[cod] CoD4 server requirements: Please rate my hardware

[Jared Bell]

Gonna have a few people over on the lan this weekend. How many do you think
i can host on a Athlon K8 800MHz with 768MB of ram?

I'm hoping at least 8-10, but will 800mhz be fast enough even for a small
local server?

On Dec 6, 2007 1:24 PM, Alan Clegg <alan at clegg.com> wrote:

> Georgecooldude wrote:
>
> > What do you think would run on a 2.4ghz quad core xeon and 4-5gb ram?
> > 80gb 10,000rpm drive on 100mbit connection?
>
> Too many people ask this question for me not to put my nose directly
> into it... here goes.
>
> As with my day job, these questions can't really be answered without
> knowing a lot more about the environment.  Yes, lots of things depend on
> CPU, disk, ram, etc. but your network connection is much more important.
>
> I have yet to see any true traffic analysis of a COD4 server, so I can't
> tell you how many instances you could run over a true 100mbit LAN
> connection.
>
> When people say "I have a 100mbit connection", that's all well and good,
> as that is what you have decided to pay for.
>
> I doubt, however, that your provider gives you that full 100mbit to the
> outside world.
>
> Take as an example, my house.  I have a gigabit switch between some
> servers, 100mbit in most rooms, and 54mbit wireless.   With all of the
> wonderful infrastructure, I still only have 4Mbit to the outside world
> (thanks, Timewarner for not offering FIOS).  I guess that I could claim
> that my COD4 server has "GIGABIT CONNECTIVITY", as it is connected to
> the gig-e switch.... that does not mean that traffic coming out of my
> server to the outside world is anywhere near gig speeds.
>
> Even if your provider has multi-gig connections to the outside world,
> consider how many other people they have sold "100mbit" connections to?
>
> It doesn't take many people cranking full 100mbit flows to flood a gig
> network... See if you can get your provider to give you their
> oversubscribe numbers.  How many 100mbit connections are they selling on
> that 10gig interconnect?  Does it look possible?
>
> Then, you have to consider transit latency.  Even if your provider has
> multi-gig connections to their provider, think about where the flows
> pass over exchange points.  When I look at the output of traceroute, I
> see a couple of places that it is obvious that network traffic is
> hitting some sort of roadblock.
>
> From a couple of traceroutes:
>
>  5  tran-01-so-3-0-0-0.chrl.twtelecom.net (66.192.242.83)  11.216 ms
> 15.932 ms  12.966 ms
>  6  sl-gw25-atl-11-0.sprintlink.net (144.223.47.109)  43.524 ms  78.588
> ms  79.817 ms
>
> ----
>
>  5  66.192.240.22 (66.192.240.22)  12.108 ms  12.603 ms  11.341 ms
>  6  equinix.ash.cw.net (206.223.115.73)  22.974 ms  22.492 ms  21.183 ms
>  7  so-7-0-0-dcr2.amd.cw.net (195.2.10.250)  114.699 ms  112.953 ms
> 110.524 ms
>  8  so-4-0-0-ycr2.skt.cw.net (206.24.147.198)  130.159 ms
>
> ----
>
>  4  66-194-17-105.static.twtelecom.net (66.194.17.105)  4.379 ms  5.681
> ms  3.796 ms
>  5  66.192.251.27 (66.192.251.27)  65.738 ms  65.757 ms  65.204 ms
>  6  * * *
>  7  58.229.14.41 (58.229.14.41)  221.330 ms  220.193 ms  220.977 ms
>  8  58.229.12.30 (58.229.12.30)  224.661 ms  221.868 ms  216.257 ms
>
> So, from these few examples, you can see that network latency is
> introduced in places 2,3,5,10 hops away from you that neither you nor
> your provider have any control over, nor hopes of fixing.
>
> Now, what I came here to say:   YOU CAN'T ASK THE QUESTION "HOW MANY
> PLAYERS CAN I SUPPORT" AND EXPECT A REALISTIC ANSWER, assuming that you
> are talking about player experience, or people playing on a LAN.
>
> BTW, I work for Internet Systems Consortium (www.isc.org) on the BIND
> and DHCP training and support team.  We get questions all the time
> asking "how big a server do I need to serve X number of zones and to
> support Y number of recursive clients... I CAN'T ANSWER THAT QUESTION
> EITHER, and for mostly the same reasons.
>
> Thanks for your time and patience in reading this entire e-mail.
>
> {and if you've actually read this far, please quit asking about sizing
> servers, K? THX!}
>
> AlanC
>
>
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