IMPORTANT! Server hosting and costs - possible shutdown of Pitboss hosting!

[spacetyrantxenu]

I have a virtualization lab at home that's usually tight on resources but I can spare 4GB RAM to support my own gaming habit. I can't guarantee 100% uptime, being American with American Internet and the server that stays online that I could host the games on is not clustered, so periodically the games would go down for maintenance. I'd also prefer to be the secondary temporary hosting option as we'll probably get better performance and availability with a hosted solution, but the games must go on in any case. I'm happy to continue throwing money at the problem for a VPS server or hosting in my lab if no better option arises.

[Old Harry]

I don't have a strong opinion so which would be easiest / most fun for you guys to set up?

[Krill]

What sort of equipment would we be looking at for a server that could hold 5 games at a time? CPU, ram amount? SSD or HDD?

[Caledorn]

What sort of equipment would we be looking at for a server that could hold 5 games at a time? CPU, ram amount? SSD or HDD?

We wouldn't need anything major for it. The performance would not really be impacted much by SSD vs HDD I think, so that's a fairly moot point, as I believe the savegame is kept in RAM while the PitBoss instance is running. If it isn't, the savegames are so small anyways that the difference between an SSD and a HDD would be miniscule. As for CPU and RAM, I think that a 2 core VPS, or a fairly cheap i3/i5 CPU if we're looking at physical hardware would suffice. In fact an i5 would be overkill. As for RAM, 4GB should be enough, but I would prefer 8GB to be certain. Especially if we're ever going to use the web interface again that we used on one of the games.

I contacted a guy who was selling a physical computer, with a graphics card that he's willing to sell standalone, and the computer he's selling has the following specs:

PSU: CoolerMaster 400W Lite High Efficiency and Low Noise
Mobo: ASUS B150M-A/M.2
CPU: Intel i5-6400
RAM: Kingston Value DDR4 2133MHz 8GB (2x 4GB)
Storage: Samsung 960 EVO 250GB M.2 PCIe SSD (This is overkill deluxe - if we go with this solution I might remove this unit and install a regular HDD that I have spare from the previous game server I used here at home - the one that was bought by the community here instead)

It's delivered in an OEM cabinet, and would definitely do the trick. He was willing to sell it at NOK 3500, which is USD 453.45 with the current conversion rate of NOK <-> USD.

My main worry with the VPS solution I suggested above is the disk space. 75 GB could get a bit cramped, given that the Windows Server 2016 base system (which is the best option they deliver) is approximately 25 GB all by itself. That leaves 50 GB for the game and savegames - where savegames is my primary concern. We're using 128 GB of disk space on the current game server, where a majority of the space is tied up in savegames. A large part of the disk usage is from the archive of ended Pitboss games, where the savegames can probably be deleted since they are no longer in use though.

[spacetyrantxenu]

You don't need a beefy graphics card to host the games, anything integrated into the CPU will be fine. The server only has to run the game, headless, no GPU compute is required. And given that most of the CPU load in a civ game is there end of turn processing you don't need a lot of power there either. Check the current load in the existing server, I think the 4GB we have is plenty.

Disk space does need attention paid to it, we would have to pay closer attention than we've done in the past if we use a smaller disk size. Or disable the observer mode stuff that isn't being used.

I would lean toward thinking that spending a lot on a separate box probably isn't worth the investment. I prefer OpEx over CapEx for this, if we go for spending anything at all

[Caledorn]

You don't need a beefy graphics card to host the games, anything integrated into the CPU will be fine. The server only has to run the game, headless, no GPU compute is required. And given that most of the CPU  load in a civ game is there end of turn processing you don't need a lot of power there either. Check the current load in the existing server, I think the 4GB we have is plenty.

Disk space does need attention paid to it, we would have to pay closer attention than we've done in the past if we use a smaller disk size. Or disable the observer mode stuff that isn't being used.

I would lean toward thinking that spending a lot on a separate box probably isn't worth the investment. I prefer OpEx over CapEx for this, if we go for spending anything at all

Yeah, the quote above was with the GFX card removed. The original price was NOK 4500, with a 1060 which is completely redundant for hosting Civ4.

If we disable the observer mode, that will help immensely with savegame space management, and also if we delete older PB games as we go, that will certainly help as well. And indeed the VPS solution I presented above, which will cost less than $22 per month, is a cost-efficient and also resource-efficient solution. It's actually better than the solution we have used up until today, in terms of raw power, with the exception of disk space limitations, and the fact that there is a bandwidth limitation in place as well. However, the bandwidth limitation is 2 TB of data per month, which I cannot imagine in my wildest dreams that we will be able to even get close to even should people log in hundreds of times per day.

Another advantage of going with OpEx over CapEx is that we don't really need to change anything in terms of funding. We can just retain the current Patreon account as is, and all that is needed is some configuration on the server, including installation of Civ4, and moving the savegames to the new server, and then redirection of pitboss.watto.no to the new server IP and we're all set to go. We would have to stop using Teamviewer and move to using either RDP or AnyDesk, or a combination of the two, but that's also not an issue. In fact I prefer AnyDesk over Teamviewer personally, and have discontinued usage of Teamviewer personally altogether, since they flag any computer that's inside a domain as being used in a business environment now (And I have my computers at home inside a domain, which makes Teamviewer now impossible to use for me). With Windows Server 2016, the RDP security should be robust enough AFAIK that we should safely be able to use it as the primary connection method.

Also, in case it wasn't clear from my previous posts, whatever alternative that is preferred by you guys who actively play is my preferred alternative (And I lean towards VPS, as having an additional physical computer at home would take up space, and make noise). I just wanted to show the options clearly, and what pros and cons, and of course costs, it would entail. I've recently looked into VPS services for my own Linux needs (LAMP server), since the provider that is providing the game server is also shutting down the hosting services, and Hostwinds was the best provider I could find in terms of cost efficiency and what they deliver. However, if anyone has any other suggestions, please do come with them, as long as it's not OVH (which is cheap, but you get what you pay for in terms of stability there - the reviews are horrid).

[Krill]

I thought I disabled the observer mode?

[Caledorn]

I thought I disabled the observer mode?

The observer mode files on the server may just be remnants of older games - I haven't looked into that. So you very well may have for all I know :-)

[Krill]

I think it was turned off in one version of the mod, and not in others.

What I'll do tomorrow is to release a new version of 2.0.8.5 with logging disabled and link that as the current release version of the mod.

[Caledorn]

Since there has been no further comments here, I'm going to get a Windows based VPS at Hostwinds with Windows Server 2016, and start preparing it for hosting the games. :-) I need to organise my domains etc first, so there won't be any actual move for a week or two yet, but I would rather get the VPS this month so that it's 100% ready for use come January, than having to panic-setup everything at last minute (and also there's Christmas and stuff coming up, which will take away a lot of my time at the end of the month) - and there's enough money in our Paypal account for me to pay for the bill since we have a little buffer there.

Also, for the Server Admin team - Google Hangouts is shutting down in 2020 - I suggest that we move to Discord as our main communication channel as that is a low impact client that can be used across all devices, whether it be mobile or computers, given that it's a web-based program (You can even use it in your browser if you want).