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Old 01-29-2009, 11:36 AM   #1
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I'd like to try and build a dedicated game server. What I'm wondering is if it's worth the time and effort.

Why do I want one? To load games on for the purpose of playing on LAN. To open up the memory etc. on my other computers for things besides games.

Is it worth having a server to do so or would it be just as easy to make one of the computers on my network the server and buy a big external hard drive to house them?

I'm sure I don't know the half of it so just any discussion on what people have done would be helpful.
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Old 01-29-2009, 11:39 AM   #2
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Game servers don't take up a ton of resources, so just making one of the computers on your network a server would probably work well.
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Old 01-29-2009, 11:56 AM   #3
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Game servers don't take up a ton of resources, so just making one of the computers on your network a server would probably work well.
If you do it this way is it more of a sharing files setup. Do you still have to load the game on every computer? Is the strength/speed of the network based on which computer is the server or does a weak link slow the whole thing down. In other words what can I get away with for machines tying into the server.

I have two good computers, one little Linux comp., and a one with everything except a hard drive.

To really set this up do you have to buy games with multiple licenses or is that only when you are taking into consideration online gaming?
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Old 01-29-2009, 12:00 PM   #4
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What kind of games are you planning on installing?

Over a LAN, pretty sure each system you want to play the game on will still require the game files.

On an internal home network, you are likely going to have the same speed across the board but you want to make sure the server has a bit of jam to it. Slow server would = slow games.
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Old 01-29-2009, 12:07 PM   #5
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yeah, i am not sure what games you are wanting to play, but most online games i have ever played still require all the individuals to have the game installed but the server is what runs the actual room. for instance on half life games, everyone needs the files to play half life/counter strike and then there is a server that runs the room everyone connects to. generally the biggest hurdle to having your own server is the bandwidth speed required. but if you are only interested in LAN play thats not an issue. generally you need a good computer, but certainly not anything out of this world. i am sure a solid dual core with a couple gigs of RAM would suffice for the tech aspect. and then you would just need hard drive space that would accommodate whatever games you wanted. i used to have a counter strike server i would run from my home. it can be laggy for people though as most prodivers don't give you enough upload speed to handle all the traffic that is generated. like i said, thats not an issue with LAN though.
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Old 01-29-2009, 12:30 PM   #6
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I have Warcraft(various versions) Starcraft, Half-Life, Total War(various versions), had counterstrike and will have again soon, Battlefield(various versions) etc. and you get the picture( my boys and I like multi-player war/shoot em up games.

Yes I have also been studying how to setup my own Counterstrike server. Perhaps a mod non Steam one.

Still hoping there will be someone who has actually set one up--I love the step by step tutorials LOL.
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Old 01-29-2009, 02:02 PM   #7
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I've made a couple for personal use with a few friends. Each game is different, some allow any person playing to set their machine up as the server. You are talking about setting up a dedicated server, and some of those are just as easy. It all depends on the game.

I just took a look at Rome: Total War and it has a Lan battles setting, so that doesn't sound like a campaign, but I don't have multiple machines to try it.

I know Unreal Tournament (and UT2K4) you could install them as dedicated server on Linux Boxes without too much trouble. And from my little experience, ther hardware requirements weren't too great. With only 3 or 4 players probably almost anything would work since the clients do almost all the heavy lifting (rendering).
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Old 01-29-2009, 02:28 PM   #8
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I've made a couple for personal use with a few friends. Each game is different, some allow any person playing to set their machine up as the server. You are talking about setting up a dedicated server, and some of those are just as easy. It all depends on the game.

I just took a look at Rome: Total War and it has a Lan battles setting, so that doesn't sound like a campaign, but I don't have multiple machines to try it.

I know Unreal Tournament (and UT2K4) you could install them as dedicated server on Linux Boxes without too much trouble. And from my little experience, ther hardware requirements weren't too great. With only 3 or 4 players probably almost anything would work since the clients do almost all the heavy lifting (rendering).
So if the clients are doing the work then I can't really get away with a weak link computer then--weak as in my other two would are very good and I'm thinking the third one would be only average?
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Old 01-29-2009, 02:36 PM   #9
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If you do it this way is it more of a sharing files setup. Do you still have to load the game on every computer? Is the strength/speed of the network based on which computer is the server or does a weak link slow the whole thing down. In other words what can I get away with for machines tying into the server.

I have two good computers, one little Linux comp., and a one with everything except a hard drive.

To really set this up do you have to buy games with multiple licenses or is that only when you are taking into consideration online gaming?
You still have to load the game on each computer.. on this setup it's just one computer would be running as the "server" that each computer would connect to after loading the game.

You can't really do a file sharing type setup as running applications off of a network shared drive is iffy at best.

Strictly speaking you should have as many licenses for each game as there are separate computers playing it at any time. 3 people playing, 3 licenses.

Almost every multiplayer game is made so that you can run a server on the same box that the game is installed, we play lots of multiplayer games at work and we rarely setup a dedicated server, just one person hosts the game server (each game is different but there's always a way to set it up before you actually play the game). And this was with 6-8 people playing at any time.

The only time we setup a dedicated server is when we wanted people outside the network to be able to connect in and had to mess with the firewall.
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Old 01-29-2009, 02:43 PM   #10
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You still have to load the game on each computer.. on this setup it's just one computer would be running as the "server" that each computer would connect to after loading the game.

You can't really do a file sharing type setup as running applications off of a network shared drive is iffy at best.

Strictly speaking you should have as many licenses for each game as there are separate computers playing it at any time. 3 people playing, 3 licenses.

Almost every multiplayer game is made so that you can run a server on the same box that the game is installed, we play lots of multiplayer games at work and we rarely setup a dedicated server, just one person hosts the game server (each game is different but there's always a way to set it up before you actually play the game). And this was with 6-8 people playing at any time.

The only time we setup a dedicated server is when we wanted people outside the network to be able to connect in and had to mess with the firewall.
So if I set up a dedicated server then is the game in effect LAN for those on my network and online for those coming in online? Or is the server online and then broadband speed becomes a big issue? Will it then be lag for those outside the network and faster for those inside?
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Old 01-29-2009, 03:19 PM   #11
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If you set up a Counter strike server PM me the IP please. Good luck!
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Old 01-29-2009, 03:43 PM   #12
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Dedicated or server with just one of the PC's playing the game, you can usually specify if you want it LAN only, or if you want it open to the Internet. Most servers if you don't open a port on your firewall and forward it to the right computer it wouldn't work online anyway.

Broadband speed does become an issue if you are hosting a server for more than a few people coming in over the Internet, each game is different as to how many will work for your connection. So yeah it can become laggy if you have too many people on, usually for everyone not just the external people (but again every game is different).
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