Game Servers
 

Has there been any more discussion on setting up an "official" on non-official game servers?

I would be curious how many games a decent server could handle. Drop in a cheaper Athlon 64bit chip and 4GB of memory and see how many games it can handle reliably. Could it do 50? 100? More?

I'd be willing to pay a one time $10 fee or similar for the ability to host my own game on a server and control the settings. I'm running one on my media server at home now, but my IP address is constantly changing. Not a big deal for 1v1 duel, but if I wanted to host a larger game it would be a real pain.

It would be awesome if shrapnel would set something up like this. However if they aren't I'd be willing to contribue funds to someone that will take it on (hint hint Gandalf or Esben) particuraly if by contributing you are buying a "share" in the server to host the games you want with the mods you want.

Re: Game Servers
 

I am starting my prayers so shrapnel will provide such a server... of course, so my prayers will be listened I don't mind some donations...

Re: Game Servers
 

There are free web services that will give you a fixed name for your dynamic dns. It's very easy. Here's one that i have used- www.dyndns.com

Re: Game Servers
 

Thanks Tyrant I will look into that.

I'd still love to see some kind of official server so I don't have to be the one to make sure its running or some outtage to my consumer level broadband holds up a game for a large length of time.

I know there was some discussion shortly before Dom3 was released. I'm not sure where it went or if the cost were to large... I'm curious how many people would be willing to drop a few $ to help get the ball rolling if the "cost" was a large factor in it not happening.

Re: Game Servers
 

If anyone feels like donating 1000-1500$ for a new PC, I'll gladly retire my current PC and use it as a server http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
EDIT:
Actually, my current PC will go to my dad, his old PC will be the server http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Game Servers
 

It actually doesnt take much PC to run quite a few games. Most peoples old retired desktop can replace your ISPs servers quite nicely. If you go and buy a server, all you really have to request is a powerful CPU and lots of memory. Everything else can be the minimum they will put in the machine ( cheapest crapiest versions of sound, graphics, hard drive, network card, etc etc) and no operating system.

As I remember, the conversation that you refer to came to a crawl when it was asked if anyone would volunteer to help run the server.

Re: Game Servers
 

I imagine memory would be the biggest item needed to host a lot of games. Over 99% of the time a game isn't doing anything but waiting for the turn submissions.

Have you run any test Gandalf to see just how many can be run? If we really could get several hundred onto one machine it would certainly be a lot easier to keep that one running reliably and well, compared to 20 machines each running 10 games.

Finding administrators for the server is definitely a challenge. I'm far more likely to commit some money compared to my time. I'm curious though... looking at the solution Esben created, how much time did it really take him to manage things once they were setup?

If an admin was created to allow the "owner" of the game to restart it... or do basic file manipulation (if necassary) maybe it could be mostly self managed.

Re: Game Servers
 

In fact, 2 people with different OS preferences volunteered (Cainehill-Linux and me-W2K/XP), but nothing was heard about it any more after that ... .


Btw., I wonder if the graphicless Dom server runs with ReactOS already.
Someday I'll have to set up a 3rd machine and try that out ... .

Re: Game Servers
 

I havent done any real tests. I cant bring myself to run JUST dominions on a server. I have two servers.

One old junky one that runs a large MUD named Shadowdale. And also runs about a dozen small blitz games of Dom3. It also does a bunch of cron work (generating maps and such)

The hot new server is running web service for a dozen domains, and email for about a hundred users. Plus many other services (ftp, irc, etc). There are 5 large Dom3 games running there. Three them are 1500 provinces and 79 nations.

Both machines would be put to shame by any new desktop anyone has gotten in the last year.

Re: Game Servers
 

Unless it's changed from dom2, RAM is the major bottleneck. As I recall, 20 games took about 500Mb or so. Of course, most of that is never used, so a huge swappartition helps.

Re: Game Servers
 

Hmm..., that is actually encouraging. That would scale to 160 games with 4GB of memory (plus whatever you setup with the swap).

Re: Game Servers
 

Johan made some incredible improvements in the way the game handles memory. But then again, the maximums for the game all went up so it might have balanced out.

It should also be noted that these numbers tend to reflect text-mode/direct-connect. It cuts by at LEAST a factor of 10 if you try to run everything in gui menus. And in windows you lose many options. Also if you go pbem or ftp upload then the number of games goes way up (running dom3 only long enough to host, and not hosting them all at the same time)

Re: Game Servers
 

I am planning to do it, I just haven't gotten organized with my linux host yet. I should probably retire it and replace it with my obsolete desktop, but I don't want to because the obsolete desktop is loud and the positively ancient linux server is not http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

I never had any luck hosting with commandline in dom2... hope it works better in dom3. I could never successfully create new games, the settings always came out wrong, once they were started graphically they worked fine, though.

Re: Game Servers
 

The switches for Dom2 were hard to get used to. But its gotten much better with Dom3 but at the same time adding many more of them. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

I will post a note about that in the linux hosting thread.


Linux Hosting

Re: Game Servers
 

The problem I always had was that the game insisted on using victory points, no matter what I used for commandline switches. My workaround was just to create games graphically, then switch them to text mode for hosting. This was fine, for me, since I wasn't running an automated server. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Game Servers
 

Bump to keep this in peoples minds.

Having a reliable server to host multiplayer games on would be a HUGE boon for the community.

Re: Game Servers
 

Another bump.

This isn't something I have the time or experience to setup. It IS something that I would donate money to.

Every multi player game I have played with Dom3 has had numerous server problems leading to days or even weeks without the ability to take a turn.

It is very disappointing when you are planning a bit of enjoyment later in the day (when a new turn should be available) and get the sad no connection screen.

It would be AWESOME to have a reliably server with a fixed IP properly hosted (vs. being run at someones home and prone to many types of failure).

Re: Game Servers
 

Yeah that would be pretty sweet. Has anyone volunteered?