The ubiquitous Internet has changed many areas of life; the world of video games is a perfect example. Virtually every title has a multiplayer mode, allowing you to play multiplayer games online with people from all over the world. Some games have been created primarily or exclusively for online play. Each of them requires a dedicated server for gaming to function.
Players’ computers communicate with gaming servers to track the situation on the game field. In the initial stage, players usually use gaming servers operated by game publishers. Over time, they may become bored with playing against random opponents and disappointed with players who exhibit poor skill levels and cheaters.
Reasons of setting a gaming server
Having your game server is a dream of many gamers. Smooth gameplay without lag and low ping is not only convenient but it also enhances the gaming experience. By creating your gaming server, you have the opportunity to improve the gameplay conditions for your team. You can also create an independent and necessary infrastructure for the entire team.
For many gamers, playing their favorite online games is not enough. They derive more pleasure from social aspects and want to climb the hierarchy rather than compete. Few people enjoy greater respect than the owners of the most popular gaming servers. Therefore, many gamers dream about their own dedicated server that will break popularity records.
Whether you want to create infrastructure for your team to improve the gaming experience or become a community leader, purchasing a dedicated server for gaming is the ideal solution. You will be able to create all the necessary infrastructure on it. How do you go about it?
In most cases, creating your gaming server is not just about launching the video game and making it available to players. You also need a website, a payment module, and access to TeamSpeak or another means of communication.
Creating a closed social network exclusively for players of your dedicated gaming server is also recommended. There, you can freely discuss matters that should be known only to community members. You can also create a private video service with exclusive tutorials and streaming sessions.
VPS Hosting or Dedicated Server?
There are different web hosting types. The easiest to understand is dedicated hosting. It involves providing the entire machine to the client. However, this requires knowledge of server configuration, administration, and installation of all necessary software. In some cases, clients’ requirements may not justify the use of an entire server’s resources.
For this reason, the dedicated servers can be divided into smaller parts. The simplest way is to allocate disk space for individual clients. This type of hosting, in which clients have their own disk space and share the processor and memory card, is called shared hosting. However, it is not suitable for hosting games due to its low performance.
Another way to divide the machine is through virtualization, which involves creating smaller virtual servers. These can be private virtual servers with private resources. It allows for a division of an eight-core processor between two clients, each with four cores and an independent operating system.
Another way to divide the machine is to extract dedicated virtual servers, which allocate dedicated physical resources to each virtual server. In this case, the processor is not divided among several clients, but each client uses a separate processor.
If you want to know more details about the differences between VPS and dedicated hosting, read the article below.
Which one of these hosting solutions is best for game servers? Shared hosting is unsuitable for gaming. VPS or VDS hosting may be suitable for small teams with limited resource requirements. Some games also do not perform well with virtualization and may not run smoothly on virtual servers providing a poor gaming experience. But if you need a cheap gaming server, you can try VPS.
The best solution for a professional game server is dedicated hosting. It offers access to ample resources. You can choose processor models, and you have total control over the hardware.
What is a dedicated server?
To ensure smooth gameplay and a smooth gaming experience, you need to take care of technical reliability and connection speed. In this case, a dedicated server is the best choice. A dedicated server is simply a computer connected to the Internet 24/7. Dedicated servers are usually located in data centers, placed in rack cabinets, and connected to the Internet with high-speed connections.
A dedicated server provides many possibilities. You can smoothly run games on it but also build a large information portal and offer email and chat services, making the gaming experience complete. If you want to provide a seamless gaming experience for players across the country, buy a dedicated server. With its high performance and reliable connectivity, a dedicated server can handle heavy traffic and ensure smooth operation of your gaming server.
As the dedicated gaming servers owner, you can configure all its parameters. It is crucial because games are very demanding. Corporate systems or PHP scripts like WordPress will not depend on processor technology. But the gaming experience may vary on processors from different manufacturers, even with theoretically the same parameters.
A dedicated server is also much more stable and efficient than VPS. Thanks to its high parameters, it is characterized by reliability. A dedicated server is the best solution for games with a large user base and can be scalable. Whenever you need, you can add additional resources.
Managed Dedicated Gaming Server
Some people consider building a dedicated gaming server on their own, but it is not a wise solution. The dedicated gaming server must be online all the time, so it requires a constant power supply, backup power, and industrial bandwidth. Hosting a dedicated game server on a home internet connection will cause high latency that will prevent other people from playing.
And that’s not all the difficulties to overcome. You must ensure effective cooling solutions, place them in a location with appropriate humidity and temperature, and constantly monitor server hosting parameters. It is much better to use the services of a specialized dedicated gaming server provider that will take care of all these aspects professionally.
Reliable hosting solutions will provide you with flexible offers and scalability. You can perfectly adjust the game configuration to your preferences. The hosting company can prepare a custom dedicated game server according to your requirements. In the future, you can upgrade your dedicated hosting: change the processor to a better one, and add more RAM and disk space.
Moreover, if you are not familiar with hosting administration, you can count on the help of experts. They will assist you in configuring and installing all necessary components but also monitor and ensure the stable operation of hosting services 24/7.
You don’t need to look for other hosting providers. UltaHost offers the best gaming servers. Latest generation hardware, exceptional performance and top-notch security!
The Most Important Parameters of Dedicated Game Servers
The most important criteria for evaluating a dedicated gaming server are computing power, data center location, and solid technical support. But that’s not all. Younger gamers will appreciate the low price, the lack of long-term contracts, and various payment methods, including Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies.
Online games are resource-demanding, so critical hosting features are unlimited traffic and stability with uptime guarantees.
Low latency and ping
In chess, the speed at which a player’s computer communicates with the game server hosting is not of great importance. However, in games where reflexes matter and the fun comes from shooting at another person (e.g., Counter Strike Global Offensive), even slight delays in communication can mean the difference between life and death. Even milliseconds count!
Were you killed before you could even fire a shot? Is your opponent already in a different location than you expected? Delay or lag can stem from three main reasons: game engine or graphics display issues and the physical distance between a player’s computer and the game server hosting. Delay is a parameter that determines how long it takes for data sent from a player’s computer to reach the server and back.
That’s why game servers are not set up at home but in specialized data centers. Delays from homemade servers can exceed 200 ms! For comparison, in a local network, the delay is 1-3 ms.
Fast access to servers installed nearby (up to 1000 kilometers away) means delays at the level of 10-15 ms, which can rise to about 30-40 ms for machines launched in data centers located up to 2000 kilometers away.
A delay of 40 ms is considered the upper limit for dynamic multiplayer games. The conclusion? The physical location of a dedicated game server is of immense importance. Especially since, in the case of dedicated game servers, a content delivery network (CDN) does little to eliminate the importance of a dedicated game server hosting location. CDN works well in the case of websites but not multiplayer games.
Solid DDoS Protection
In addition to low latency (ping), a server should be resilient to DDoS attacks. When the game is high stakes and the desire to win breaks all fair play rules, attacks on opponents become natural but unwanted.
One can easily order DDoS attacks on the dark web. An hour-long DDoS attack on an unprotected server can cost up to $10! That’s why it’s so important to use a hosting provider that has implemented comprehensive mechanisms to protect servers against DDoS attacks.
One of the hosting duties is to constantly filter incoming and outgoing traffic and automatically block the source of the attack if non-standard behavior is detected.
By choosing a hosting provider like UltaHost, you gain access to a smooth gaming experience and excellent performance but also security. Find out how UltaHost defends its servers against DDoS attacks.
Best Performance
Multiplayer game servers require significant processor power, RAM, and fast SSD NVMe disks (the storage capabilities are secondary). At the same time, it is not possible to determine directly what parameters a game server should have to deliver to host a game fluidly. Everything depends on the title and the number of host player slots.
Three basic parameters are the number of CPU cores and their clock speed, the amount of RAM, and the disk speed. Knowledge about the processor model, disk type (SATA, SSD, SAN mass storage), or hardware RAID controller gives a general overview of the performance and stability of the entire system.
The configuration is based on consumer-grade Intel i3, i5, and i7 processors, the same ones used in home computers. The second group consists of dedicated gaming servers with Intel Xeon processors, offering more cores and faster access to memory with ECC error correction.
Advanced RAID matrix controllers and redundant power systems that guarantee stable and reliable operation in the continuous mode are standard in more expensive solutions. At least configure two disks in a RAID matrix to ensure data security in case of a single disk failure.
Conclusion
In general, players have three things. The most important is the online game server. It is a place for online gaming where you can play games such as Counter-Strike or Minecraft. Team communication is provided by voice servers such as TeamSpeak. The third element is web services, such as hosting websites, discussion forums, or video platforms.
A dedicated server has enough power to address these needs within a single system. As dedicated gaming servers are purchased by young people, the hosting providers should offer alternative payment channels such as PayPal, SMS, or cryptocurrencies.
When choosing a dedicated gaming server, it is crucial to pay attention to the level of technical support, availability of administrators, and response time. After all, no one wants to wait for repairs until Monday, when a whole weekend with their favorite online game is approaching.
With UltaHost dedicated server setup will take you only several minutes. You can choose an operating system and gain access to the hosting platform with exceptional performance.
With our dedicated servers for gaming you can feel the power of the top-tier hardware and forget about your former hosting provider with slow loading times. Migrate for free and let us show you the difference! You can also check our other hosting solutions!
