shindigero 19 Posted January 5, 2016 Hi, just wondering if you guys could give me some general advice. Before christmas I gave up trying to deal with gameservage.com who'd been messing me around for months. I'd been renting an 8 slot server from them to play with my small group of friends who play arma, 8 is the most we ever have in a session its more commonly 3-5, and now I'm looking for an alternative and thought I'd consider all my options. I'd like to start by making clear that my knowledge of whats required for a dedicated server is non-existent. Am I right in thinking that for a small server like this it would be perfectly feasible to build it and run it from home? If I did what sort of spec would it need to be? I'm hoping it could be quite reasonable when shared between me and my friends given there'll only be a few of us playing and I understand servers dont need a gpu (or most of the other expensive parts and accessories i often associate with buying a computer). That said we did used to use a lot of mods, how much of an effect would that have? I really appreciate any advice you could give. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Flax 397 Posted January 5, 2016 If you are planning on building a server I wouldn't go that route it will end up being expensive and a steep learning curve. That said if you like learning new things then go for it but don't forget about server only costs like expensive licensing the additional electrical costs if you are running from home. I'd say with the number of people you are talking about you are better off doing what you had planned before, renting one of the internet. You just need to find the right host for you, I'd suggest doing a search on these forums. There are a few reputable hosts who advertise here and offer good deals. The other option is to just run the server off of your own PC. I'm not sure what your specs are but I've had no problem hosting test servers in addition to playing the game myself on an i7 with 16GB of RAM. You can follow all the same guides for the dedicated servers to get setup too. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
shindigero 19 Posted January 5, 2016 Thanks for the advice, out of interest what's the expensive licensing that's involved? In terms of electricity costs it wouldnt be too much of a problem as I live in a student house with 3 gaming computers in it anyway and I assume its not something you need on all the time if youre not using it? That said, I'll also definitely give running a dedicated server on my computer a go. It had completely slipped my mind because for several years we all lived in student halls that had dodgy internet which for whatever reason prevented us from going down that route when we tried it so I'd not considered it as an option. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Flax 397 Posted January 5, 2016 Haha yea i understand :) The licensing cost would come from Windows Server 2008/2012 then again that's if you are being thorough. You could just run off a copy of Windows 7/8/10. If you wanted to build one, you could go microATX with 8/16GB RAM and a decent CPU/ SSD. Would set you back a couple hundred. That would handle a good number of players. Or you could go cheap, plus sides to both. Really just comes down to which way you want to do it. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
shindigero 19 Posted January 5, 2016 Couple of hundred doesn't sound too bad, thats what I was hoping, out of interest what sort of cpu would be considered adequate for that sort of thing? What I'm currently thinking of doing as of 5 minutes ago is making use of my old gaming laptop that I used before my I got my desktop. I hadn't considered that I'd ever have a use for it again before now because its graphics card died but it ran Arma 3 easily and I used to host LAN games on it with no problems. I could just run a server on that right? Also just looked up windows server 2008, I see what you mean about that being where the cost starts building up, what would be the downside to just running normal windows on a server? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Flax 397 Posted January 5, 2016 Laptop would be worth trying before you shell out. I currently run my servers on Xeon E3 CPUs but the i5 and i7 series are easily good enough for large numbers of players and a headless client. I don't want to guess too much but I can imagine even an i3 might be suffient enough for the number of players you are thnking of. Then again it would heavily depend on the mission you are running. Lots of AI and badly optimised scripts will give a massive hit on performance. As for OS - no downside really from an ArmA Server point of view. Only that Windows Server OS has many other server features that might be of interest for bigger units and groups, like built in web services and the ability for a user directory for storing user data. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
terox 316 Posted January 5, 2016 Dont bother with an ssd if your building a small home server, you will see no benefit over a standard disk drive other than boot up speed. Your better off spending that money on the fastes I7 quad core you can afford and a large decent quality disk like a western digital If you have enough ram you can load the entire game into ram The problem with home servers is your available upload and download speeds. This is where you will find your bottleneck Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
shindigero 19 Posted January 5, 2016 That doesn't sound too bad. Think I'll definitely try using the laptop first, seems like it should be more than sufficient. Thanks for the help, really appreciated. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
