acoustic 82 Posted March 24, 2014 Whats the best way to go in terms of price and performance? And some good options for both? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
mmore 10 Posted March 25, 2014 Hey Acoustic, It will really, really depend on your needs. Here are some situations and different solutions, but please realise this hardly covers everything nor is it 100% accurate. We'll be able to give much more relevant feedback if you let us know what, exactly, you are looking for. A server that is always available and running multiple mods with high amount of players (40+) Dedicated server A server that is always available and running some mods with a moderate amount of players Game server provider A server that is available when I want to play (or when I want it on) with a moderate to low amount of players VPS A server that is available when I want to play with just a few people Your own computer / Host at home I'll give you brief descriptions of each of the above as well; A dedicated server This is basically a server in a datacenter somewhere all for yourself. They are fairly expensive and require some expertise, usually in Linux, to run. In return you get the best performance and 100% control. + highest performance + full control + run multiple game servers / voice chat such as teamspeak without paying anything extra. Can also host websites for example. - expensive - need to somewhat know what you're doing - high setup fees / paying forward for longer periods Example providers: NFOservers (great for the States), Hetzner (german), OVH (available world wide). A game server provider These guys basically host dedicated servers and manage them for you, making it really easy for you to get everything running. You will never have to worry about security or maintenance -- they take care of everything. There are some significant downsides as well. Usually you'll be put on a server with multiple other games running at the same time and you won't have any control over it. This means you can't just install a teamspeak server or increase your player slots. + good performance, but for the heavier servers you might experience issues + no need to look after it - everything will run automagically and if you have any issues you can contact their support for help - most expensive option if you're looking for larger servers or want to do multiple things - very limited control over the server - usually available on only on monthly periods, although longer might you give some discount Example providers are nitrado, NFOservers, gameservers.com and a million others. There are loads of these! Just Google for them. Make sure you read reviews on them as there seems to be a significant quality difference between different providers. A VPS So, these things are super interesting. A VPS is a computer that runs on a server in a datacenter. Depending on what you want you can have more resources (such as processor cores and memory / hdd space) and they are setup in minutes. You can usually pay per hour for these, meaning that you can turn one on for the night and turn it off a few hours later, having only paid a few cents for hosting it. Just like with dedicated servers you'll have to setup everything yourself, though, so that might be an issue. + super flexible & cheap. + easy to experiment with. + can also run teamspeak / website + usually good performance up to a medium amount of players (30-40) - not suited for high performance servers (a lot of mods + players) - need to somewhat know what you're doing Example providers: I personally use DigitalOcean. Basically they allow you to setup a server from pre-made images (I have one with all the rights settings for an ArmA3 server) and destroy it a few hours later. Dirt cheap and free to try out. Perfect for me because I just host a game server twice a week to game with friends. Another option in this field is Linode. You'll find some more options through Google if you're looking for it. Here (otoris.com/installing-an-arma-iii-server-on-ubuntu/) is a tutorial for installing ArmA3 on DigitalOcean from a fellow ArmA player. Your own PC / home hosting Perfect if you just want to play with a bunch of friends a few times in the month as long as you have a decent PC and connection. Again more advise is possible if you express your needs better. Let us know how many players you want on it, how many mods you intend to run, where it needs to be located (where are most players from?) and what your budget is. EDIT: had to remove all links because I'm not a member for longer enough (had links to all the providers) so you'll have to copy paste them, sorry. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
terox 316 Posted March 25, 2014 (edited) The best way to approach this is to have a clear picture on the following a) Your initial funds and your expected available monthly funds b) How many A3 servers you want to run (Including headless client) c) How many players you want to host for per server d) The type of mission you want to host (coop or pvp). (Coop requires better hardware to get the same fps/player numbers in comparison to PvP) e) Whether you want to host a teamspeak server (Which is really a must in the Arma community) f) How flexible you want the server install to be (uploading mods, reconfiguring, ftp etc etc If you have plenty of money, lots of experience and knowledge and want to host for a decent sized community, then buying a server and having it colocated is the way to go At the other of the spectrum is a slot server, ideal for a small clan with limited knowledge on .backend administration Anything else is somewhere in between A high end dedicated server with a decent quad core on it, located at a datacentre can easily run 2 arma3 servers plus all the additional apps like Teamspeak. Each server can cater for (As the server optimisation stands right now) Ballpark figure 40 to 60 players coop (possibly more depending on mission and useage of caching systems or modded systems like @alive) Ballpark figure 50 to 80 players PvP (possibly more depending on mission) Even if your aspirations are to host big missions for a lot of players, i would advise initially testing the water with an "Easy In-Easy out contract" slot server just to see how things work out for you. Edited March 25, 2014 by Terox Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
