Counterstrike Dedicated server

[CALV]

Hi all,

Got cable now and was thinking of setting up a dedicated Counterstrike server, a few questions though:

1. I plan to run it on my 2k box (k6-3 450, 320 meg ram), will this and my connection be up to it? how many players should I limit to?
2. If I use my 98 pc on the 'net which shares my connection (512k cable) how will this affect people playing the game?
3. If I, or my kid (on other pc) print (2k server has printer) will this affect the gameplay?
4. any other comments/suggestions/potential problems greatly appreciated.


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[TheAntipop]

well... it sounds like the connection itself isnt even enough to support more than 8 people in itself. cable isnt known for its great uploading speeds and your connection has limited bandwidth which even further limits you. as far as the computer, I would be surprised if you could chug it with any more than 8 people in the server. i wouldnt even consider running a server with less than an athlon class cpu.
also, any other computer sharing the connection will degrade the speed of your server, although not that greatly since it uses more downstream than upstream bandwidth. and yes, if you are printing, or doing ANYTHING else on the server, it will most definitely slow it down. half life is much more dependant on the cpu speed itself and less on things like amount of ram and speed of hard drive.

eh, i'll procrastinate later...

 

[CALV]

Thanks for the reply, I'm going to set it up tonight, there will be 6 of us playing, (all workmates), and We'll see how it goes!!, I'll join locally from my other pc, if it doesnt work I'll have to just run a normal (non dedicated) game from my 98 system (1300 athlon), its just that I'd like to be able to be able to use my normal pc whilst leaving the game up and running for my workmates etc to play on. How much of the overall performance depends on the other peoples connections? 2 are on cable, 1 on isdn and the other 2 on 56k dialup. I'll give it a go anyway and let you know the results.


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[Guest]

A player with a high ping will slow down the entire server. The servers I usually play on will automatically drop players with pings over over 300 I think. Discrimination against modem players, but who cares 😉 The admin once gave me the reason, which made sense, but my job has robbed me of that knowledge.

 

[TheAntipop]

actually, it is only possible to drop people based on there packet rates. i forget the console command, but its something like minrate, and maxrate.

and it should be possible to join from your other computer, just as long as tehy dont have the same ip address.

eh, i'll procrastinate later...

 

[CALV]

Thanks for the replies, I had a good search on the net and came up with some useful info, as for the cpu, the generall opinion is p2 266 minimum, 400+ reccomended, so my k6-3 should be ok here, memory- general opinion 128 meg min, more the better as obviousley the server doesnt want to start using the swap file mid game!, I should have enough ram, aparantly cable connection may struggle with more than 4/6 players, my cable went down last night at almost EXACTLY the time we were due to start, was back up late but only myself and 1 guy on cable and one on a 56k joined, was fine, but obviousley needs more testing.
Thanks again for the replies


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[HighCv2]

That's the biggest problem right there 🙂

Cable connection goes up and down, much more down then up, just like Nortel's profits.

"He who laughs last doesn't get the joke"

 

[Guest]

Unless u have 1Mbs upload, otherwise your server will lag like hell.

 

[CALV]

As I said, will have to do more testing, I've played on cable servers before with no probs, I dont expect to play 32 players, just a handful of us from work.


Next time you wave - use all your fingers

 

[HighCv2]

I guess it should be ok for 3-5 people. An uncapped cable could host upto 10-12 people with your current server configuration.

"He who laughs last doesn't get the joke"

 

[silverpig]

A K6-3 450 should be fine for the server. When running dedicated, it doesn't have to compute any graphics, triangle setup, sound, anything... Just the coordinate info. The connection is gonna be the main problem. Just test it out first and see what your system can handle.

Lyrics. Wasted time between solos.

 

[flamethrower205]

I'm thinking of trying to host a server- processing power is not an issue- 1.2 Ghz T-Bird, Quadro DCC, 512 DDR, but what worries me is my connection. I have DSL at 768 downstream, 128 upstream. I am planning to make this server for 4 people, myself inclusive. Do you guys think it'll be fine?

When I rule the world, Apple will only mean the fruit.

 

[silverpig]

That's more than enough. I used to run a non-dedicated UT server on my P3 700 @ 966 and had 8-10 people playing on it and I was fine. No slowdowns, and no one ever complained. Granted, I had a LAN connection to a shared T3 conn (university LAN), but I had more than enough processing power.

Lyrics. Wasted time between solos.

 

[CALV]

Well, tested mine and had the following connect:
2 x cable
1 x isdn
2 x modem
and me, connected local

the cable users pinged around 27
the isdn pinged around 100
one modem pinged 200, the other 280
I pinged aroun 15-20 which I thought was odd
all players had a decent game, once or twice they said it "went funny" for a few seconds but nothing to serious, I dont know what caused this, could have been heavy traffic or posdsibly some ap I had running accessing the net, or maybe my kid using the net upstairs.
We'll be doing it again this week, I cant leave the server up all the time at the minute as I have port forwarding probs from my linux router/firewall and had to swap the NIC over into my 2k box as it would only see the local IP.



Next time you wave - use all your fingers