Help with building COD4 server

[techjunkie]

I am in need of hosting a COD4 server. Now I want it to run on a seperate machine so i can leave it running 24/7. I have an old Pentium 4 2.4ghz lying around and was wondering whether it would suffice for the purpose. There will be 18 people using it the most

What do you think, will such a proc handle a COD4 server, and with how much ram ?
If not, what kind of requirements are we looking at ?

I want this to be have a total power consumption of less than 100W if possible

 

[alucasa]

If you want it run it at below 100w total, the first thing you should do is get rid of the Pentium 4. With any ordinary desktop cpu, the total power consumption will go over 100w.

My advice would be AMD EE version CPU (45w, dual-core), such as this CPU http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103298

Motherboard for it should have onboard video and should be cheap. For 18 people, you should have at least 2gb to be in safe zone.
If you are running with home connection, the bottleneck would be your internet connection rather than any of the components.

 

[aCid888*]

For the cost of building the server, maintaining it and the bandwidth cost I'd just rent a server.

 

[GREASEMONKEY]

For the cost of building the server, maintaining it and the bandwidth cost I'd just rent a server.

+1 on that

 

[Asylum]

Yea you can rent 1 pretty cheap and it would run 10 times better!!

 

[ShadowFold]

Mine has a Phenom 9850, 4gigs of ram and it runs L4D servers amazing.

 

[aCid888*]

A home server may RUN the game of choice fine, but, your UL speed will kill pings.

If its for LAN use its fine, but dont expect 50 pings for people when your upload is only 1mbit and your trying to play with 15 people. :shadedshu

 

[ShadowFold]

L4D max players is 4 so But I bet it would struggle with a 32-64 player match in Cod4.

 

[aCid888*]

For the cost of a 4 man server I'd still rent one...the smallest L4D server you can get is a 8 man, make it private so its even cheaper and it comes out to $12a month.

Though I do see why you have a server as you had the hardware left over...it just makes little sense to start trying to put a server together with a P4.

A 20 man CoD4 server will cost $30 a month, that comes with 24/7 support and you also get a free website.

Click

 

[techjunkie]

Thankyou for your replies

Renting a server is not an option as I live in Sri Lanka and the cost of renting is like at least 200$ Therefore running it at home is much cheaper with a dsl line.

Leave the power consumption aside, will a P4 at 2.4ghz have enough processing power coupled with 2GB ram ?

Another question, how much bandwidth would I need to host for 12 people ?

 

[aCid888*]

Thankyou for your replies

Renting a server is not an option as I live in Sri Lanka and the cost of renting is like at least 200$ Therefore running it at home is much cheaper with a dsl line.

Leave the power consumption aside, will a P4 at 2.4ghz have enough processing power coupled with 2GB ram ?

Another question, how much bandwidth would I need to host for 12 people ?

A P4 with 2GB of RAM MAY run your game with a couple of people without lag, but start loading it with 12 people and it will start giving server lag.

Add to that your DSL line and its poor Upload speed and it will give very VERY bad pings.

 

[alucasa]

Thankyou for your replies

Renting a server is not an option as I live in Sri Lanka and the cost of renting is like at least 200$ Therefore running it at home is much cheaper with a dsl line.

Leave the power consumption aside, will a P4 at 2.4ghz have enough processing power coupled with 2GB ram ?

Another question, how much bandwidth would I need to host for 12 people ?

P4 at 2.4ghz with 2gb should be enough to host 12 people. Game hosting relies more on RAM than processor speed. Although dual-core will help greatly compared to single-core, but as I posted in my previous reply, your DSL line will be a serious bottleneck. It doesn't have nowhere enough bandwidth for 12 people. Maybe, 2 people, but not 12.

 

[techjunkie]

I can host for 4 people without breaking a sweat with just 128kb uplink. I will be getting a line with 512kb uplink so hosting for 12 would not be a problem.

 

[alucasa]

Does your P4 have HT? That will help also.

All game server does is basically compute commands that your players will throw at and send back results to players. It's a pretty basic computing task, but when there are many people, the CPU load will start to climb, but P4 at 2.4 should be able to handle 12. Dual-core might be overkill for 12 people to be honest, but I feel that dual-core will help you not lag in extreme conditions.

It has to load necessary data into RAM, so enough RAM is essential because, once your game server starts to use hard drive for virtual memory, it will start to "lag".
Your server will commit a certain amount of RAM for each player. I don't know what game you are hosting, but make sure to read its manual for further information on RAM usage. From that, you should be able to calculate how much RAM your players will use. Adjust amount of your RAM accordingly.

If you plan to provide "maps", I advice not to especially on DSL connection.

Edit : You are running a COD4 server, I see.