Gaming Server

Joes2Silly · Post by **Joes2Silly** » Wed Sep 06, 2006 7:25 pm

Well, I want to make/turn a computer into a server for network gaming and I need to know what the specs should be and If it can be a desktop PC riged up as a server

sam fisher · Post by **sam fisher** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 12:29 am

First and formost a server needs two things:

RAM and CPU

copulate the GFX card etc, that doesn't matter.

Post by **Skyone** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 12:36 am

You might want to get a dual-CPU mobo or get a dual/quad core CPU. Also make sure your ethernet on the motherboard allows 10/100/1000 Mbps support, just in case you have a T1/T3 connection.

sam fisher · Post by **sam fisher** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 12:38 am

Yep, you could use desktop but it would be better to use a server mobo as its designed for a server. This also means that as its larger and can use a larger case it can have a crap load of HDD's.

Post by **Skyone** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 12:42 am

Right, if you want, joe, and can whip up a server for you (find some nice parts).

CPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6819103751
Motherboard: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813186098
RAM: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820231065
HDD: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822145087 (Buy as many as needed)
DVD-RW: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6827131031 (Buy as many as wanted)
VIDEO CARD: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814121018

Not including case, or cooling of course. I suggest water cooling, very nice water cooling.

Post by **bicostp** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 11:15 am

You could rig up a desktop PC as a server, but you can get more bang for your buck with a server motherboard.

If this is just going to be a dedicated server (nobody playing games on it), don't bother with a fancy graphics card. You'll probably run it headless anyways (no monitor). It's best to just let it be a server anyways, so it does all its processing as a server without worrying about keeping up in a game.

Gigabit won't really do you any good unless all the other hardware supports gigabit. If there is a client PC that only has 100TX, it will only work at 100TX speeds. Same goes for your switch/router. Don't go with a cheap little thing, get a Linksys or a Netgear gigabit box.

Of course you should put it to use outside of just being a game server. Stick a couple big hard drives in there and use it to serve large media files. (Use FTP, not Windows's silly file sharing. It's much faster.) You could even use remote desktop to stream the files over the network with VLC media player! (The remote desktop thing would just let you access its local files and the VLC controls)

A good server will last you a while if you don't buy cheap junk, and can do a lot of stuff if you set it up right.

Post by **Sparkfist** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 11:28 am

A friend of mine bought a Dell and uses that as both his desktop and a server. I don't know if anyone here knows what Red Moon is but that's what he hosts on his server. The specs on both the game and his server are not very high or demanding.

I'd have to say if you're going to have an older game hosted you can get away with 512MB DDR ram, a 3.5GHz Pentium 4 CPU and 200GB hard drive. If it's a new yeah I'm going to agree that you need dual core CPU, and best to have at the very least (no less then) 1GB ram, and yeah most games in the past few years would require 300GB or more of storage.

Joes2Silly · Post by **Joes2Silly** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 3:09 pm

The only problem is, I dont realy have a lot of money to spend on it, and I was going to try to work with a older computer with 256 MB of ram (need more) and I was going to put a 700 Mhz P3 in iy and Overclock it to 800 Mhz. What should I do

PS It was mostly going to be a Civ4 Server with the exception of a few FPS games

Post by **Sparkfist** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 3:50 pm

Well I don't know about Intel Pentium III but you could try getting a nice big heat sink (if not water cool) and over clock it to 1Ghz. Again I have to say if the game you want to host isn't demanding on a client unit, like it doesn't need more then 96MB of ram you can use that I would guess. However if you really want something for FPS you'll have to buy a new computer, there's really no way to get that computer you have now to crunch the kind of numbers you'd need.

totokan · Post by **totokan** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 5:46 pm

I use my pc as a dedicated server in UT2004, it's only 1.5ghz P4, 384mb ram, 30 gig HD. It's a cheap VAIO, I'm on it most of the time I'm not on my normal PC.

sam fisher · Post by **sam fisher** » Fri Sep 08, 2006 12:49 am

Sparkfist wrote:Well I don't know about Intel Pentium III but you could try getting a nice big heat sink (if not water cool) and over clock it to 1Ghz. Again I have to say if the game you want to host isn't demanding on a client unit, like it doesn't need more then 96MB of ram you can use that I would guess. However if you really want something for FPS you'll have to buy a new computer, there's really no way to get that computer you have now to crunch the kind of numbers you'd need.

Actually, it can. Hell my P3 600mhs works fine for most games.

Ness · Post by **Ness** » Fri Sep 08, 2006 7:46 am

Joes2Silly wrote:The only problem is, I dont realy have a lot of money to spend on it, and I was going to try to work with a older computer with 256 MB of ram (need more) and I was going to put a 700 Mhz P3 in iy and Overclock it to 800 Mhz. What should I do

PS It was mostly going to be a Civ4 Server with the exception of a few FPS games

That'll work fine. IMO however, don't overclock it, and upgrade it to 1GB of RAM. Videocard, just get a 32mb card off of ebay just to view what you are doing. Just be careful on the FPS game you want to have as a server because remember, some games require that you can run that game on the PC that's going to be the server. If its old games like Quake3 and counter-strike or unreal tournament (original), then you are good. You can usually locate a program too that'll make a server for that game without having to load it up (e.g. Battlefield 2).