Official forums for BZFlag.org

For a bigger project, I plan to setup a server to host multiple maps.

Im not new to bzflag (playing it for several years now) and hosted server for other games too. But because of the importance of this project - in another context - I need a little help with calculating the needs.

Can some server owner tell me, what kind of server they use and how much maps they host?

Id like to know:

CPU-Type/ Speed
RAM
kind of server (root/ dedicated, vserver,..)
count of maps (with playerslots)

Im not sure if it will be one big, dedicated server (quadcore, 8 GB), where i host the maps directly, or in virtual machines ( 3 or 4 maps in a VM), or if I will use 3 or 4 small servers instead. That will depend from the input I get (here) and some other things, like backup-strategy and server-security.

Thanx

• how much maps they host?

-10-15

• CPU-Type/ Speed

-Intel Bi-Xeon 5110
-2x 250 Go SATA (hardware raid)
-Bandwidth: 25 Mbps
-Debian Etch

• RAM

-2 Go

• kind of server (root/ dedicated, vserver,..)

-dedicated

• count of maps (with playerslots)

-10-15 / i guess 100-150 slots

• Im not sure if it will be one big, dedicated server (quadcore, 8 GB), where i host the maps directly, or in virtual machines ( 3 or 4 maps in a VM), or if I will use 3 or 4 small servers instead. That will depend from the input I get (here) and some other things, like backup-strategy and server-security.

-use one big dedicated server!

and think it over if there is really a need for a new server!!!!
so many already running and offering hosting and so little used!
is it worth the money???

anyway ::: good luck ... zaph

you'll run out of bandwith before you run out of CPU/ram. The bzflag server doesn't do much.

im using a virtual server (vServer) with the following:
500 MHz (50% of one Core)
256 to 768 MB RAM
Debian 64Bit (Linux)

it was fine with up to 6 bzfs running and two of them being played with ~10 players.

a member of my clan is running a 200 MHz vServer with around 12 bzfs running and he says its fine, too.

With a QuadCore and 8 GB of RAM you will be able tu run more than 50 bzfs i guess! But this would be waste!

Cobra_Fast wrote:im using a virtual server (vServer) with the following:
500 MHz (50% of one Core)
256 to 768 MB RAM
Debian 64Bit (Linux)

it was fine with up to 6 bzfs running and two of them being played with ~10 players.

a member of my clan is running a 200 MHz vServer with around 12 bzfs running and he says its fine, too.

With a QuadCore and 8 GB of RAM you will be able tu run more than 50 bzfs i guess! But this would be waste!

Cobra Fast, you would be incorrect. As Jeff said, you will run out of bandwidth before you run out of CPU. We run 39 maps on my server, and you can hardly tell by CPU utilization (used to run on a 400Mhz single processor box, with the same effect). I have a T1 and can host 25-30 players before BANDWIDTH gets scarce.

BZFlagr, which runs Missile War, as well as GU Match servers has the following hardware specs:

- 2.0ghz Intel Celeron CPU
- 1GB Memory
- 80gb HDD
- 1000GB bandwidth

We seem to be using about 7% of the CPU to for Missile War, when it's full with about 32 people, and maybe 2% for the GU server(s).

Missile War uses about 300gb of bandwidth a month, at a sustained 2-3mbit per sec.

You really don't need a powerful machine, at all. You could easily run 30+ BZFS processes on a single machine that would be considered "slow" by today's standards.

Thanks for answering my question.

I thought the bzflag-server (and multiple instances of it) would be use way more cpu power; but the less, the better.

So I/ we can start with a smaller server, bandwith is no problem, and we have more than 10.000 GB traffic/ month

The reason for an own server is this - at the beginning of 2009, there will be some degree disertations (sociology) from my university - and we think about to test some thesis in bzflag (how ppl interact,..) . And therefore I need full control over the server ans the environment.

kool, bzflag goes university again

joevano wrote:

Cobra_Fast wrote:im using a virtual server (vServer) with the following:
500 MHz (50% of one Core)
256 to 768 MB RAM
Debian 64Bit (Linux)

it was fine with up to 6 bzfs running and two of them being played with ~10 players.

a member of my clan is running a 200 MHz vServer with around 12 bzfs running and he says its fine, too.

With a QuadCore and 8 GB of RAM you will be able tu run more than 50 bzfs i guess! But this would be waste!

Cobra Fast, you would be incorrect. As Jeff said, you will run out of bandwidth before you run out of CPU. We run 39 maps on my server, and you can hardly tell by CPU utilization (used to run on a 400Mhz single processor box, with the same effect). I have a T1 and can host 25-30 players before BANDWIDTH gets scarce.

im just looking at CPU and RAM usage.
but i have experience with up to 15 players on 35 KByte/s upstream and 470 KByte/s downstream (my home server-machine (2 GHz Single Core 768 MB RAM)). There were no lag.

CPU and RAM really don't have much bearing on how many instances of bzfs you can run. So you thought process was flawed. You had it set up with 500MHZ and 256-768 MB of ram, but what were the server utilization statistics? I could use a swimming pool to hold a glass of water, but I wouldn't need 8 pools to hold 8 glasses of water...

I've run BZFS on a 500MHz Celeron box with 64MB of RAM under Windows 98... no problem. Network utilization is always the issue.

Also, running several servers is not an issue unless many are populated at the same time. having 16 players on one server takes a lot more bandwidth than 1 player each on 16 different servers, or even 8 players on two servers. Other factors, such as the number of shots, shot rate, and wings flaps, can have varying effects on bandwidth use as well.