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 Hosting Requirements? 
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Gunnery Sergeant

Joined: Wed Jun 12, 2013 9:52 am
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Location: Vermont, USA
Unread post Hosting Requirements?
Hello Everyone,

I haven't played TradeWars in about 10 years and my stepfather had his own licensed copy of TWGS that i want to set up for him since he came down with Alzheimer's and i thought this would be some nice therapy for him to play with as i know how much we both use to love playing it.

I just got my stepfathers old TWGS switched over to the newer version and I'm just now getting around to setting up a server for him to play. I'm not looking to have a dedicated server setup for this to function so i'm looking to co-host this with my TeamSpeak server that i host on my ESXi server.

What is the needed hard drive storage, CPU, and Memory usage that you would recommend for say 60 people playing at once? I only have a few slots ATM but I'm looking to add more once I get it all configured and ready.

Also what do you estimate the needed bandwidth to support 60 or so active slots would be so i can setup my QoS as well?

I'm planning on over configuring this server for now as i don't want to have to do to much micromanaging once i get it up short of slowly adding slots to my server.

Thank You,

A.T.E.


Wed Jun 12, 2013 10:53 am
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Unread post Re: Hosting Requirements?
I really don't think you need a lot of hardware to run this game. Here's what I'm using (an old retired server from my office).

OS - WinServer 2003 SP 2
Processor - AMD 64bit 2GHz (single core)
RAM - 2GB
Storage - (2) 75 GB on a raid, using less than 30 GB total

TWGS program - 349 MB

The only thing I have on this box is TWGS, a couple of browsers, Open office and a couple of ANSI editors.

Performance is going to be enhanced with your router, I upgraded to a GB router, and just for giggles running cat 6E. My bottleneck is my cable modem.

The most number of connections I've had on at once is 12 I think, no where near the 60 you hope to get to. And I don't have any kids streaming video or downloading music or movies. I've not had any complaints about connection speeds.

I hope that helps. Welcome back to TWGS!

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BOTE 1998 Champs: Team Fament
HHT 2015 Champs: Cloud09
Big Game 2016 Champs: Draft team
HHT 2018 Champs: Rock Stars
Big Game 2019 Champs: Draft Team


Classic Style Games Here:
telnet://crunchers-twgs.com:2002

Web page from 1990's: https://web.archive.org/web/20170103155645/http://tradewars.fament.com/Cruncher/tradewar.htm
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Wed Jun 12, 2013 8:45 pm
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Unread post Re: Hosting Requirements?
I would think that doubling the minimum requirements would be sufficient.

I just shot John an email to find out what those are.

Here is what I got back:

John P wrote:

Helix wrote:
John,

What are the minimum requirements to run v2?


In terms of OS, it's WinXP. In terms of hardware, it really depends how many nodes you intend to support. v2 is more efficient than v1, and v1 had a minimum requirement of something ridiculous like a Pentium 90. Since every TW game loads a full virtual machine, memory is pretty important. The more the better.

John

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Thu Jun 13, 2013 7:26 am
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Joined: Tue Nov 28, 2006 4:04 pm
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Unread post Re: Hosting Requirements?
No matter what version you use, if you want anywhere near 60 players on at any one time then your internet connection will matter "very much". Sure if you want your players to have a 200 plus ping then by all means use a crappy connection. However if you want players to have a decent ping in the 100 range, then a fast broadband connection with plenty of bandwidth is very important. Also, a machine that will handle the load is important. The machine should have at least dual processors and a lot of memory. Most of the newer machines today will handle the load since the top quality specs concerning needed hardware have changed drastically over the years.


Thu Jun 13, 2013 11:29 am
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Unread post Re: Hosting Requirements?
Big D wrote:
No matter what version you use, if you want anywhere near 60 players on at any one time then your internet connection will matter "very much". Sure if you want your players to have a 200 plus ping then by all means use a crappy connection. However if you want players to have a decent ping in the 100 range, then a fast broadband connection with plenty of bandwidth is very important. Also, a machine that will handle the load is important. The machine should have at least dual processors and a lot of memory. Most of the newer machines today will handle the load since the top quality specs concerning needed hardware have changed drastically over the years.



I would also add something to the bandwidth statement above-

The most important bandwidth D is talking about is your upload, NOT your download. If you have 20MB down but only 128k up, your players are going to suffer latency.

Also, your server is only going to perform at the speed of the lowest component. For example- You are using an alienware PC, but you have DSL, your players will only get DSL performance. If you have a crap system and 20 down and 5 up, your players will get the crap system performance. Granted, slower systems still can outperform alienware if they have better bandwidth.

My .02

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Thu Jun 13, 2013 11:57 am
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Gunnery Sergeant

Joined: Wed Jun 12, 2013 9:52 am
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Location: Vermont, USA
Unread post Re: Hosting Requirements?
Im running this in a VM on a VMwre ESXi Server.

The server currently has:
CPU: Intel Q9550 2.83 GHZ Quad Core 12MB cache
Memory: 8GB DDR2
Gigabit Ethernet to the Modem with a 30MB Down, 6MB Up Connection
Hard Drive: 2x 1TB Seagate SAS 10K RPM on a dedicated hard drive controller with 512MB DDR2 ECC cache + Cache battery backup unit.

But this hardware is not dedicated to just this one game server, I'm currently hosting 7 other operating systems including my router on this server. This is my virtualization server.

The entire unit is again on a UPS, for increased up-time and reliability.

My ping out to Google.com is normally in the neighborhood of 8ms.

Shortly this will all be getting Upgraded to a Dell C1100 Server once i have the extra money to buy one.

The host system is not the concern, I'm just trying to figure out how many resources to give the guest OS to host the VM that will run my TeamSpeak 3 server and TradeWars.

Also is there a guide for configuration as i haven't done this before and i want to do it as directed. I know i have to set up port forwarding for port 23 or 2002 for ease. As well as opening up the firewall on the local machine for the same ports.

I'm a computer nut and was just asking the community what real requirements would be for hosting this, as i couldn't find system requirements online.

Also is there a lot of disk i/o created by having a number of users actively playing?

Also like to say it's nice to see some people who I've played with, well more against in the past here, i'm looking at Cruncher and Big D as i say that. Been a while.

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v2.2b Server : Telnet://StevensComputerService.com:2003
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Thu Jun 13, 2013 12:23 pm
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Unread post Re: Hosting Requirements?
First off, I would like to say that there aren't that many players out there, so you will never have 60 active connections unless you happen to have 60 personal friends that will play. The most popular public servers rarely have more than 10 players.

AidanTheEnforcer wrote:
My ping out to Google.com is normally in the neighborhood of 8ms.
That's a good ping, but it's more about bandwidth. As others have said, DSL may have 20M down but only 128K up and would be slow with only 5 players on. Cable modem providers are often more generous with upstreams of 1.5 - 5M or more on some of their plans.

AidanTheEnforcer wrote:
The host system is not the concern, I'm just trying to figure out how many resources to give the guest OS to host the VM that will run my TeamSpeak 3 server and TradeWars.

I'm a computer nut and was just asking the community what real requirements would be for hosting this, as i couldn't find system requirements online.
I have never used VMWare, but I have run TWGS on two different Windows Server 2008 machines under Hyper-V.

The first is an old PowerEdge 2900 that was retired by one of my clients. The server was 2008 R2, and the VM was also server 2008 R2. I allocated 2G ram, 4 virtual cores, and 128 GB hard drive space. Actual disk usage with OS, TWGS, and Teamspeak is only 11GB (most of that is the OS). I don't remember exactly how much, but CPU usage was minimal for up to 15 players. Ram usage is 364MB before launching TWGS, 375MB after launching TWGS, and 277MB with one player connected. Additional players in the same game will not use as much, since this includes stuff like the alien manager which launches instances for each active game with gold aliens. 388MB in use after launching Teamspeak. Sorry I don't have details on memory usage for additional players, but I don't recall it ever going above 600MB - 800MB with up to 15 active users.

The second machine was faster and more powerful in all respects, but it was running Windows Server 2008 R1. There was a terrible latency between the host and VM, and I had to scrap the VM and run TWGS on the host. This is my current server, but it is also an active document indexer, so I don't really know what resources it is using.

AidanTheEnforcer wrote:
Also is there a lot of disk i/o created by having a number of users actively playing?
Yes, each additional user will increase disk activity significantly. I never had any problems with this though, so I never monitored it.

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TWGS2.20b/TW3.34: telnet://twgs.microblaster.net:2002

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Thu Jun 13, 2013 1:56 pm
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Unread post Re: Hosting Requirements?
AidanTheEnforcer wrote:

The host system is not the concern, I'm just trying to figure out how many resources to give the guest OS to host the VM that will run my TeamSpeak 3 server and TradeWars.




On the advice of a friend, I'm also running Mumble(client) / Murmur(server) as my VoIP for teammates. It's free and open source.

Even on my old machine this works well and uses very few resources.

_________________

BOTE 1998 Champs: Team Fament
HHT 2015 Champs: Cloud09
Big Game 2016 Champs: Draft team
HHT 2018 Champs: Rock Stars
Big Game 2019 Champs: Draft Team


Classic Style Games Here:
telnet://crunchers-twgs.com:2002

Web page from 1990's: https://web.archive.org/web/20170103155645/http://tradewars.fament.com/Cruncher/tradewar.htm
Blog with current server info: http://cruncherstw.blogspot.com
Discord: https://discord.gg/4dja5Z8
E-mail: Cruncherstw@gmail.com
FaceBook: http://www.facebook.com/CrunchersTW


Thu Jun 13, 2013 4:22 pm
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Unread post Re: Hosting Requirements?
Cruncher wrote:
On the advice of a friend, I'm also running Mumble(client) / Murmur(server) as my VoIP for teammates. It's free and open source.

Even on my old machine this works well and uses very few resources.

My son is using Skype now. I guess it is popular with all his friends, or he switched because I started using Teamspeak. Teamspeak is also free, I haven't done any resource comparisons though.

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Micro

Website: http://www.microblaster.net
TWGS2.20b/TW3.34: telnet://twgs.microblaster.net:2002

ICQ is Dead Jim! Join us on Discord:
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Thu Jun 13, 2013 9:06 pm
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Gunnery Sergeant

Joined: Wed Jun 12, 2013 9:52 am
Posts: 25
Location: Vermont, USA
Unread post Re: Hosting Requirements?
OK thanks all. I'm just looking for real world performance.

I'm deeply saddened to hear that the community has shrunken so much. I remember 10 years ago playing on some servers that you had to wait to get on because the server was maxed. Those were the days.

Anyway, where to you post server detils for players to find me and my server once it get it operational?

Sent from my MB855 using Tapatalk 2

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AidanTheEnforcer/GreenMountainHunter

v2.2b Server : Telnet://StevensComputerService.com:2003
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Thu Jun 13, 2013 11:08 pm
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Unread post Re: Hosting Requirements?
My site of coarse:

http://microblaster.net/Submit.aspx

...and go to Command Center/Jumpgate Tab to enable and Configure Jumpgate. That will get you listed here:

http://wiki.classictw.com/index.php?tit ... gate_-_All

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Micro

Website: http://www.microblaster.net
TWGS2.20b/TW3.34: telnet://twgs.microblaster.net:2002

ICQ is Dead Jim! Join us on Discord:
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Fri Jun 14, 2013 12:36 am
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Unread post Re: Hosting Requirements?
After you get squared away, we are promoting a monthly challenge tourney where twgs ops volunteer to choose an edit to host a game each month. Keep an eye out if you might be interested :) Good luck

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Fri Jun 14, 2013 7:51 am
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Gunnery Sergeant

Joined: Wed Jun 12, 2013 9:52 am
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Location: Vermont, USA
Unread post Re: Hosting Requirements?
Oh one other thing, this is a bit off from my original question but is there a repository of config file for created planets, ships, and alien races or do they have to be created from scratch.

I just remember playing on some servers with Borg, and other. I remember a server "The Lilly Pad" use to have some really good alien mods and I'm not sure if that stuff is widely available or what. I've done some Google searching and i keep coming up with unrelated content.

Thanks Again,
A.T.E.

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AidanTheEnforcer/GreenMountainHunter

v2.2b Server : Telnet://StevensComputerService.com:2003
TeamSpeak3 : TS3.StevensComputerService.com
FaceBook : https://www.Facebook.com/AidanTheEnforcersTwgs


Fri Jun 14, 2013 9:18 am
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Unread post Re: Hosting Requirements?
AidanTheEnforcer wrote:
Oh one other thing, this is a bit off from my original question but is there a repository of config file for created planets, ships, and alien races or do they have to be created from scratch.

I just remember playing on some servers with Borg, and other. I remember a server "The Lilly Pad" use to have some really good alien mods and I'm not sure if that stuff is widely available or what. I've done some Google searching and i keep coming up with unrelated content.

Thanks Again,
A.T.E.



Yes, right here in the TWGS twa files forum

viewforum.php?f=39

Helix is the admin for that form and also keeps copies on his web site. I'm sure he can go over the details with you, I think some had to be modified to work with v2 correctly.

_________________

BOTE 1998 Champs: Team Fament
HHT 2015 Champs: Cloud09
Big Game 2016 Champs: Draft team
HHT 2018 Champs: Rock Stars
Big Game 2019 Champs: Draft Team


Classic Style Games Here:
telnet://crunchers-twgs.com:2002

Web page from 1990's: https://web.archive.org/web/20170103155645/http://tradewars.fament.com/Cruncher/tradewar.htm
Blog with current server info: http://cruncherstw.blogspot.com
Discord: https://discord.gg/4dja5Z8
E-mail: Cruncherstw@gmail.com
FaceBook: http://www.facebook.com/CrunchersTW


Fri Jun 14, 2013 10:35 am
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Unread post Re: Hosting Requirements?
... and more here:

http://www.tw2002.info/twa_db/twa_db_project.html

.. and here:

http://www.tw2002.info/edits/twafiles.php

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Micro

Website: http://www.microblaster.net
TWGS2.20b/TW3.34: telnet://twgs.microblaster.net:2002

ICQ is Dead Jim! Join us on Discord:
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Fri Jun 14, 2013 8:34 pm
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