Separate game servers faster than dedicated servers?

[nbtc971]

My clan, currently with Gameservers, is very serious about renting our own, managed dedicated server around the time BF3 comes out. I was already pretty much sold on the idea when I noticed this in your dedicated server FAQ on this forum:

- Don't allow you to run servers that are quite as fast as NFO's separately-sold game servers.

Is that suggesting that dedicated servers might experience more lag than a separately-sold game server? Does it mean that the hardware my clan would rent would be not as good and therefore more likely to lag in-game?

My thought process was, lets get out of the shared environment and create the most lag-free gaming servers we can so that our servers are top notch. However this comment makes me think we'd be better off not bothering with a more expensive dedicated server as our main goal was to limit lag. I figured we'd know how many game servers would be on our dedicated and we'd be able to better control the load, but now I'm not so sure.

I would think the main selling point to a dedicated server was performance.

[nbtc971]

Do questions get answered here or do I need to take this somewhere else?

[kraze]

Sorry for the delayed response. It has been some what of a busy day.

That is suggesting that here at NFO servers we employ some company secrets and OS tweaks to achieve the fastest and smoothest game play possible. Usually when a customer rents a dedicated or VDS server they are left to do that.

Along with this we are constantly upgrading our old hardware and replacing it with top of line equipment. Dedicated servers and VDS are usually exempt to these upgrades.

VDS also have some Virtualization over head which can cause a tad bit of performance loss.

However most of this can all be avoided if you were to purchase a managed machine.

You can read more about how managed and un managed machines work here;
http://www.nfoservers.com/forums/viewto ... =51&t=4559
http://www.nfoservers.com/forums/viewto ... =51&t=5358
http://www.nfoservers.com/forums/viewto ... =51&t=4561
http://www.nfoservers.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=48

[nbtc971]

Our interest was in a managed dedicated not only for the support, but because we will be putting Battlefield games on the server mostly. Would a managed dedicated receive those tweaks you are mentioning and in addition, if new hardware became available, would we be able to upgrade or would we have to move to a new server to get those benefits? And one final question, if we had to move to another server to receive hardware upgrades, would we be able to keep our IP's so that gamers wouldn't lose our server in their favorites list?

[Edge100x]

Managed dedicated servers are run the same way that our regular shared game server-hosting machines are, with all the same tweaks. The only real differences are that you control how much CPU and memory you allow to be used, and there is no load-balancing between dedicated machines. This is why we can't guarantee that they will have the very highest performance (as we can with our shared servers).

You can potentially order a new machine later as an upgrade and have servers transferred to it, along with all of those servers' files and IPs, though I haven't seen a customer do this yet. BC2 saves favorites by the server's GUID instead of its IP, and I expect BF3 to be the same way; GUIDs would also be transferred.

In considering a dedicated server for BF3, please note that there will also be an additional per-slot fee that you will need to budget for. We talk about this here: http://www.nfoservers.com/forums/viewto ... =51&t=5705

[kraze]

Our interest was in a managed dedicated not only for the support, but because we will be putting Battlefield games on the server mostly. Would a managed dedicated receive those tweaks you are mentioning and in addition, if new hardware became available, would we be able to upgrade or would we have to move to a new server to get those benefits? And one final question, if we had to move to another server to receive hardware upgrades, would we be able to keep our IP's so that gamers wouldn't lose our server in their favorites list?

Hi,

Yes a managed machine would receive most of those benefits. A dedicated machine is just about exempt from special upgrades. It is possible, but that is something you would need to work out with John as it requires him buying it and then having the data center install it, which also cost money.

A VDS machine can be moved in some cases to a faster machine at it's location but it really depends whats free in that location. If you to move a machine all files and IP's would go with it, assuming it is a managed machine.

Usually when people look in to purchasing VDS or dedicated machines they are doing this because they know what they want and what they are getting. If you were to purchase a VDS I would say do it because you need it and not on the assumption you can be put on a faster machine is one becomes available, as usually this is not the case.

[nbtc971]

I understand the answers and thanks.

To clarify to kraze, we are looking at getting a managed dedicated which I believe is different from VDS correct? VDS is virtual, we want the dedicated so that we are in no way sharing our server with other groups.

In addition, I had seen the post about the extra fee, I guess I will have to see how much its going to be before a final decision is made.

Thanks.

[kraze]

Yes the VDS is different from a dedicated machine. I just wanted to cover all bases.

[nbtc971]

After reading all of the threads posted above, it sounds like the absolute best performance is with the regular game servers you offer, not dedicated or VDS. However if we were to purchase a dedicated, managed server and only put, say 5 game servers on it, 2 64 slot, 2 32 slot and a 16 slot, all BF3 servers, wouldn't we most likely be under what would be considered a cap on CPU and memory for the game servers to run well?

And I promise.. no more questions tonight. I'll be going out with the wife soon.

[kraze]

It all truly depends on the set up. CPU and memory usage varies a lot depending on server type and configuration along with player count. I am not aware of BF3 and the resources usage but it is supposed to be higher then BC2.

Your best bet is to watch the usage and see if you see any problems.

[Edge100x]

With a dedicated machine, the cap would just be the machine's resources. You could underload or overload the machine if you wished.

With several servers, I'd probably go with a dedicated machine, personally. The performance will be just as good as with a shared server as long as you keep the CPU usage under 40% or so, and it's really nice being able to create and destroy servers at will and to have the additional controls that we give managed server customers. You should also save money with that configuration, especially if not all of the servers will be busy at once.

[nbtc971]

Yes.. we would under load the server most definitely. Of course I would hope we could fill all of our servers all of the time, but that probably won't happen. Right now we have two fairly popular 32 slot servers for BC2 but even with 2 popular 64 slot servers for BF3 you are only looking at 128-200 players at a time taking into account the other servers and those possibly being full.

Again, thanks for the information and the advice. Will almost definitely be making a purchase before Oct 25st.

[nbtc971]

Got another question..

I see that you have 2 E3-1270 server setups one with a 160GB SSD. I would like to get that setup however I'm worried about the lack of disk space. We will mostly be running Battlefield 3 servers, how big is the server software most likely and would we run out of room fast?

[Edge100x]

I'd recommend the machine with the regular hard drive for BF3 (and nearly all other game servers -- Minecraft being the notable exception), simply because the hard drive is so rarely used. Level loads and logfile writes are pretty much it, and those levels will likely end up being entirely cached in RAM for you.

With either configuration, you won't have to worry about running out of space. I can't imagine BF3 being more than even 20 GB on the server side, and because we hardlink our files, you'd only need that base amount of space, regardless of the number of servers you run. Logs would be on top of this, but logs are very small.

[nbtc971]

Thanks for the info.