Define "lag"? I used to run a 20 slot tf2 server, 4 l4d servers, and a counter-strike source server under ESX, and I currently run 2 CS Source servers under ESXi on wildly different hardware.
My "powerful" server, which is ran from work, is a dual quad core 2.0 GHz E5405 Xeon box (Dell PowerEdge 2950 actually). In that lone VM, it runs a 24 player server with 20 bots active on round start, and I get no lag, other then what the connection provides. When it was just 20 humans running we still had no lag. BUT - that was a single VM on a box that runs maybe 10 other low cpu usage virtual machines (Active Directory, Exchange, Sharepoint 2007, Symantec AV management server, real time backup, and some other random stuff). My ESXi box at home is a home brewed box (Asus M2N32 SLI Deluxe, 8GB ram, AMD x2 5200 CPU). The same Counter-Strike setup (24 players, 20 bots) lags like a mofo until you start killing or kicking bots. It run on my home connection, so there's never more then 3 humans playing on it via our LAN. My point being, if you run server grade hardware, you shouldn't get any lag, anything else, YMMV. I've been very pleased with SRCDS performance under the various ESX/ESXi environments I've had the opportunity to play with. I didn't do anything special either. I literally installed ESXi, fired up a CentOS 5.x VM, installed srcds, and off I went. No kernel tweaks, NOTHING. I ran 3 L4D servers open to the public for awhile, no problems there, under both a Windows Server 2003 VM and the aforementioned CentOS 5 VM. Try get in contact with Karl Weckstrom (k...@weckstrom.com if I remember correctly) , he has a ton of experience in running srcds servers under ESXi, he was very helpful and answered a ton of my questions. I haven't seen him responding on this list os of late, so I don't know if he's still active or not, but in any case, that knowledge isn't something that's going to go away anytime soon, so I highly recommend contacting him. Here's a small archive of our previous conversation on this subject: http://www.mail-archive.com/hlds@list.valvesoftware.com/msg33278.html --mauirixxx -----Original Message----- From: hlds-boun...@list.valvesoftware.com [mailto:hlds-boun...@list.valvesoftware.com] On Behalf Of Chad Austin Sent: Sunday, February 21, 2010 10:43 PM To: Half-Life dedicated Win32 server mailing list Subject: Re: [hlds] Bladecenter anything worth? I used VMware ESXi for hosting SCRDS, but I got lots of lag and had to stop. If you find a way to virtualize and have no lag, please let me know. On 2/22/2010 3:07 AM, Christoffer Pedersen wrote: > Hi. > > Thanks for the reply, i could really use that. I will do some more research for this, and if its affordable, ill go for it. If not, i will keep with my 1U/2U rackservers. At my primary work, we do have a big IBM bladecenter, i may ask my boss about the power consumption > > Thanks again. > > - Christoffer > > On Feb 22, 2010, at 8:55 AM, Matt Stanton wrote: > > >> Obviously, virtualization does cause you to lose a small amount of >> hardware power to the extra operating system overhead of vistualizing >> many machines on one physical server. What you can gain in reliability >> may make it worth it, though. >> >> Basically, you could guarantee that any 'dedicated server' is available >> much more reliably. If you connect your bladecenter to a SAN of some >> sort, and are able to intelligently distribute VMs over the blades, then >> if a piece of physical hardware goes down, the VM can be automatically >> booted on hardware that is running properly, with very little data loss >> because of I/O that was interrupted by the hardware issue. Since all >> the data from all the servers is stored on the SAN, the data is somewhat >> shielded from hardware failure. >> >> There are a few virtual machine platforms that will allow you to >> accomplish this, including, I believe, VMWare ESXi (I think they changed >> the name of this recently) or Xen... You'll have to do your own >> research into these if no one else replies, since I have absolutely no >> experience with virtualization. You will also probably have to expect >> that you will be spending a huge amount of money building a SAN that is >> both fast and reliable. If you run the datacenter that the servers are >> hosted from, then you could also expect better cooling and power usage >> efficiency by going this direction, and if not, you will at least be >> using less rack space. A bladecenter will require a lot more power per >> rack than a rack full of 1U/2U servers, so you may have to pay extra per >> rack for the extra amperage you'll need. >> >> On 2/22/2010 1:29 AM, Christoffer Pedersen wrote: >> >>> Hi everyone. >>> >>> Im looking to build up a new farm of servers for my company. We are >>> currently using 1U and 2U servers for our hosting, but i have been >>> thinking of, if it was better to build the whole stuff in >>> bladecenters, and virtualize. I just want to know if this is any good? >>> I have never tried to host srcds on virtual machines, so i would be >>> happy if you could help me here :) >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: >>> http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds >>> >>> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: >> http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds >> > > _______________________________________________ > To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: > http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds > > _______________________________________________ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds _______________________________________________ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds
