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Hardware requirements for dedicated server

Started by h106frp, July 20, 2015, 08:12:43 AM

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h106frp

Just curious, but what are the hardware requirements for a dedicated server? What sort of processor/network/disc/memory loads do you see whilst hosting on a given system.

Seen a lot of discussion of configuration, but not much on hardware.

I guess you do not need any fancy graphics hardware but how much computation load is on the processor or is this off loaded to the clients and just 'managed/routed' by the server or is it having to process the physics data of all clients? This would seem to be the big one for Host performance requirement.

I guess you could run a headless system managed from another PC to reduce costs and clutter.

I guess a 'proper' add on network card is a must have.

Does GPB support multi-core processors? Do they help at all?

Just wondering whether we are talking i7 or NUC type levels of performance

teeds

I've not tested much with lots of players but never seen my 4 year old i5 laptop pushed at all when 6 ish players are on, Nick may have some better stats with more players involved. I'd imagine the internet speed would be more of a concern when the numbers increase. I use a cable at all times with such things.

HornetMaX

I'd suspect the most important thing for a server would be the network bandwidth, both upload and download.

Anyway, best person to ask this to: our server master, dibu :)

MaX.

h106frp

July 20, 2015, 09:58:36 AM #3 Last Edit: July 20, 2015, 10:10:24 AM by h106frp
I am just wondering, if a low power i.e. low noise/power and small 'mini pc' can be used as a dedicated server then i might set one up. Just need some idea of what the basic processing requirements would be. A simple box with no monitor/mouse/keyboard, a single small SSD or uSSD and a basic processor would be cheap, economical and unobtrusive to run.

What would be the best firewall solution?

Something like a 'track day' server and run the bikeMOD pack and some of the more unusual tracks, probably the UK ones for a bit of mindless fun.

If you do not need powerful graphics and the processor load is fairly low then plenty of very low cost options exist. I have decent broadband with low ping so i do not think that would be a problem. Upload bandwidth might be an issue as its typically 1/10th of the download bandwidth with my ISP without a special contract.

Just looking and an AMD FM2 system 'box' could be set up very cheaply  :) but are you better with high clocks or more cores etc


HornetMaX

Quote from: h106frp on July 20, 2015, 09:58:36 AM
I have decent broadband with low ping so i do not think that would be a problem. Upload bandwidth might be an issue as its typically 1/10th of the download bandwidth with my ISP without a special contract.
That will be the main problem IMO. Could work if you're on optical fiber though.

Else, let a true dedicated server do the job (typically they have good network).

MaX.

h106frp

Currently i am on fibre 30M down 3M up, pretty steady connection and decent server ping. The default 1/10th up is a pain though as upping the download significantly has very limited impact on the upload speed.

I was just thinking that i do not see many servers listed, only 3 or 4 generally, 2 of these are Victoria (limited bike selection) and the other 2 are usually race practice sessions - am i missing something?. Be nice to have some 'fun' servers for fooling around on with the MOD packs and a few other bikes circulating.

HornetMaX

Quote from: h106frp on July 20, 2015, 10:41:44 AM
I was just thinking that i do not see many servers listed, only 3 or 4 generally, 2 of these are Victoria (limited bike selection) and the other 2 are usually race practice sessions - am i missing something?.
All the servers are listed here: http://stats.gp-bikes.com/servers.php?sort=name

Likely, you're missing tracks.

MaX.

LOOPATELI

I've been testing a server using a pc with at least 10 years (512 of ram ddr), a crap of pc, and it does his job quite well. max riders online were 8 i think and no lags no high pings, the crashes look good (no bikes flying weird on crashes).
As max says the thing here is the connection you have. In my case 300 down 30 up.

h106frp

July 20, 2015, 12:02:05 PM #8 Last Edit: July 20, 2015, 06:08:02 PM by h106frp
Thanks for linking that; Its mainly tracks i have not downloaded :(  I will try testing on a few and see which ones are fun to ride with the bike choices available.

Thanks Loopateli, it seems that from a hardware point of view pretty much anything would work. I have some old PC stuff from gaming rigs mainly old Q6600 stuff which is power hungry and noisy compared to modern processors.

Compared to 10 year old stuff it seems a low end AMD A series might be a good contender or even possibly an E series or old laptop.

It would be interesting to see a log of network load when hosting a session. 300/30 is very high, 150/15 is probably top end in the UK and most people i know struggle to get the high end packages to deliver that bandwidth reliably.

The fact that the processing of the data is not loading up an older PC might suggest that not a lot of data is actually moving around and the bulk physics processing is on the clients. A reliable ping might be more important.

One thought, do you need a second license key for the server?

HornetMaX

Quote from: h106frp on July 20, 2015, 12:02:05 PM
One thought, do you need a second license key for the server?
No, you don't even need one license to host a server (but you do need one to connect to a server).

MaX.

h106frp

I would really appreciate if one of the current hosts could run the network traffic monitor for a while whilst hosting a few riders and post the result. I am really curious as to what level of traffic the game actually generates.

Great that hosting is license free  8)

Napalm Nick

Will do it during Race 2 on Thursday if no-one cracks it off by then H
"The post you are writing has been written at least ten times already in the last 15ish years. Its already been reported, suggested, discussed, ignored or archived (but mostly ignored). Why are you doing it again?"

h106frp


dibu

Quote from: Napalm Nick on July 20, 2015, 07:23:26 PM
Will do it during Race 2 on Thursday if no-one cracks it off by then H
Yes please do it, I've only values of the previous beta. ;)


Here the upload values which I found in my notes.
Very important: the ping has to stay stable and low at all loads.

Upload speed:
Players    used by game (peak)     recommended for beeing 100% safe    
10 player       - 1,0 MBit/s      -   1,5 MBit/s
16 players - 2,0 MBit/s -   3,0 MBit/s
20 players - 3,0 MBit/s -   5,0 MBit/s


Download (peak): 30%-50% of upload.

h106frp

Thanks dibu,

The host certainly does put quite a strain on upload speed then but with a basic UK fibre broadband package hosting 10 players does seem quite realistic. Anyone with a decent 100/10 MBit package could attempt host a full session.
The high download speeds available with most packages packages do not seem very useful in this instance.

The high upload and low download does seem to suggest the server is doing most of the game data processing. I was hoping that the heavy data processing for each bike would be on its client end and the server just passed each bikes 'pose' and position data between clients with only race management and collision detection as overheads.

@LOOPATELI, could you post the processor spec. of the 'old' PC you have been using just as a base level guide.

Thanks.  :)