help me build the server (hardware)

DrewDough · 2005-02-05T23:08:25

hi, ive decided to give myself some motivation, and put togeather the server for my game. the game is a 2D action based persistant online RPG. the game is basically a (M)MORPG with action elements. my goal is to handle 30 players at once, with the server running on this machine i want to build, running on a cable connection. however i am aiming to make the game as scalable as possible, so that if i ever get the money (and players) i could host it on a fat connection and handle hundreds of players. the server tracks all projectiles - bullets, etc. it also does collision detection (2D bounding boxes). the server also runs a MySQL database as well. anyway, im just wondering what kind of specs you guys recommend. im trying to stay in the 300$ price range, but im willing to spend more if i have to (not more then 500$ though). heres what i have so far, from newegg.com: APEX Beige Mid-Tower Super Case with 350W Power Supply, Model "7C574-115" SONY Beige 52x32x52 IDE Internal CD-RW Drive, Model CRX230ED, OEM Mitsumi 1.44MB 3.5Inch Floppy Disk Drive, Model D359M3, OEM SAMSUNG 40GB 7200RPM Light and Slim IDE Hard Drive, Model SP0411N, OEM Drive only KEYBOARD-2000 KB-118W Beige Keyboard PS/2 104keys -RETAIL TWO of these: Rosewill 184-Pin 128MB DDR PC-3200, Model RW400/128 - Retail ASRock "K7VT4A+" VIA KT400A Chipset Motherboard for AMD Socket A CPU -RETAIL AMD Athlon XP 2700+, 333MHz FSB, 256K Cache Processor - Retail i have a few questions, since its been a while since ive put togeather a system. what exactly is the difference between ATX and MicroATX? ive always used ATX. however, i cant find the motherboard i want. i want a MB with built in video but the only ones that have this (at least in my price range) seem to be MicroATX. also, the MicroATX MB's seem to have better specs and are cheaper.. so whats the catch? if i go with MicroATX, is there anything else i need besides the motherboard and case to be MicroATX? or is it just those 2 things that are effected? next, what else am i missing? i think i need a few cables, but i cant remember which ones. also anything else i might be missing... also, what OS do you think i should use? does one have any specific advantage over the other? im most comfortable with Windows, but im want to use the most appropriate OS. does Unix / Linix really have an advantage over Windows? also, should i go with Unix or Linux? i have some (limited) experiance with both (RedHat and OpenBSD). im leaning towards going with Linux though, because the client itself is cross platform and im going to need to compile on Linux, and im not sure if i could do that with Unix or not. plus, i really dont want to use a text based IDE [grin]. also, i have 2 cable connections running into my house. i plan on hooking both up to the server, so this might effect other things. will it be OK if one of the connections goes directly in, and the other uses a wireless router? finally, do you think this is fast enough? AMD 2700 (2.17 ghz) and 256 RAM? i think it should be more then enough, and i could possible even go slower on the processor.. btw - so far the total is around 278$$. thats going to increase though when i get a better MB that has onboard video, and also, i plan on switching the internal CD burner i have with an external CD burner, so i can use it with my laptop. thanks a lot for any help. [Edited by - graveyard filla on January 27, 2005 3:26:47 PM]