Advantages of Windows 2K8 vs Gentoo Linux

[Peep]

Myself and a friend whom splits my server costs were having a discussion about this. We've been using Linux for awhile and the Red Orchestra 2 beta has been released, and it only supports Windows servers, with no plans to support them when the game launches. There has been no word on whether they will be added later.

We did use Windows for a small time before, to run something that wasn't available on Linux at all. After we no longer needed to run it, we switched back to Linux because Windows was using more memory, and there was nothing we had anymore that couldn't be run on Linux.

So now that this has changed again, and it seems like more and more games are no longer supporting Linux. I've wanted to switch back to be able to host the games I want. He's insisting that I just wait until Linux binaries are released.

So my argument is:

I want to actually run game servers, and will deal with Windows because that's better than not running them at all.

His arguments:

- Windows is slow, when we ran it before, the servers he was running ran much worse, with many spikes and hit detection issues.

- It's way faster to use a command line than it is to operate a GUI

- Windows uses a ton more resources

He also feels he can back this up by the fact that most servers out there are running Linux because of these reasons.


Does anybody know the facts behind this? I'd be willing to stay with Linux and hope binaries are released if what he said are true. The only point he made that I know is correct is the fact that windows uses a bit more resources, but I'd be willing to upgrade to more anyways. I'm also sure he'd be willing to go back to Windows if his points were proven wrong.

And what does NFO use, primarily?

[kraze]

Hi,

I am not the best with server side OS but from my experience most game servers are run on a type of Windows, at least from my perspective. Also it seems that the only reason to run Linux is because of the higher FPS rates you can achieve and the way Linux handles files. They are a lot more I am just not aware of them.

People usually only run Linux if they have a exact reason to, usually not just to run it because it is there. Most games and game plugins,mods, etc.. run better on Windows from what I have seen.

Ya, Windows uses more resources depending, but may actually be better for some games. It also seems that Linux isn't the first choice of devs when releasing games and some games do not support it. I have also seen Linux versions having issues for a long time until the devs got around to fixing them. It really depends on the game you are running and who made it.

However Linux does have it's upsides just like Windows. Like I said above unless you are a specific reason for running Linux then you should be ok to stick with Windows.

As for what NFO uses, we use a combination of both. We have many servers running Windows and Linux. Each have there own reason for being on that type of OS.

[Peep]

Thanks for the reply. We're running Linux atm though, not Windows. If what you say it true, it does seem a switch is in order. As long as Windows doesn't get any lower performance while running L4D2 when properly managed, I should be able to convince him to switch. I'm also interested if there's any way to manage those servers without having to use remote desktop.

I'll wait for more replies before making a decision, though.

[Edge100x]

Win2k8 R2 has some mostly memory overhead from the GUI, in the range of a few hundred megabytes. Apart from that, its performance is pretty much on-par with Linux, and some games (HL1 and Source/Orangebox) even run much better on Windows.

You'd generally need to manage through Remote Desktop, though you could also install an FTP server.

[Peep]

Thanks for the reply.

I have to ask though, what makes Source games run so much better on Windows?

[Edge100x]

It likely relates to all of the timing-related syscalls that they make. L4D2 doesn't perform as many, which may be why it seems to run well on Linux. But, we're not really sure.