Server RAM requirements?

[dragos240]

I am fully aware that quake III was released in the year of 1999, where dial-up as a main form of Internet was used widely, and that computers back then are laughable now-of-days.

Looking at DO NOT LINK[/b]) h t t p s : / / openarena . wikia . com/wiki/Servers#Minimum_bandwidth]this link,we see that per client, it uses around 5kbps minus VoIP. I'm thinking about buying a VPS to run my server on, but I want a good affordable deal, so I'll need to factor in RAM requirements, the base amount needed, and how much RAM per client is needed. It likely won't be too high, but I want to make sure I'm getting the best deal.

Thanks in advance,
Dragos240

[Gig]

I don't know about RAM (but probably not very much is required)... but about bandwidth remember that if you can give players some more (e.g. 8), their experience will be better. And remember that you can host more servers on the same machine, but consider your connection upload bandiwidth.

[Cacatoes]

Same, I don't know about the RAM but it never sounded like problematic.
While I'm unsure of why webservers have some huge amount of RAM available, I suppose they're useful when delivering big content to large number of people, but I don't know exactly what eats it.

[dragos240]

Well. I'm thinking over whether it'd be better to run the server off my home computer which gets around 1mbps upload and has 2gb of DDR RAM, or a 128mb VPS which would have a much better connection.

I'm also trying to make a calculator to estimate the max players someone with X amount of ram, Y Download speed and Z upload speed could have.

[Gig]

Download speed, if it the same or better than the upload speed, shouldn't be a problem and you probably do not need to consider it (obviously, unless you use the same connection also for other things that would consume your download bandwidth... ops... if it's an home computer, this could be the case! Try to set low latency/high priority for OA traffic in your router.). To consider the maximum allowed players from your upload bandwidth, there are some formulas DO NOT LINK[/b]) h t t p s : / / openarena . wikia . com/wiki/Servers#Bandwidth_calculations]here.
About memory consumption, I don't know...

Doing a fast test under Windows XP:
Memory info for oa_ded.exe (I used the good Process Explorer from http://www.sysinternals.com, but at least two of them can be shown by windows task manager, too (you have to set which columns to show).)

Simply opening oa_ded.exe
private bytes 159.164 K
virtual size 178.524 K
working set 4.204 K

loading map oa_shine
private bytes 160.956 K
virtual size 180.332 K
working set 24.840 K

then with a client connected
private bytes 161.120 K
virtual size 180.332 K
working set 25.196 K

with a client connected + 7 bots
private bytes 161.128 K
virtual size 180.332 K
working set 26.016 K

For the second example (map only with no players), if I load Pill City (a large, non-standard map) instead of oa_shine, working set goes to 35.608 K, while other values are almost unchanged.

If I set com_hunkmegs to 64 (instead of the default 128; I set the variable then closed and launched the program again. Just a test, I don't know if it is advisable to lower com_hukmegs) I see that simply opening oa_ded.exe and loading oa_shine with no players uses:
private bytes 95.364 K
virtual size 114.796 K
working set 27.596 K

I'm not sure about the difference between private bytes, virtual size and working set (I suppose some of them are memory space that a program foresees it could use (maybe reserves for itself?), and the last one is the memory effectively used, but I'm not sure!)

I'm sorry I can't do tests with a Linux server.

[dragos240]

Thanks!