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| admin (no pm's please) |
New UK dedicated serverWe have just added a UK based server to complement our 3 USA servers.The new server is quite a small one, but benefits from an unlimited bandwidth deal. This will make it ideal for improving our already strong system backup regime, and will probably be used to host the myff gallery system and possibly a game server. More fundermentally it will become the primary domain name server for myff replacing a virtual server currently used for this purpose. |
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| CodyT07 |
Sounds awesome. What games we got in mind? | ||
| admin (no pm's please) |
Rather less than awesome power wise  But a games server and the gallery and DNS are not actually anywhere near as server clobbering as the forums.
Games wise it would probably be a Counterstrike revival, and I'm afraid I would not expect it to be great for you as it is UK based. One thing we did find with using the servers as games servers in the USA, was that playing from the UK was a bit laggy. |
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| CodyT07 |
Counter Strike and Vista are buggy. My fps helping file only works when deleted  (the file isn't cheating jsut lower how good the world looks). Could it run 2 games? E.g Day of Defeat Source?
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| admin (no pm's please) |
It is too early to say for sure, this server is dedicated and has 1gb of ram, and so is not what you might call lame, but neither does it compare to the sheer power of the forums servers we are used to.
I guess the good news is though that this server is a lot less mission critical, I can't see experimenting on it will grind anything to an absolute halt, and even if it did a temporarily unresponsive gallery would not be anywhere near as bad as a real forum problem. |
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| admin (no pm's please) |
We are now up and running and have ended up a trifle sexist
We rotate through hitchhikers guide names for the servers and its Trillians turn again, but his time round she's not one of our powerful servers, but will be the little woman running the housekeeping 
One handy feature is that the new server is very close in configuration to the main servers and this should will us to test some configurations out that will allow a main server to act as a secondary DNS, something that I have avoided risking previously. As such we will shortly be able to dump both virtual servers, meaning this new server will be adding very little to costs. |
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| admin (no pm's please) |
I wonder what pings people get?
If I ping myfreeforum.org I get about 160ms which is fair enough for a trans atlantic ping. If I ping trillian.myfreeforum.org I get about 35ms which should be much better for a game server. What do others see? Please give your rough location if you post. |
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| Symon |
Farnborough.
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| admin (no pm's please) |
Symon, what ping do you get on the game servers you run? | ||
| Symon |
All servers redundant at the moment so couldn't say sorry. |
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| admin (no pm's please) |
Redundant? What do you mean? I was a bit worried about treading on your toes if I set up a myff one again.
But if you have no game servers currently, then maybe you could run some on Trillian if you wanted. |
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| Symon |
Redunant as in the server i was using was ripping me off, found i was paying too much, i did post a while back about looking for a server, as soon as i got this damm vista working on it, but i still have my xp comp for gaming now its all cleaned up. |
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| admin (no pm's please) |
If you were to keep the CS one going, then how about a free deal?
It is a little tricky to know just how many games could run at once, but as stated this server will not be running other heavy stuff. Possibly the only real limit would be disk space, as the server must have room for two weeks of backups. How many gigs does a game need? I am copying CS across currently, but do not yet know the space needed. |
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| admin (no pm's please) |
I see cs compressed into a tar file is about 600Mb, so I guess we are talking about 1gb which is not a major big deal. | ||
| Symon |
Space needed would really depend on how many maps you have as i found out last time having too many maps on a server took up a lot of space, on my pc alone i had over 2gbs on the day of defeat side for maps only, but sticking to less than say 20 shouldnt take up too much space.
Free deal ? Isnt one of your saying there no such thing a s a free meal ,, so does this mean i,m on tea duties again ? |
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| admin (no pm's please) |
I see it as mutual advantage, you get game servers, we get a bit of myff sponsored labeling on them.
It does not really cost me anything as I'm paying for this server for the bandwidth and backup space. Possibly I could squeeze a bit of hosting on them, but I could and should not put forums on them. Consider the security aspect, if a vulnerability did arise on the forums and we did get hacked severely enough for a server to get totally wacked, then as most backups would be on Trillian it would be silly to have Trillian in the same risk group, as we would run a risk of losing everything (actually not quite true as there will be backups going elsewhere, but these will be older). Of course this all may be hotair and the server specs may not be good enough. Looks like it will be late this evening before we see how CS performs. |
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| Symon |
That would be good timing as off to watch another football match this after noon. | ||
| Viper |
myfreeforum.org - 145ms average.
trillian.myfreeforum.org - 53ms average. CS server I play hosted in US (West Coast) - 191ms average. CS server I play hosted in UK - 34ms average. |
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| admin (no pm's please) |
I have the new server working as ns3.myfineforum.com and by the seems of it acting properly as a nameserver for the domains served currently by ns1.myfineforum.com. I must say this created some issues as:
1) The new environment is a chroot one. 2) The new bind has strict name checking which is compatible with some of the records. 3) Plesk is in the mix. 4) There was no code to totally recreate the nameserver files. However touch wood all is solved, I certainly hope so anyway as otherwise going live will be a very nasty experience. However it is almost two years of learning in this area since we first got the nameserver system live, and it remains one of the key ways in which myff is better than other free forums systems, it is what allows the forums to migrate easily across different servers allowing expansion of the system. |
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| CodyT07 |
I'm calculating how big mine is. Thats with everything, Mani, mods (they aren't to big) and maps. Right now over 500 MB, this going to take a while. |
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| Viper |
I can't see how it can be over 500mb.
Unless you have loads of sound files, custom maps and keep the log files then it should be nowhere near. |
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| CodyT07 |
1291MB is the final verdict on everything I have. Map Size- 434 MB that includes about ~40 of them |
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| admin (no pm's please) |
Still about 30 mins to go on the files and I'm on cooking duty, so the game server may not be up tonight. | ||
| Symon |
No worries and no rush | ||
| Nick(NR) |
If I could access mine I'd let you know, had it running dust2 24/7 | ||
| admin (no pm's please) |
The CS server says it is up and running on:
87.106.138.187:27015 but seems totally dead when I try and connect, the startup messages also seem different to what I recall
I think I may try a total reinstall tomorrow. |
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| admin (no pm's please) |
Actually things are looking as though some kind of firewall is blocking certain ports
Given there are a few ways this can be done, I am trying out 1&1 support. Meanwhile I have switched the primary DNS to be on this machine. |
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| admin (no pm's please) |
 Just spotted that I have been chasing ghosts as this installation has specifically disabled mysql networking, something I have never seen in a distribution before.
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| Viper |
87.106.138.187:27015 is a 1.6 server for me. Is this the MFF one? | ||
| admin (no pm's please) |
 You are saying you are through to a server okay?
But that I am not running the right server 
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| Viper |
Yes. Game Monitor says it's in Germany.. 
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| admin (no pm's please) |
It is possible
Now installing CS Source
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| admin (no pm's please) |
Can anyone see a CS Source server now? | ||
| Viper |
Nothing there for me now. | ||
| admin (no pm's please) |
I can see it now 
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| Viper |
Aye, it's there for me aswell now.
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| admin (no pm's please) |
Can't be sure without players, but it seems smooth which is good considering the primary purpose of the server the offsite backup system is pumping away at the same time. That will always go on Monday and part of Tuesday. | ||
| Symon |
What is the address again is it still the same as page 1
I,lm just setting up ojn old xp machine again |
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| admin (no pm's please) |
counterstrike.myff.org:27015 | ||
| Viper |
Very fast indeed.
Gave some Germans a good whipping 1v2.
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| admin (no pm's please) |
Remind me if you can what you pay for your own game server. It seems like someone may be making a tidy sum from them! | ||
| Viper |
The cheapest I have seen is 100 tick, public CS:S, £1.50 per slot.
I think Symon's old host was about £2 per slot. |
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| admin (no pm's please) |
By per slot, do you mean max-players? e.g. the server is currently set for 32 players which would be £48 per month? | ||
| Viper |
Yes. Then extra if they want a voice server. Some charge for de-branding aswell; say if they wanted their own server 'name', they can pay extra to remove the myfreeforum.org branding for example. | ||
| Symon |
They have brought their prices down now which was why i left as i was still charged for over 6 months at the highier rate for two servers .
Todays price works out Game Servers - Counter-Strike: Source » Players: 18 Players - £9.90 GBP » Debranding: No » Voice Slots: 10 Slots » Tickrate: 66 Tick £17.82 GBP Subtotal: £17.82 GBP VAT @ 17.50%: £3.12 GBP Total Due Today: £20.94 GBP Total Recurring: £20.94 GBP Monthly or Game Servers - Counter-Strike: Source » Players: 18 Players - £9.90 GBP » Debranding: No » Voice Slots: 10 Slots » Tickrate: 75 Tick - £2.49 GBP £20.31 GBP Subtotal: £20.31 GBP VAT @ 17.50%: £3.55 GBP Total Due Today: £23.86 GBP Total Recurring: £23.86 GBP Monthly or Game Servers - Counter-Strike: Source » Players: 18 Players - £9.90 GBP » Debranding: No » Voice Slots: 10 Slots » Tickrate: 100 Tick - £4.99 GBP £22.81 GBP Subtotal: £22.81 GBP VAT @ 17.50%: £3.99 GBP Total Due Today: £26.80 GBP Total Recurring: £26.80 GBP Monthly |
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| admin (no pm's please) |
Is the voice bit something that has to be paid for at the server end? If not then those rates seem pretty high.
It is no great secret that this server is costing about £50 a month, and yet I'd guess it would run 4 games servers, a more suitable server which would not cost much more to rent might easily run 10, as least I'd guess that would be the case. |
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| Symon |
The cost of voice which to me was team speak was part of the deal.
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| admin (no pm's please) |
Seems like we would be charged $14 a month for 100 slots. | ||
| CodyT07 |
Believe it or not, i seem to get the best fps on the MyFF server.
Click to see full size image $17.95 a month for my server, includes a free website, but their customer support is unreal. When we going to have a big game on the new server? |
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| Symon |
I,m going to reload css on both machines tonight was taking ages this evening so will do when all in bed.
Cody how did you get css working ok on vista is there a special patch or will the latest steam update fix that ? |
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| Viper |
799 x 600 res with 10fps. Surely a laptop? | ||
| CodyT07 |
Yes a laptop, CSS works but gun fights are out right horrible  I set my resolution to 800 by 600, color depth to 16 bit, and everything on low.
DirectX* Version: 10.0 Physical Memory: 1525 MB Minimum Graphics Memory: 8 MB Maximum Graphics Memory: 358 MB Graphics Memory in Use: 158 MB Just viewing a webpage. And i get strange bugs, I added a fps helper but it only worked when I deleted it
Also I start up Cs:s in direct X 8.1 |
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| Symon |
Just tried to play on vista machine, got fps of 17 but was laggy as hell and the sound was way out and echoing, timed out many times. | ||
| admin (no pm's please) |
Would you put this down to Vista?
I assume it would be best not to get carried away with the potential of this server until we know it does not lag itself. |
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| Symon |
still upadting on old machine i use to use that runs xp so time will tell, but the sort of lag and bad sounds i have never had before on xp |
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| Symon |
Just went on the server on my xp machine and was fast with no lag, so it looks like its still vista that is the problem. | ||
| Nick(NR) |
Mate their support is pure shite (apologies for the word), my account has been closed for non payment, paid through paypal on the 1st of this month, balance was still showing I owed 2 days later so I sent a ticket, to be told it may take time to come through, I go on there on the 10 and the account is closed, so I've been going back and forth through email, as I can do tickets through the site anymore and have got nowhere, the last ticket I sent got bumped to level one and the person still said I haven't paid, which is pure bs as I have the log in paypal to prove it, so they got a very blue worded email, basically saying poke your servers. even gave the useless monkey's the transaction id to check on their paypal. |
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| Symon |
Just played two maps on vista machine and there was no lag it seems vista doe not like dust2 | ||
| CodyT07 |
I can't play map thats are "big". Maps that are small or big with small "enclosed" areas I do fine. @Nick, they been good to me. Not sure what to tell ya
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| Nick(NR) |
After a verbally scathing attack on them, they've finally found the payment I had sent, not that it makes up for the 12 days of non use and the fact that chances are they've already wiped the server!
wow, I really didn't think I'd have to resort to swearing at them to pay attention 
Shows what I had to do to get someone to check their paypal account for my payment, if I remember right this whole process went through 5 staff, before hitting someone that actually went and did something. |
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| Nick(NR) |
wait spoke too soon, the account of mine is still not active and even more amazingly it can't locate my email address when I request a new password | ||
| admin (no pm's please) |
Small point of curiosity, the weekly backup cycle that this server is primarily for is now complete (normally it should be quicker to complete) So has this made a difference to the game server? | ||
| admin (no pm's please) |
Just noticed the server is running software RAID and not the hardware raid we have on the forums
It is notable that on the surface we are paying so much less for this server than we do for the forums servers that our forum servers look like a very bad deal indeed  but once you start looking deeper you find things are not so clear.
Another point of interest is the the CS server seems to take about 10% of memory, so realistically it may be possible to run 5 such servers without compromise. |
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| Symon |
Even on my vista machine playing anyother map than dust it was clan and fast and no lag, sorted most things out on it as well.
It should be listed as myfreeforum.org on the steam game list |
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| CodyT07 |
Thats just the UK server right? Wow, how many games could the USA servers run then
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| admin (no pm's please) |
Depends how fast you want your forums to be
But I really can't answer, based on memory needs the implication would be an easy 100, but even with all the cores we have running I'd be willing to bet the games would start grinding to a halt before 50 servers were running. Of course games are not just a question of how many, but of tick rates, player slot, voice slots as well. |
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| CodyT07 |
20 players 100 tick makes a good game. no voice slots Possible to add a server info portal? E.g http://templatetester.myfreeforum.org |
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| admin (no pm's please) |
SO the portal is really just:
I will add that to the installed portals
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| Viper |
Is it just me, or is the server down? | ||
| admin (no pm's please) |
Apologies, started again with nohup. | ||
| Viper |
Still down.. | ||
| admin (no pm's please) |
now ? | ||
| Viper |
Still not there. | ||
| admin (no pm's please) |
there now, there is something odd with how the server is being started
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