Hey everyone, I am going to be building an Dedicated Battlefield2 Game Server, that will be ran constantly. The Server needs to be able to run very smooth with 64 players playing… Which hardware would everyone recommend? Anything special I need to know before I start gathering parts, or is this just going to be a fast computer? Any advice does anyone want to give before the build starts? PS: when the hardware specs, and design have been finalized, I will start an project log, for everyone who wants to follow to do so…
Linux: Minimum specifications for 16 players - Processor: 1.0 GHz and Memory: 256 MB RAM Recommended specifications for 64 players - Processor: Intel Pentium IV or Athlon XP 3.0 GHz or Opteron 64-bit 1.8 GHz and Memory: 1 GB RAM Windows: Minimum specifications for 16 players - Processor: 1.0 GHz and Memory: 384 MB RAM Recommended specifications for 64 players - Processor: Intel Pentium IV or Athlon XP 3.0 GHz and Memory: 1 GB RAM Bandwidth: 2.5 Mbit. Recomended: 5 Mbit these are the early server specs that were released a few weeks ago... doubt they have really changed much
Hey thanks for the Specs. That helps a lot… As far as the AMD A64 X2, I am seriously considering it. But right now I just have down A64 3000+ Here are the system specs:
1. It has to be dedicated, you won't be able to play the game from your server. 2. A cable connection almost for surely won't be able to support 64 players, cable is good, but you'd need a T3-OC line. 3. You won't need a video card for the server (since it won't be outputting the game) 4. You will need much much more ram (2-4 gigs will do) 5. You don't need the soundcard. 6. You don't need that much space in hdds, and should get a raptor drive. I don't think 64 players is very feasible from home, and unless they are implementing some new server software, it'll be extremely hard to run 64 people.
OK, thanks for all the help... Keep it coming. It is much appreciated. Here is the new, updated, system build.
The total in your last one is off.. its 759.98 You forgot to add the second 167 bucks for the second ram kit
LOL, Ya. I saw that after I posted… LOL, I looked at the specs again, and then the price and thought… This cant be right… OK: This is the new system specs (below), as you can see I added a decent graphics card, so that when needed, the server can be used to render scenes.
Just remember,a dedicated server doesnt need crap for graphics; the most basic PCI graphics card would likely work just fine. Keep in mind that if you wanty reliability, you should definitely go with a strong brand name and a stable platform; Opteron 244s dont cost very much nowadays
You will need one hell of a connection for 64 players Any way you need some sort of graphics card, so a cheap low low low end one will do, the one you have picked should do 4gb ram??, 2gb max you are wasting it on any more SDRAM???
As someone previously said, get 2 Opteron 244's and then slap 2GB of ECC DDR in there. Any real Opteron board will have onboard video and sound, so forget either of those. You wont need that much hard drive space at all (1 Raptor would be more than enough, you might be able to argue for 2, but...). Your cable connection wont be anywhere near enough to support 64 players, unless those 64 people happen to be hanging out in your basement. Also, any real reason for a 4U chassis? You could easily make due with a 2U. What are you doing about a power supply BTW?
Alright here's some advice for you, don't get dual processors unless you are going to be using the server for other things while you are running the game server. Unless this game happens to be multithreaded it won't see a performance increase. Just get the fastest processor you can afford. Also you would have to get more expensive memory for an opteron board. I do recomend that you pick up a raptor or two (raid??) so that you have fast access times. Like everyone else says you probably won't be serving that many people on one connection. A way around this would be to get a dsl connection in addition to the cable connection and then use multilink to combine the speeds. You will be most limited on the upload speeds to the clients so you will need to get accounts with fastests one you can afford. Also as previously stated just get a motherboard with integrated video and sound. Hope this helps a little. Edit: Also for those wondering a 4u chasis is usually cheaper and will offer better cooling then a 2u case.
Maxtor has a new line that is performing VERY well. I am using 8 in one of my servers. They are the: Maxtor MaXLine III 7L250S0 250GB 7200 RPM Serial ATA150 Hard Drive (except I run the 300gb ones) You might want to look into that. Also, you will need faster then a cable connection. Not becuase of the download speed or the latency, but becuase the upload speeds are too slow for any real gaming. You would need at least a fragmented oc-3 line.
jw, but i dunno what kinda cable you seem to have, but as most cable providers only offer 40~80KBps upload or 320~620kbps, its saying recomended 2.5mbps required 5.0 reccomended, remeber this is not download speed, this is upload speed, as other people will be downloading information from you, your download speed will most likely be much much higer than the upload speed you have, i would double double check this, before building a uber server?
T1 internet, something with a massive upload. LOADS of ram, like already said: from experience i would go for an intel system cause it handles 4 ram slots filled better, but unless you can find a 865P or 915 with DDR (Abit) then i wouldnt bother - gig sticks of DDR2 are insanely expensive. Like said, you dont need it for gaming performance and hyperthreading should help with the pretty huge IO networking and OS commands as well as the game engine calculations. If i had a faster upload (shitty 256k dsl supports 8-10 players in games tops) id test it out for you with 1 versus 2gigs of ram, cause i only have 512meg sticks here. Ive not used a Venice core and how it handles 4 dimms although it's meant to be much better than the now very old CG clawhammer stepping 4000+ ive got here to test with. You dont need a fast harddisk, just a good hardware network card to take as much IO off the CPU as possible.
