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BZFlag Hosting - www.xgenservers.com

Posted: Sat Apr 08, 2006 12:15 am
by xgenjon
Hello,

We are currently under development but we want to have BZFlag as one of the games to host, however we have found no other hosters that host the game, thus we cant determine the following:

How much aprx bandwidth does BZFlag consume?
How much CPU does BZFlag consume?
What is the max players on a single server BZFlag can have?
What would a reccomended price be per slot (or players aloud)?

Thanks,
Jonathon

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X-Gen Servers
www.xgenservers.com

Posted: Sat Apr 08, 2006 12:21 am
by A Meteorite
Bandwidth is about 4 kilobytes (32 kilobits) per second per player.

CPU is usually under one percent.

The maximum is 200 players, but most don't go over 40.

Price per slot... well, it depends... I think $1-2/slot might be reasonable. Or $99 flat-rate for all you can get.

Posted: Sat Apr 08, 2006 1:00 am
by pyr0
i agree with AM... it makes sense at 1-2 per slot, 1 is much better. it does suck to know that for a server, you need to either host it at your place or elsewhere... and elsewhere is costly... i wanted to get hosting at a good ircshell company i used, they wanted 2 per slot and it was absurd because i knew i wouldnt use that much bandwidth as a CS server would...

Posted: Sat Apr 08, 2006 1:05 am
by xgenjon
Pricing is going to be set at 1.25 a slot. Thanks for your support, ill be sending both of you two a discount code.

one question..

Posted: Sat Apr 08, 2006 1:42 am
by Durf
one thing...im kinda new and im staring a server. im wondering if its hosted and up and running can i make changes to it without any cost?

Posted: Sat Apr 08, 2006 1:44 am
by xgenjon
Yes, you can make changes to any of the configs and we have live techincal support to answer or aid you in any configuring questions you may have.

ok cool

Posted: Sat Apr 08, 2006 1:47 am
by Durf
sweet, thank you soo much. now im soooo interested in this. gotta hurry to get my server done. :D

Posted: Sat Apr 08, 2006 3:03 am
by DJ Atomica
WOAH! That's awesome! And didn't XGen studios make Defend Your Castle and Stick Arena (the two greatest stick games ever)?

Posted: Sat Apr 08, 2006 6:36 am
by QuantumBeep
Let me tell you what I'm experiencing right now, using the server I host with

Specs:
Celeron D 2.53
512M RAM
80 GB Hard drive
100 megabit pipe into the internet
1000 GB monthly bandwidth

This costs me $100 a month, through Aplus.net

Right now, I host pretty much all of the Planet Mofo servers, plus several others. The most players we have ever hosted at once is probably 50 or so. We've never had lag problems whatsoever.

In the past 30 days, my bandwidth usage has been just over 80 gigabytes. We're running at 8% of quota.

I have never seen the CPU spike above 5% while hosting.

Right now, I have a rather large number of people with user accounts on my server, hosting games. I do not charge for this. If I chose to ask for donations, It'd be to the tune of "just enough to pay for the service".

If you ask for a couple dollars to host a game, I'd say you just might get enough users to pay half of your bill, provided you use a service equal to or cheaper than mine. Making a profit is entirely out of the question.

Bear in mind that I may in the future offer accounts to everyone. If that happens, I'm going to ruin your business. I doubt you can offer anything I can't. Not to one-up you or something, but don't sue me later if I choose to do that.

Posted: Sat Apr 08, 2006 9:08 am
by xgenjon
Thats good, but we arnt using celerons to host our services. However, I am glad someone would host people for free just to lend a helping hand. I would be glad to list you as an affiliate to X-Gen and help in any way I can, I wish you luck, as I too know how hard it is to maintain servers.

Posted: Sat Apr 08, 2006 9:14 am
by QuantumBeep
Yeah, considering we're at about 5% processor usage during our largest spikes, I think using a good Dual Opteron would be necessary to give our users the best experience possible. Just in case we suddenly find the need to host 4000 players on short notice.

Posted: Sat Apr 08, 2006 11:11 am
by Scorch
We have to PAY to play? wow, is bz going downhill...

Posted: Sat Apr 08, 2006 12:35 pm
by DJ Atomica
Scorch, you have to pay to have a server from them. It's like "renting" the server. If you play BattleField 2 you have to pay to rent servers, too.

Posted: Sat Apr 08, 2006 4:09 pm
by Scorch
Oh i get it, I thought you meant client player slots.

Posted: Sat Apr 08, 2006 4:16 pm
by JeffM
they are charging per slot on the server, because more slots use more bandwith. so if you want a server with 10 players you pay 10 times the per slot price. It's a common method of pricing with dedicated game hosting.

all they are charging for is hosting and the service of setting it up. All existing servers cost there owners some money now.

Posted: Sat Apr 08, 2006 5:00 pm
by RPG
QuantumBeep
You have good total bandwith / CPU usage, but what about your network speed? What do you get up/down max on that server? (as speed would probably be the first thing you'd need to upgrade if you went for more people)

Posted: Sat Apr 08, 2006 5:04 pm
by A Meteorite
QuantumBeep
I just hope you can pay for it for awhile to come... (a couple years would be nice) :)

Posted: Sat Apr 08, 2006 5:05 pm
by L4m3r
A Meteorite wrote:Bandwidth is about 4 kilobytes (32 kilobits) per second per player.
IIRC that's only true for downstream. The upstream is (4n)^2, because the server has to send out the data for all the players, to all the players. This is what makes upstream so important, and why in many cases DSL can host more players than cable. :)

not up on gaming lingo

Posted: Sat Apr 08, 2006 6:11 pm
by tadd
I'm not up on gaming lingo. I have a Mac Mini G4 at an ISP that has intermittent lag=300ms Problems. I am contemplating paying for a good server location.
Are you talking $1.25*maxplayers/ month? i.e. if I have a game that has a max of 40 players my cost is $50/month?

I am looking for a host and would pay for it but for $50/month I can put my Mac Mini in very well connected ISPs and have room to host a dozen bzfs instances each with 40 user max.

Right now I'm not paying anything for my host because the ISP is owned by a friend of mine but it has the intermittent lag issues.

Please advise.

Tadd
owner operator mapmaker of gmwar

Posted: Sat Apr 08, 2006 6:41 pm
by QuantumBeep
To clarify, my pipe directly into the internet is 100 megabits. That's my connection into the routers at Aplus.net, and Aplus's connection is faster than that.

Posted: Sun Apr 09, 2006 2:23 am
by pyr0
so QB, when you plannin to start doin some hosting :) i at least know of you, ive never heard of the xgen guy, so it wouldnt be too hard a choice (given, if he offers 1.25 and you offer 3, its still kinda obvious who im goin to in that case :) but i know youd go less then whatever he charges, hint hint)

War of the prices, not quite a flame war of OSs, but its good enough for me :D


off i go to save the day
-pyr0