building a server, would like a few questions answered

[dustin88]

hers the skinny, I'm building a server to host a game me and 12 friends play called Mine craft. I'm sure some of you heard of it, it's and indie game and really doesn't take a ton of specs to run, been running it on a laptop lately and its OK.. but i want to reduce lag, run a few extra mods and possibly use it as a larger storage device for my wife and i to use for downloads and a mediocre media pc. now to the questions

1. should i go all out and build a dual AMD with 2 6 core processors, and 12-20 gigs of ram.. or just build a really fast single core system with a large HD raid setup. also.. reducing lag would be better if i had a faster net connection? or just a nicer NIC card for the PC.. i have 10 meg download setup at the moment... granted my router is a piece of shit, just a netgear standard router, witch will be the first thing to replace. this game IS still in beta, but i enjoy coding in java and did go to school for computers. so any suggestions would be great, obviously I'm trying to budget, but i can save for anything, but obviously i don't want to overdue it.

fyi I'm hellbent and set in my ways on AMD setups, along with ATI graphics.. unless i can save a shit ton of money.. i wont switch, i know th ins and outs of AMD and ATI, and never had much esp. with intel or Nvidia, i know there good.. but i get more bang for my buck with AMD and ATI. plus i love there customer service. not needing to use it much... but still amazing... so please help if you can =) this is also my first post. so thanks for having me =))

 

[CrackerJacker1]

Is it some kind of MMO. I hosted a lot of FPS games. You dont really need 12-20 gigs of ram lol. I have never played minecraft but just stick 8 gigs and that should be fine. Do you have a static IP and some awesome upward bandwidth

http://canihostaminecraftserver.com/
http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Server

Just get a quad core, with a good amount of ram you'll be fine hardware wise

 

[Trioxygen]

Is it some kind of MMO. I hosted a lot of FPS games. You dont really need 12-20 gigs of ram lol. I have never played minecraft but just stick 8 gigs and that should be fine. Do you have a static IP and some awesome upward bandwidth

Can I host a Minecraft Server?
Server - Minecraft Wiki

Just get a quad core, with a good amount of ram you'll be fine hardware wise

It's basically virtual lego, in my opinion.

You don't a great amount of specs to host a server for MineCraft [Unless you plan to go big?] but if it's for you and those 12 friends and you're looking to save some $, do what Cracker stated.

 

[JCB1]

i think 2 x 6 core processor system is over kill. Im sure one of the intel i7 processors will be enough for this

 

[dustin88]

thanks for the fast replys all. i am planning on going for a quadcore. no the next problem is i have a decent net connection... but the upload is not the best. i get about 10-12 down.. but only 1-2 up at the best times. should i get a better net connection? also i am hoping in the future (this summer) to attempt to run 4-5 virtual machines and host a few servers at a time, i know some people that would pay a small monthly fee for this service, and i love networking an hosting. and yes this is a virtual leggo game. in my opinion its all about the fast connection and decent hardware over anything else. but are there any routers that would make this easier, i have a netgear that is cheap and crappy, and my ISP is dynamic.. so it is changing every few days. also, is a NIC card and a certain motherboard type a good consideration? thanks for the help everyone

 

[krone6]

Is it some kind of MMO. I hosted a lot of FPS games. You dont really need 12-20 gigs of ram lol. I have never played minecraft but just stick 8 gigs and that should be fine. Do you have a static IP and some awesome upward bandwidth

Can I host a Minecraft Server?
Server - Minecraft Wiki

Just get a quad core, with a good amount of ram you'll be fine hardware wise

Not for minecraft. It's ~100MB per player, ~100kbps per player (maybe 80 now) and the server itself takes 700-1GB alone. Minecraft is very memory intensive, then comes cpu. It's cpu heavy as well, but having anything opteron 250 or more will be fine.

In my opinion, get a computer with at least a phenom II x4 920 or better. I use the 920 and ran a server on my home compute bbefore i moved onto personal servers. Preferably go am3 socket, then get 4GB of ddr3 ram. This will assure plenty of ram for the OS and server. If it's just a minecraft only server, run windows server 2003, it's better than vista or 7 at running actual server software. Make sure you got a least 1 mbps upload, that's for 10-13 people. It takes a ton of upload for this game, i hate it too. For the graphics department, buy whatever unless you plan to game on the computer. The server is in CLI format, an 8MB video card will be fine, as i have used one on my server to run the server. But if you're playing on the game as well, then get a decent video card.

As a side note, download speed means squat in server land. Upload matter a ton more. Not enough upload, the best hardware in the world won't matter. You'll be capped by whatever's the weakest part in your server, which is probably the upload since we live in america, land of the slowmo internet.