? I don't want to log in and start the server.
I know this question must have been asked before so if there is a guide please point me to it. Thanks.
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01-22-2009, 03:43 PM
(This post was last modified: 01-22-2009, 03:57 PM by CGS|Todd.)
MistaTea Wrote:How many Kilobits per player are necessary?
for tf2, you will need a little more bandwidth than these tables give, but they are good starting points. use net_graph 1 in-game and observe how much bandwidth you are using.
http://whisper.ausgamers.com/wiki/index.php/Tickrate
MistaTea Wrote:Now on to hardware. What exactly do I need in terms of CPU and memory? Will a 3GHz single core P4 satisfy a 32 player server?
with tf2 that could be iffy. with a p4 under linux i have had the best results with 24 man servers (if you want zero lag). be sure to turn off hyperthreading in the bios.
MistaTea Wrote:How much ram per player is necessary?
tf2 can be a memory whore and srcds has a tendency to develop leaks. ram is cheap these days. figure a gig per 24 man server to be safe.
MistaTea Wrote:Now my next question might sound crazy. Is it possible to run more than one srcds server on the same system?
absolutely
MistaTea Wrote:Also is it possible to run srcds as a daemon so it starts when the server starts?
people generally run it with the screen utility and you will need a start-up script specific to your distribution
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Are the P4s hyperthreaded?
From my experience, a 24-slot TF2 server on a hyperthreaded 3.0GHz P4 can run high. You can TRY a 32-slot, but it might not work.
Also, Verizon probably wont give you dedicated bandwidth. Fine for a personal server... but don't try to sell it 
Don't plan on more then one large TF2 server on a P4 box.
~ Mooga ...w00t? - SRCDS.com on Twitter
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Please do not PM me for server related help
fqdn Wrote:if you've seen the any of the matrix movies, a game server is not all that different. it runs a version of the game that handles the entire world for each client connected. that's the 2 sentence explanation.
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Thanks for the answers. I was thinking core 2 quad and 4 gigs of ram for server hardware. That should handle my plan to have a 32 player TF2 dust bowl, 16 player CSS and a second 24 player TF2 server (2fort). I have been reading through the forum and the tutorial section, lots of excellent info. Working on building up a Linux install on vmware and then to the actual system.
As for Verizon Fios I have seen its speed and believe me there is plenty of it. My friend has the 15/5 package and its stupid fast. The server will be our own, tired of waiting to get into favorite servers.
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01-23-2009, 12:21 AM
(This post was last modified: 01-23-2009, 12:25 AM by CGS|Todd.)
Mooga Wrote:Are the P4s hyperthreaded?
the higher end models are
Mooga Wrote:From my experience, a 24-slot TF2 server on a hyperthreaded 3.0GHz P4 can run high.
i would agree, but i have managed to run lag free servers on on 3.0Ghz+ P4s (though the CPU usage does get quite high). this is under Linux -- under windows, its probably a different story.
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MistaTea Wrote:Working on building up a Linux install on vmware and then to the actual system.
i would avoid virtualization, if possible.
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I think he meant he would try it all out first on a virtual machine, and then after it works, install it on a dedicated computer.
Which I think is pretty smart (we do it a lot too).
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oh yeah, you're right. i misread that.
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CGS|Todd Wrote:Mooga Wrote:Are the P4s hyperthreaded?
the higher end models are
Right, i was asking about his models
Also, if you want a Dual Core, I have a list of hardware to build a 2.5GHz for under $300. However it's a family desktop build, not a server build.
~ Mooga ...w00t? - SRCDS.com on Twitter
Please do not PM me for server related help
fqdn Wrote:if you've seen the any of the matrix movies, a game server is not all that different. it runs a version of the game that handles the entire world for each client connected. that's the 2 sentence explanation.
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Hmm looks like my biggest concern now is the CPU. Just trying to get the whole init.d scripting stuff down and figuring out how to get multiple servers running at the same time. Have a rudimentary TF2 test server up on the lan but still a work in progress. Rome wasn't built in a day and I will keep at this srcds thing.
My plans have changed a bit and maybe limiting the system to only two servers because of the bandwidth issue. Running three or four servers will sap most of the 20/20 leaving me with little bandwidth for regular internet stuff. Also trying to get my routers traffic shaper to properly work to make sure my own internet use does not trample the srcds bandwidth. Jeez I wish we had that 100mbit sync stuff they have in S. Korea, plenty for a dozen servers.
Also can anyone recommend a web based srcds monitoring/admin program? I don't really need it to do admin stuff but to keep track of players, scores, statistics, logs and maybe even a server summary page that shows the status of each server like current map, player count and a quick player list like the steam server info window. I would like to run it on a separate system running Linux or BSD so as not to interfere with the srcds system load.
CGS|Todd Wrote:MistaTea Wrote:Working on building up a Linux install on vmware and then to the actual system.
i would avoid virtualization, if possible.
Not virtualization but testing. I always test things on vmware before going live. Its the best way to sample new OS's, test patches and updates etc. I have been using it for years and at one point had over 30 Vm's, everyhting from DOS 6.22 to Plan 9 and everything in between. Its also my Solaris 10 test bed (still learning) and also playing with the Solaris kernel/Ubuntu environment mash up called Nexenta. I don't know what I would do without it.
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01-23-2009, 09:43 AM
(This post was last modified: 01-23-2009, 09:47 AM by CGS|Todd.)
yeah i didn't read your virtualization comment close enough, lol.
what distro are you going to be running? i might be able to help with the init script.
if you are handy with a language like php or perl, getting server info is pretty straightforward with the source query protocol:
http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Source_Server_Queries
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CGS|Todd Wrote:yeah i didn't read your virtualization comment close enough, lol.
what distro are you going to be running? i might be able to help with the init script.
if you are handy with a language like php or perl, getting server info is pretty straightforward with the source query protocol:
http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Source_Server_Queries
Thanks for the reply! Well I hate to admit that I am a scripting idiot, never really did anything fancy. But I looked some init scripts over and it looks very strait forward. I would appreciate any help you can offer. I also saw an init.d script tutorial from a member named scriptfu. Looks good but I still am not sure about the proper way of starting multiple servers. Do you need a separate user and srcds copy per server or can one user and srcds copy run all three?
Distro I will be using to test and use is Ubuntu 8.04 server. Was thinking of using Debian but after testing it out it was the exact thing as Ubuntu which I already run on my personal server. Funny as I used to run Debian with KDE and it sure was different back then.
Thanks for the source query link. Again I don't know PHP or perl but my brother is a game developer and knows a bit of PHP and programming in general so I have help.
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01-23-2009, 04:13 PM
(This post was last modified: 01-23-2009, 04:17 PM by CGS|Todd.)
you can run multiple servers from one physical copy if you use linking. just be sure to run it as something other than root.
i think ubuntu is based on debian, but i've heard there are some binary incompatibily issues between the two now, because they are diverging so far. i've never used either, but they seem pretty good.
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