Question about running a server
 

Would I be able to run a server on a cable connection that would be playable or would it be really laggy and have tons of problems? Would the maximum population only be able to be like 50?

Would run just fine on a cable connection, and yes around 50 - 80 max.. Also RAM and Hard Drive speed can help your performance..

Also the type of OS you use.. We run our server on Fedora Core 8, which is nice and fast.

King Mortenson
www.raidaddicts.org

The most important thing for connection speed is upload. If you have cable with 512k bandwidth, you can probably get 60ish on before you start seeing major connection issues. My cable is 10MB down 1MB up and with it, I can hit in the 120 range pretty regularly. Though, anything over 100ish can start showing some sort of connection problems. Mainly just with new connections to the server. I still never see lag on my server. I think lag is mostly from hardware or maybe other things being ran over your internet connection.

And yes, if you can figure it out, Linux is the way to go. Though, Windows is a really good place to start and learn from.