Do you have any advice for setting up an online game server?

I am a student and I am in a networking course and for my final report I chose to write about setting up a massive online game server (which is the field I am hope to work in). I have a number of questions: How powerful should the servers be? What kind? What OS should I use?

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As a first step I would probably try to scope the project. To do this, ask yourself the following questions:

  • How big is the project?
  • How many users will connect at one time?
  • How many total users will be added into the database?
  • What type of games will be served?
  • How much horsepower (CPU) do these require?
  • How much bandwidth will this require?
  • Am I going to buy all this equipment and host it, or will I outsource to someone else?

    One option may be to outsource the hosting to an established company. Check around and see what a hosting service would charge for this amount of bandwidth. This should help you start to work out what this project will require.

    This was first published in September 2004

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