The requirements of running a server.

[Slayden]

Greetings,
I've created this post to ask of those whom have experience (little or great) on running a server. I would greatly appreciate it if i could get an tips and good info on what they highly suggest.
My brother and i have decided to actually build a comp from scratch, almost specifically for doing this.
Any suggestions would be great from the computer itself, programs/connections, or just anything at all that you could suggest to help make this server one of, or the best.
I want to learn from those of you with first hand experience.
Thank you,
-Slayden.
^

[Slayden]

Bump

[a_Guest03]

Zone servers need lots of ram... LOTS of ram. Fast CPU is okay, but LOTS of ram.

Did I mention that you should focus on ram for your zone server?

[IADestavator]

Thats why i use a "Real" server with 32GB RAM ,-)

[Merth]

The first bottleneck is probably ram. Each zone handler for me consumed up to 20-25 mb of ram. So to have 20 zones up, you would require ~450mb ram.

The next bottleneck for me was CPU. One of my servers is a p4 1.6ghz. With all faction turned OFF, it could handle about 25 or so users before things began to get laggy. This is just a pure zone handler machine, with the database and world server on a different machine. My p3 500 could handle about 15 users before things got laggy.

The final suspected bottleneck for me was bandwidth - although I'm not entirely convinced. I use comcast broadband, so I'm told it is 256k upstream. At about 40 total users, things would start to get laggy.

[Slayden]

awsome thanks guys

[rek075]

So each user requires about 6.4 kbps of a server's upload bandwidth? Just curious how many users I can get connected on a cable modem connection.

[Merth]

So each user requires about 6.4 kbps of a server's upload bandwidth?

Appears to be the case - roughly speaking.

But there are many factors that contribute to a laggy server, and I could be wrong in thinking the lagginess was due to lack of bandwidth. How does one measure bandwidth usage in real time?

[Roadkill]

Holy crap, you mean I CAN run a decent server even with a 256kbps upload cap? I was under the impression that only a very small handful of people could play on the server because of that cap.

Wow, I might just start working on my database again.

If I could get the Athlon 1900+ to run without requiring an air conditioner to prevent it's continous overheating, I could split the zone servers up between the P4 1.6 and the Athlon (both have 512 RAM).

I should move the MySQL database from the old Linux machine over to the newer FreeBSD machine though (PII-266, IDE harddrive). I bet that old SCSI-1, two 5-1/4 bay high, half the case deep harddrive that beast of a Linux machine is running is slowing down the SQL results

[SuprSurfr]

I am running 2003 server, Dual Pentium III 1.2Ghz processors and 1gig of ram.

[Slayer02]

So does that mean with a pentium 3.06 GHz (with hyper threading)
1GB 333Mhz DDR Ram, etc, etc I could host anywhere from 20 - 40 people? (Btw I have a cable connection, roadrunner, don't know what the cap is though or if it is capped.)

[Slayden]

Supr- how smoothly does your server run with that?

with Supr, the only bottleneck would then be bandwidth...

[Slayden]

whats a good bandwidth?

I'd say that at least 7kbs upload capable for each user connecting...