Any plans for an "official" hosting server?

[DominionsFan]

Hm my comp could easily host a Doms 3. server. Dual Xeon processors, 2 GB RAM, 6 mbit DSL line [not capped so its 24 Mbit basically].
The problem is that its not just me whos using the computer, but my girlfriend also. [She is living with me.]
Hm...maybe I will buy her a laptop.

[Daynarr]

Many games will be much smaller then mega games. Actually Esben Mose Hansen had quite outdated PC to act as server for Dom2 and it hosted a good number of games at the same time. Todays PC's could easily handle up to 50 normal games (or even more) as they require only little resources. Memory is probably most important part for PC as CPU is used only for hosting.

Of course, all games should be run in text mode on the server as normal window eats a lot of resources.

[PhilD]

Basically, if we're talking PBEM games and not TCP, the server should not need any more resources to run X games than one - dom3 itself will not be running full time, just while hosting, and even if there are many games running in parallel the server can manage them and only run one instance of dom3 at a time (requires a bit more careful programming, not that terrible).

TCP games are a totally different matter, and the answer will depend a lot on how efficient memory management is in dom3. Will several instances share memory? this kind of question. But I'm not sure how useful a TCP-games server would be.

[Esben Mose Hansen]

I'm having fun writing a file-based (sort of email, but without the email bother) version of my server. It's progressing steadily, going faster as I get more comfortable with ruby and rails.

As for the number of games you can host, expect 256Mb per 5-8 games. RAM is about the only thing that matters. I could run 20 on the my 256Mb server, but that was with 700 Mb of swap.

For my new server version, I expect the number to be basically unlimited.

[DominionsFan]

Esben Mose Hansen said:
I'm having fun writing a file-based (sort of email, but without the email bother) version of my server. It's progressing steadily, going faster as I get more comfortable with ruby and rails.

As for the number of games you can host, expect 256Mb per 5-8 games. RAM is about the only thing that matters. I could run 20 on the my 256Mb server, but that was with 700 Mb of swap.

For my new server version, I expect the number to be basically unlimited.

wow, it seems that doms just dont need too many resources to run. A decent server could be hosted from a laptop with 1 GB of RAM easily. Hm actually I might make available my laptop as a server, since I don't use it too much anymore, and it is a good one with 1 GB RAM. If it will be needed I will make it available for sure.

[Graeme Dice]

PhilD said:
Basically, if we're talking PBEM games and not TCP, the server should not need any more resources to run X games than one - dom3 itself will not be running full time, just while hosting, and even if there are many games running in parallel the server can manage them and only run one instance of dom3 at a time (requires a bit more careful programming, not that terrible).

I had a couple of problems with temporary file collisions destroying games when I was running three Dom II servers at once. If multiple games were processing the turn at the same time, it was possible to end up with the units from one game being transposed into another. Atlantis ended up with their capital above water I believe.

[Will]

It wouldn't be so terrible to have turns processed serially to avoid the file collision problem. The PBW server for SEIV processes games like this, and a quick count shows 90+ games running currently. I'm not sure how DomII and DomIII multiplayer games would work, but as long as it isn't running as a pseudo-TCP/IP game (everyone online and playing at the same time, only sending turns via email instead of TCP/IP) all the time, serial processing shouldn't be a problem. Just set an upper limit on processing time, and require an admin to authorize over-runs for games where it takes longer than that.

If DomIII could be tweaked to prevent temp file collisions (directory for each savegame perhaps, store temp files there?), then you could have a very large number of games running on a modest box, the only thing to work out is the queuing to throttle simultaneous processing of turns, so each instance isn't starved out of processor and memory resources.

That's how I see it anyway. I could be missing something obvious about Dominions multiplayer, having only played the demo for Dom2. I soon plan to be educated with a full copy of Dom3 though

[Graeme Dice]

Tim Brooks said:
Okay. We have questions for those who are 'in the know'...

1. How many games can be hosted by a dedicated server at one time?

I've hosted three games at once in graphical mode on my old 800 MHz PIII with 256 MB of RAM running windows 98 while still using it to play other games. Hosting only takes significant computer resources during turn processing in my experience.

2. How much bandwidth does this take?

I believe that it's only as much as is needed to transfer turn files.

It would be great if Shrapnel ran some kind of official server.

[Gandalf Parker]

I wonder if Dominions would have any problem hosting on a Windows NT server. It could still use scripts to start the games. And it might make management and cleanup easier.