VPS upgrading to a Dedicated Server Machine

[lukiuz]

Hello I run a CS:GO community on a 102.4 tickrate with about a constant 40 player load. Now the servers themselves tend to peak a 90-95% CPU usage, and as a result, server sv/var(usually both) tends to get a little out of control. I am using the 3core 4GB ram setup. At the moment, whenever current player count peaks past 32 players, the aforementioned sv and var tend to increase to the point where some players report a modicum of "stuttering." Increased var(frametime) signals that some of the frames are being choked and the server is unable to keep with the demand of user commands(usercmd requests) from all the clients.

I've spoken to quite a few community leaders and their response was usually that source engine cannot effectively handle more than 32 clients above 64 tickrate. Some of the suggestions thus far were to reduce the number of slots, something I cannot compromise on. Another was to reduce the plugin load, but even after removing certain plugins their effect was a marginal 1-5% cpu load difference and zero to no difference on sv/var rates.

In conclusion, I've recently been recommended to try the Dedicated Servers by NFO, and given that I already pay $35*5=$175/mo for the 5 separate VPSs, cost wise it is definitely a better option. The only downside is that each game server hosted from a dedicated server would have a port(27015, 27016, 2701x...etc), whilst currently we enjoy each server having its own ip and making connections easier via DNS servernames... so that aside, could I expect a significant performance increase from a dedicated server, assuming that the performance issues so far were because the VPS cores are shared? I would love to hear from anyone who has made a switch from VPS to a DS or anyone in a similar predicament in the past or present.

[kraze]

Switching to a dedicated server will definitely improve performance, but not because the VDS is shared(they aren't). You'll just be running on bare hardware which remove the small performance ding from being in a virtual environment. The E3s are also generally faster on a per-core basis over the E5s, which we use for our VDS hosting. Switching to a machine can even give you some room left over to run more servers or increase the load of existing servers. Though, you must aim for one of our higher end machines, specifically the E3-1271v3 or E3-1270v5, with the latter being preferred.

As for the IPs. You can always purchase additional IPs so that each game server can have it own port, alternatively, you can just choose managed and each server will get its own IP free of charge (as things currently stand).