First off, you should run through a quick little checklist to make sure
you've got what it takes.
Connection: 256Kbytes/second (2.1Mbits/second) or better
If you are on a cable modem, you had better check your service agreement.
Most places do NOT allow 'server-type' services, and game servers fall under
that dark cloud. While you may be able to sneak one on every now and then,
it's not risking your connection over for a permanent server. If you have
less, you can still run a server, just not a 32 player one, ballpark
8kbytes/second per player. Modem users use less, but you'll get LPB's that
use more and hog it up, so this makes a good in-between. The other thing
for Cable Modem users to remember is that while the specs say great
bandwidth, you share it with everyone else on your leg of the network. Get
30-40 or even 100+ modems on one line (Which is quite possible in heavily
populated areas) and you'll be wishing for a 28.8kbps modem to dial out on.
(Alright, it's not that severe, but you get my point)
The other thing to check while you're estimating your connection's
abilities is how well routed you are to other areas. To do this, pop open
GameSpy and find a few servers that are popular and far far away from you.
If you're on the east coast, try to find a west coast server, on the west
coast, look for an east coast server, etc. It doesn't matter if they are
quake servers, HL, q2, pong, whatever, all you want is the IP. Once you've
got a few, pop up that handy MS-Dos Prompt for Win9X (This comes up as
Windex in spell check!) users, or the 'Command Prompt' under NT. (Get used
to it, you'll see it allot if you run a big server!) Once there, do a
'tracert xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx' and see how many hops you are to those servers.
This isn't super accurate, but does give you a ballpark idea of how far away
you are from the rest of the world, if you are seeing consistently 20-30+
hops, you might not really be in a good spot to run a server. You can still
give it a shot however, just keep an eye out for excessive lag, LPB's
showing up pinging 150-200 (Oh the pain!) or HPB's that just can't get under
400 even though you've got bandwidth to spare are a good sign of a cheesy
router network in-between you and the world.
I'm probably going to get the most hate mail from my requirements listed
above, mainly the CPU's. The AMD K6 series are great processors, don't get
me wrong, but when it comes to brute FPU, they don't have the muscle that
Intel has. Unfortunately, 3D-Now! support won't help in this area either,
the only way to do it with AMD is to throw clock cycles at the problem,
hence the higher minimum requirements. (MMX doesn't matter either, but the
classic P5 only has 16k of L1 cache compared to the MMX core's 32k, and that
DOES make a difference!) You'll need more CPU if you actually plan on using
your machine for other tasks while running the server, at which point I'd
recommend severe overkill, Celeron's / P]['s clocked in the 400/450 range,
etc to make sure that your copy of Word doesn't slow everyone down. You'll
also need ridiculous amounts of CPU if you plan to run a listen server. If
you do, please put a note in the MOTD (Explained later) that you are running
a listen server, and what nick you play under so people will know who the 3
ping frag-god is and how he got so good!
Ram will determine how long your server will be up. I have yet to see a
dedicated server that doesn't have memory leaks, even tiny ones. These
leaks build up over time, eating more and more ram, till your machine runs
out and crashes. Allot of server-ops have gotten into the habit of
restarting their machines daily to eliminate that problem, which it does
quite nicely. Additional ram above 64MB will also give you room to work on
the machine without really bogging the server.
The HD requirement is really common sense, at the bare minimum you need
room for an OS (150 to 200 for Win98, 100 for NT and 95), you need room for
the server stuff (Another 200 to be safe) and room for Windows to rummage
around in for swap space (100 minimum) thus the magic 540MB minimum drive
requirement. If you've still got one of those drives kicking around in the
age of the double-digit gig'ers, I'll make ya an offer on it!
Server-Op: Dedicated, willing to put time in daily, not a 733t HaX0r Dude
Running a server only takes the above requirements, running a GOOD server
takes a bit more. If your plan is to start up a server, and then leave the
country for a month, please, don't start another junk server, they pop up
too much as it is. Servers are not status symbols either, they should be
regarded as a valuable addition to the community and operated as such. If
you are willing to spend some time daily checking the status of your server,
popping in from time to time to see how people are pinging, having a
publicly accessible way of being contacted, like a posted ICQ or e-mail,
etc, then you may read on.
To set up a quick server for a lan, load up TFC (through the custom game menu) click "multiplayer" click "LAN Game" then "create" select the map you want and launch it. If you have an extra computer available, and wish to run a dedicated server (recommended) click the check box and launch the game. [You wont be able to play on that computer (Thus the name "dedicated" hehe.)] You can set up an internet server the same way assuming you meet the requirements, remember High BandwiPermanentust for first person shoot games.
If you have the resources to set up a dedicated server on a nice connection, you may want to consider going for the HL Server (about 80 megs) it has essential files needed for running a dedicated Half-Life server. Pretty keen. Check out Command Center for any further help with servers that you may need.
My personal plea to server admins. Please, as stated before, monitor your server, keep it lamers free. But no one person should be expected to be on a server all the time. So just find some people who are regulars on their server, talk with them for a while, and make sure they are good people (if they are willing to hop of the server to talk they usually are) and give them the rcon so they can moderate the server, and change maps for people as the players dictate, it makes your server much more enjoyable and people will play on it more, guaranteed.
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