Hosting Game Servers With Less Lag And Maintenance

Technology Blog

Online gaming has gone through many transformations since Everquest, Final Fantasy 11, Lineage, and World of Warcraft entered the scene. LAN (Local Area Network) gaming and private gaming between friends has been steadily keeping up, but unlike Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) games that often have subscriptions or continued purchases to keep servers alive, companies often shut down their free (after game purchase) servers or leave it up to the player completely. If you want to host a game with friends, here are a few details to understand how it works and how to get your server started quickly:

Understanding Private Servers

A private server is a machine that private individuals have full control over. Instead of dealing with a large company such as ArenaNet, Trion, or Blizzard and their rules for gameplay, you're free to create all of the code of conduct, in-game rules, and even cheating controls as you see fit. There are a few exceptions when it comes to editing the game code, but someone has to see your server to complain about it.

Instead of building a physical machine in your home or connecting a device to your workplace internet, many private server owners use managed IT (information technology) services to handle the hardware. This essentially means being able to remotely control a set of hardware across the internet.

You're not actually playing the game on the server across the internet. Remote technology allows you to replace your mouse and keyboard's connection for an internet connection, meaning you can type into a console or window to make all of the changes you need for the server. 

If you need to upload special files to the game such as mods (modifications) or hot files that you want players to download, you upload it just as you would upload something from your normal computer. 

How Fast Is A Private Server?

Hardware speed and internet speed are two important factors, and it all depends on the level of services you're willing to pay. The great thing about managed IT services is that you're paying for increasing levels of power that you don't have to install.

You're also not worrying about putting in a new hard drive or physical sticks of RAM (random access memory) when upgrading. Many managed private servers are virtual machines, meaning that you're actually using a virtual block of data carved out of a much bigger, faster system. 

It's not a warehouse of desktops where one has your name on it; managed service data centers have huge server rooms with blocks of data ready to be shaped to your data specifications. This means that upgrading your services is as simple as putting in a request, and possibly paying the difference if you need an immediate upgrade between billing periods.

Internet speed is also generally faster than home internet use. Unless you're an Internet Service Provider (ISP) technology or have access to state of the art technology, your network performance is lower than data center business connections because residential services don't need high performance. 

Your friends will generally be able to connect to the managed private server faster than they could connect to your computer and play with fewer lag (delay) issues as long as the hardware is also at the right level. Contact a managed IT services professional to discuss the games you want to host.

22 September 2017