Server hardware scaling

[Chuck850]

I run a small private server and was thinking of making it available to more users. I'm curious as to what processor and memory combo's people are running and what your max player load and ms response time is during that time so I can get a sense of what hardware is required for larger servers.

My assumption is that Freelancer is a single threaded app, so a mutilcore system isn't going to by a whole lot performance wise, and that clock speed is really going to be the key component when comparing to the number of users the server can support.

My current server is actually just a small laptop I've been using as a testbed, that's a Pentium 4-M at 1.6GHz with 2GB of RAM. It hosts at most 6 players at once, and never gets over 10ms, but I don't want to open it up to more people only to realize the hardware isn't adequate.

Any feedback from other operators would be appreciated on your hardware specs (processor and CPU), and max load and ms response time.

Thanks!

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[Discovery UK]

Well, on a machine of that kind of scale, I wouldn't recommend more than 10 players before it starts to lag badly - you have to remember that its going to be running Windows on that single core too. Especially if you want to run FLHook and DAM. . .

FLServer is a single threaded app, but a multicore system (dual core) is best. One core supports FLServer, and the other supports Windows, FLHook, FLStat and such. Clockspeed is where it all sits once you have a dual core. Theoretically, a 2ghz dual core should run a 70 slot server (ish) although you would require a very good web connection. If you're running from home, I would recommend 16 slots.

I'm currently running UK on an Core 2 Duo E4700 2.6Ghz, but we're very limited on slots due to my bandwidth usage for other services. Anything else you need to know, send me a PM here or at the UK forums.

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