Questions on gaming server speeds?

[jcross]

Hi, I had the idea of opening a business that offered multiplayer gaming/internet cafe kind of stuff (patent pending ) Still in brainstorming process... Games in consideration HL2/CounterStrike, UT2004, or any others that jump out and seem popular. I found a cable internet provider with downloads of 3 Mbps and uploads of 256 Kbps, as for simulcasting tournaments, that is letting say 25 workstations on location be connected to the server and also outside internet users participating in the gamefest. Would 256 Kbps be a suitable upload speed to host an online gaming server? and if so what would be about the limit of users connected? If 256 wont cut it is it possible to subscribe to 2 internet accounts and then have a download of 6 Mbps and upload of 512 Kbps? or is that not how it works? Any other suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks -JC

 

[Blakhart]

Right off, if you don't have, say, 2megs or more up and down, forget about hosting. Well, at least multiple games. With your current bw, you can host maybe an 8 player hl game. Your upload speed is the more important of the two. Your servers will always upload more data to clients than clients will be sending you.

If you wanted to game on a lan, go for it. You'll run out of clients before you run out of bw on a typical 10/100 switched environment. Notice I said switched. If you run a hub you'll end up with collisions and whatnot a switch is immune to. You could get away with 8 online players additional to your lan party at your current upload.

 

[urbandragon]

your best bet if you want to do what you are wanting is COLOCATION.....

there are a few places that i can point you to if you are interested.

Simply put here is how it works.

You would have a custom system setup in some datacenter in the world.

alot of webhosting providers do this...

depending on how much you are willing to spend ranging from 49.00 month to up and well over 1000+ a month.

Most offer you a dedicated system running either windows 2k3 or one of the Linux distros. Most of which offer no less than a dedicated T1 connection, most offer OC3 connections, which with the OC3 connection you should be able to run a stable game server without any problems depending on the system specs.....

As far as doing the LAN/internet based gaming combined.. you could use your exsisting 3MB connection to connect to your gameserver, although i would recommend that you invest in no lower than a T1 connection.

 

[jcross]

Thanks for the info guys. As for the the dual connection, is it possible to subscribe to 2 internet accounts and double your speed like with a 56k line and if so how would you go about it? Also what are your current favorite games, or would like to see on a dedicated server possibly with cash tournaments? Thanks for the input -JC

 

[urbandragon]

there is a router that small personal router you can purchase that will allow you to duplex broadband connections.

not sure if you would be able to subscribe to 2 different dsl or 2 different cable connections... not sure if the companies would allow that.. what you would probably have to do is subscribe to one of each.

Will update this in a few with a link to the router i am talking about.

you would want to search for Dual-WAN router. i found one here
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...47007&ATT=Network+Routers+Remo&CMP=KNC-goog13

cost is around 130 bucks. it duplexes the 2 connections together.