CS Server. What is important

[bromer1]

Hello

In about 2 weeks i'am gonna buy a new server, whicth is going to be a half-life server. My budget is limit though... Therefore I need to know what is important. A good CPU ord a lot og RAM?

The server will have about 20 people online 24/7.

 

[Dark4ng3l]

I think you can run it fine with a ppro 200 and 256 mb of ram so just about any cpu will do it so you might want to get a bit more ram.

 

[nEoTeChMaN]

I have CS server and I can only allow 10 players at a time with Abit BP6 Dual 400Mhz celeron, 256MB of PC-100, TNT video card and a Roadrunner.

The memory is to blame. Also, a better cache like PIII could have helps.

To allow 20 or more players, this will help:

Single or Dual 650Mhz PIII (cache is a factor here)
256MB to 512MB of PC-133
Very fast hard drive. Try at least ATA/66 or go for ATA/100.
Cable or DSL is a must.

 

[snow patrol]

Yeah, Neo's server lags with more than 10 on 😉

 

[nEoTeChMaN]

😉

 

[Kanly]

What's your connection going to be.
You could have quad Xeons with a gig of ram and SCSI drive but if your upload is like 128k that isn't going to work too well.

 

[GuruMogens]

It's going to bee a local network... 100mbit

 

[hans007]

its not the CPU, my friend runs a CS server, and at lan parties its fine, when half the people are on a lan and half are coming in throught the cable modem. But if it gets to more than 12 people on cable it gets real slow. Its a k6-2/400 with 128mb running win2k advanced server, its more of a bandwith thing, you are gonna need 384kb/sec upload speeds for 20 people.

 

[schmoe]

I'm running one on a P2 350

I don't think the servers use 2 processors anyway..

Oh and I run it with 16 players... I have a fast connectoin.

 

[piku]

Half-Life won't use the dual processors. Unless Valve put SMP (or D or whateve 😛) support in (which im 99% positive they didn't) that second processor is a complete waste. Windows 2000 or no, programs still need to be specifically programmed to work with them. Quake 3 is the only mainstream game so far that has.

 

[oldfart]

Dedicated server? Linux!!

 

[Finality]

Depends on the OS/maps.

Linux very memory efficient. 192 Megs is more than enough. Windows 2000 I would say at least 256 Megs.

As for maps I found about 20% cpu usage on a P3 600E MHz on a basic map like Dust (large map) on small maps like Mansion cpu usage could go up to 80%. Again on windows 2000 so I am not sure how linux deals with it.

 

[HellRaven]

Another thing you could do is get one or two old PII 450 XEON with 512k - 2mb cache onboard and drop them in an old mobo. The PII 400/450 Xeon's are pretty cheap for their performance and large cache. Do a pricewatch search or check out eGay. Add 256mb ram, a decent ATA 66/100 hard drive, and a good connection.