How do I build a gaming server for home use only

[olu007]

I would like to build a dedicated gaming server for home use only. I have 3 laptops at home all running windows 7 and 8 and currently loaded with different games. To run any particular game, the laptop loaded with that game has to be free. Instead of living with this inconvenience, I would like to set up a dedicated server which will be installed with all games and home applications. The laptops at home will access the server wirelessly as dummy terminals to run the installed games and home applications with all storage facilities provided on the server. The laptops will be used for out of home usage only with internet connectivity back to home server for storing or retrieving data. Essentially, I have 4 kids who play games on the laptops at home and at times would like to play the same game at the same time. So I need a server to run these games wirelessly on the dummy laptops. The dedicated server will be the administrator tool to setup and install programs. Also, it will be a functional gaming PC to play games on a wide screen TV as such the server will have as a minimum a 6th generation i7 processor, 2x 4TB HDD (1 for mirroring) and a high spec graphics card, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 or above. All internet connection will be through the server which will be physical connected using an Ethernet cable to the ISP provided wireless router as the broadband speed exceeds 20mb/s. Alternatively, wireless connection from the server to the router could suffice. As an additional future enhancement, wireless remote management firstly from a home laptop may be required, and once set up, an out of home RM may be required. All printing will be wirelessly through the server. I am technically competent on stand alone units but anything regarding networking is still an unchartered area for me, things like upload speed, hosting, IP addresses (static and dynamic) and forwarded ports, I don’t understand them so as such my server wouldn’t require any of those as it will be home use only. The question is how to setup a dedicated gaming server for home use only, if it is possible.

 

[basroil]

It seems that you don't understand what a server is or how games work. Hell, seems you don't actually understand what a computer does either.

In simple, numbered list, answer the following:
1) The games you want to play
2) How many licenses of said games you have
3) Your current network setup
4) Budget

 

[jlr0042]

I don't think you are going to find the perfect solution in using a home server to play games off of. As far as a server is concerned, you can pick up old server gear from eBay, use an old PC, or buy a prebuilt NAS (I recommend going the used server parts route as you get the best performance for your dollar from it). If you go for the used parts, old PC, or get a NAS that you can load custom firmware on, I recommend using FreeNas as your NAS operating system. It will allow you to easily set up things like file sharing, data hosting, Plex, etc. There are also tons of tutorials online on how to setup a FreeNas system, as well as getting it setup to access away from home. Then, you can install your Steam, Origin, Uplay, etc. library to the NAS, although the actual clients must remain on each system. As far as standalone games are concerned, I do not believe they will work on multiple computer when installed on the NAS because of DRM and other issues. That being said, If I am not mistaken, most (if not all) game clients only allow one game to be played at a time per user. So if everyone uses the same account to play, only one person can play at a time.

As far as performance goes, if everything can run at gigabit speeds, performance and loading times should only be impacted a very slight amount. If you are attempting to access the data away from home, expect performance to be absolute crap.

To recap, using old server gear running FreeNas can get you almost to where you want. If you just want a place to dump your Steam library, a home server for games is fine. However, installing standalone games, as well as having multiple users playing on the same account more than likely will not work. I still recommend building a home server though, its a good idea to have centrally located data, as well as a machine that can do backups of your computers, plus running a Plex Media Server is awesome!

For reference, I also have a home server (albeit 10 Gbps, so I don't run into any performance issues, but standard gigabit should be fine) that I use to dump my Steam and Origin games. I have never tried installing a standalone game onto it, nor have I ever tried to load games from it onto more than one computer at a time.

 

[olu007]

It seems that you don't understand what a server is or how games work. Hell, seems you don't actually understand what a computer does either.

In simple, numbered list, answer the following:
1) The games you want to play
2) How many licenses of said games you have
3) Your current network setup
4) Budget

Please find below my response to your reply,
1, RPGs and Simulations. Just in case, you dont know, RPG are role-playing games.
2, 3 licences for most games.
3, Please read the original message carefully. But if you dont understand English, I will try and break it down.
4, Please read the last few sentences of original message carefully. But if you have the same level of hardware knowledge as, what you indicated, mine on what a computer does, the Nvidia GTX, i7 CPU and 4Tb HDD are currently premium PC components.

I hope I have answered your questions, in the manner of a computer illiterate as clearly tagged by yourself.

 

[olu007]

I don't think you are going to find the perfect solution in using a home server to play games off of. As far as a server is concerned, you can pick up old server gear from eBay, use an old PC, or buy a prebuilt NAS (I recommend going the used server parts route as you get the best performance for your dollar from it). If you go for the used parts, old PC, or get a NAS that you can load custom firmware on, I recommend using FreeNas as your NAS operating system. It will allow you to easily set up things like file sharing, data hosting, Plex, etc. There are also tons of tutorials online on how to setup a FreeNas system, as well as getting it setup to access away from home. Then, you can install your Steam, Origin, Uplay, etc. library to the NAS, although the actual clients must remain on each system. As far as standalone games are concerned, I do not believe they will work on multiple computer when installed on the NAS because of DRM and other issues. That being said, If I am not mistaken, most (if not all) game clients only allow one game to be played at a time per user. So if everyone uses the same account to play, only one person can play at a time.

As far as performance goes, if everything can run at gigabit speeds, performance and loading times should only be impacted a very slight amount. If you are attempting to access the data away from home, expect performance to be absolute crap.

To recap, using old server gear running FreeNas can get you almost to where you want. If you just want a place to dump your Steam library, a home server for games is fine. However, installing standalone games, as well as having multiple users playing on the same account more than likely will not work. I still recommend building a home server though, its a good idea to have centrally located data, as well as a machine that can do backups of your computers, plus running a Plex Media Server is awesome!

For reference, I also have a home server (albeit 10 Gbps, so I don't run into any performance issues, but standard gigabit should be fine) that I use to dump my Steam and Origin games. I have never tried installing a standalone game onto it, nor have I ever tried to load games from it onto more than one computer at a time.

Thanks jlr0042 for your reply on 7 September 2016. It was very informative and I will try and pick out the valuable pointers you indicated. Many regards

 

[Faux_Grey]

When running shared libraries across a mapped drive I've faced issues with folder locking.

 

[basroil]

Please find below my response to your reply,
1, RPGs and Simulations. Just in case, you dont know, RPG are role-playing games.
2, 3 licences for most games.
3, Please read the original message carefully. But if you dont understand English, I will try and break it down.
4, Please read the last few sentences of original message carefully. But if you have the same level of hardware knowledge as, what you indicated, mine on what a computer does, the Nvidia GTX, i7 CPU and 6Tb HDD are currently premium PC components.

I hope I have answered your questions, in the manner of a computer illiterate as clearly tagged by yourself.

1) Your run-on paragraph is difficult to read, you need to remember that forums are not built for long paragraphs, so always space out ideas with a blank line. It takes far less time to read that way.

2) Running games off a network drive is usually a bad idea, especially "simulation" games and others that have continuous loading (like open world games, minecraft, etc). A better idea is simply to make all the laptops have Win 10 Pro and then you can either remote desktop in or configure them with powershell and group policies like you would with any business.
3) The easiest solution is to use server OS and set up iSCSI drives for each of the laptops and then at least the games won't complain too much.
4) If space is an issue you can use deduplication, but for games to work properly they will need to be "installed" on the computer that uses them and some files must be unique per computer. Again, remote access through RDP or powershell is a much easier way.
5) Wireless printing is easiest simply by getting a wireless printer
6) You will need a very fast router
7) The server will need more than 2 drive and network teaming unless you don't care about game load times going from 30s to 3 min!

This is a target build for something like what you describe, and about the cheapest you can go:
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor ($324.99 @ SuperBiiz)
CPU Cooler: CRYORIG H7 49.0 CFM CPU Cooler ($34.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z170X-UD5 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($171.06 @ OutletPC)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR4-2400 Memory ($129.99 @ NCIX US)
Storage: Sandisk X400 256GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive ($80.98 @ Newegg)
Storage: Hitachi Deskstar NAS 4TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($157.39 @ OutletPC)
Storage: Hitachi Deskstar NAS 4TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($157.39 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB SC GAMING Video Card ($259.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Case: Fractal Design Define R5 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case ($99.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA G2 550W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($74.99 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Pro OEM 64-bit ($125.94 @ Amazon)
Total: $1617.70
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-09-07 07:34 EDT-0400

This assumes you will be using windows or linux VM based NAS software. You can use Windows Server as the base OS if you want.

 

[jlr0042]

I've done more research, and its looking like you will not be able to do what you want. Most games (and applications for that matter) require certain files, files that are unique to each computer and cannot me shared between multiple computers. So, if you were to install the game on a server, it will only work properly on the computer you used to install the game to the server. The other computers will be able to see the data, but not run the games properly. The only way to run games on multiple computers off of a single server is to have the server be the host for all of the users, and have the other computers act as login stations. That means you will have to install the game for each unique user on the server. At that point, it would be more cost effective to go ahead and install all of the games onto each individual computer. In order to have a server powerful enough to load multiple users at the same time and have each user playing games, that server is going to cost a lot of money (reference 7 gamers 1 cpu on YouTube for a similar setup as described, minus the remote access part).

 

[basroil]

I've done more research, and its looking like you will not be able to do what you want. Most games (and applications for that matter) require certain files, files that are unique to each computer and cannot me shared between multiple computers. So, if you were to install the game on a server, it will only work properly on the computer you used to install the game to the server. The other computers will be able to see the data, but not run the games properly. The only way to run games on multiple computers off of a single server is to have the server be the host for all of the users, and have the other computers act as login stations. That means you will have to install the game for each unique user on the server. At that point, it would be more cost effective to go ahead and install all of the games onto each individual computer. In order to have a server powerful enough to load multiple users at the same time and have each user playing games, that server is going to cost a lot of money (reference 7 gamers 1 cpu on YouTube for a similar setup as described, minus the remote access part).

Not entirely true, read the post above

 

[olu007]

Please find below my response to your reply,
1, RPGs and Simulations. Just in case, you dont know, RPG are role-playing games.
2, 3 licences for most games.
3, Please read the original message carefully. But if you dont understand English, I will try and break it down.
4, Please read the last few sentences of original message carefully. But if you have the same level of hardware knowledge as, what you indicated, mine on what a computer does, the Nvidia GTX, i7 CPU and 6Tb HDD are currently premium PC components.

I hope I have answered your questions, in the manner of a computer illiterate as clearly tagged by yourself.

1) Your run-on paragraph is difficult to read, you need to remember that forums are not built for long paragraphs, so always space out ideas with a blank line. It takes far less time to read that way.

2) Running games off a network drive is usually a bad idea, especially "simulation" games and others that have continuous loading (like open world games, minecraft, etc). A better idea is simply to make all the laptops have Win 10 Pro and then you can either remote desktop in or configure them with powershell and group policies like you would with any business.
3) The easiest solution is to use server OS and set up iSCSI drives for each of the laptops and then at least the games won't complain too much.
4) If space is an issue you can use deduplication, but for games to work properly they will need to be "installed" on the computer that uses them and some files must be unique per computer. Again, remote access through RDP or powershell is a much easier way.
5) Wireless printing is easiest simply by getting a wireless printer
6) You will need a very fast router
7) The server will need more than 2 drive and network teaming unless you don't care about game load times going from 30s to 3 min!

This is a target build for something like what you describe, and about the cheapest you can go:
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor ($324.99 @ SuperBiiz)
CPU Cooler: CRYORIG H7 49.0 CFM CPU Cooler ($34.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z170X-UD5 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($171.06 @ OutletPC)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR4-2400 Memory ($129.99 @ NCIX US)
Storage: Sandisk X400 256GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive ($80.98 @ Newegg)
Storage: Hitachi Deskstar NAS 4TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($157.39 @ OutletPC)
Storage: Hitachi Deskstar NAS 4TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($157.39 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB SC GAMING Video Card ($259.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Case: Fractal Design Define R5 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case ($99.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA G2 550W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($74.99 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Pro OEM 64-bit ($125.94 @ Amazon)
Total: $1617.70
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-09-07 07:34 EDT-0400

This assumes you will be using windows or linux VM based NAS software. You can use Windows Server as the base OS if you want.

Thanks for your reply

Ideally I would like to run RPG games like Fifa, Call of Duty and NFS. I have a few others too which are memory hungry.

There will be a max number of 3 people using the server at any point of time. The PC will be powered with a i7 6700k or i7 6800 so performance will not be hindered.

I would like to build a PC as I havent built one for ages and I need to recapture my abilities...... Thanks for the quotes I have looked into them

For games which have 2 licences would it be possible to run 2 licences at the same time.

As far as OS are concerned I will stick to Bill's Windows. So I will need advise on what addon packages I will need to set up a server and then customise it to a gaming server.

All games are Windows based like all my laptops at home. I might get a Mac in the very distant future.

As most games run with Origin or Steam, I would need some sort of assistance on trying to run these games on a server, so would be pleased if i could tap into your knowledge on these issues