What are the advantages to having a DS/VDS?

[baR-]

I'm new to the whole "Dedicated Server" thing. For the last 10 years, I've just either ran my own gaming server off my own computer, or rented one server from a company.

What is the point in having a dedicated/virtual machine? Can I run multiple game servers? What's the difference in choosing a linux OS vs. windows? (As I said, I'm new to this whole thing )

I'm thinking of maybe renting a VDS, but am not sure exactly why it would benefit me. I guess if I can run more than one server on it...lag free would be a start, but am not too sure.

Any tips would be great.

[baR-]

I am thinking of purchasing the "four core" package:

Four core: Perfect for 4-12 game servers or many sites.
Four full, dedicated HT CPU cores (Nehalem or better)
4096 MB of RAM
400 GB of hard drive space
4000 GB of InterNAP bandwidth transfer

but am unsure of what the advantages are, or how to even begin once I purchase.


Plus, what are the advantages of "adding extra IPs" ?

[Edge100x]

The advantage of a dedicated server or VDS is mainly the level of control. If you go with an unmanaged system, you have very precise control over what you run and how it's run, since you can choose the OS to use and you have full Administrator remote desktop access or root SSH access. You can do pretty much anything you want within the confines of the resources you selected. With a managed system, you also have higher control than a regular game server here, since you can create as many game servers as you'd like, and are given access to a "Managed panel" page with some additional knobs to turn.

I generally recommend Windows for new users, and its performance will be better for many games, among them HL1/Source/Orangebox. I would only recommend Linux for those who need more scripting power and control, or who need the extra memory afforded by its lower memory footprint, and who are running games that support Linux.

Additional IPs are desirable if you run multiple services of the same type and wish them all to be on the default port.

We talk more about VDSes overall here: https://www.nfoservers.com/virtual-dedi ... entals.php

We talk more about the difference between unmanaged and managed setups here: http://www.nfoservers.com/forums/viewto ... =51&t=4559

[baR-]

I've gotten some complaints about "reg" since opening up my first game server, which was just a rented one. Personally, I doubt the reg is bad at all - but is there a difference in performance with having just one rented server or having a VDS with more than 1 server?

[kraze]

VDS do have some advantages. However a regular game server from us is usually the way to go, as our game server are placed on high end machines and will be moved to faster machines as time goes on and old equipment is retired. We also use load balancing which will move your server to a new machine if resources get to high.

Unless you are looking into running multiple game servers and want to know that these servers are only sharing resources and not other resources from customers a game server is the way to go, over a dedicated server.

Like I said above unless you are looking in to running multiple game servers then you should stick with just a game server. If you plan on running 3 or more I would look in to a VDS. It all depends on preference.

[Edge100x]

baR-, our standard game servers are very carefully tended and will have the best performance of any host (us or anyone else) that claims the same specifications.

[.=QUACK=.Major.Pain]

We started with a VDS managed server, and once you get used to the proper steps to adding new game servers, it's very easy to use.

With managed, it probably wouldn't matter which OS you use, but make sure the games you want are compatable. One that we use is America's Army 3 which only runs on windows.

Size of server is dependant on how much of a hog some of these games can be.

We had to change later to a ummanaged VDS server later on, because they don't offer America's Army 3 servers here, which was disappointing. We have found unmanaged Windows server is simple to use. It's like running your home computer remotely, but takes a little time to figure out how to get everything running. We use GameCreate panel which simplifies a lot of it, but it takes a little learning too.

The only issue we have found is that America's Army 3 is such a resource hog, that even on a 4-core system it runs like crap with a lot of lag. We have tried tweaking that game files to reduce as much load, but our guys were so upset about the performance, they have gone to play on other clan servers. So just make sure you have a server that is going to easily handle your requirements and you will have a blast learning the workings of a manged or unmanaged server. It's been a fun learning experience.