Hi All, Apologies if this is a little off-topic but I couldn't see a more appropriate forum. I want to develop a simple online game for the windows platform and I'm looking for a host but I'm really struggling. I found a load of Linux-based MUD hosts and I could probably convince one of those to host my game as its not completly text-based but not far off. However, I have no intention of developing under Linux. On the windows side of things, all I could turn up was hosting for commercial games like Counterstrike etc. Any idea where I could find a windows-based hosting service that is not exclusively for text-based games? Many thanks, Caroline M.

Windows Winsocks and Unix (Linux, etc) BSD sockets are 90% the same thing. So basically, the same code can be ran on Windows and Unixes. This requires you to not use the Windows-specific parts of the Winsock library.

So you can write the server as a separate program so it works on Windows and Unixes, you can do most of the development on your Windows machine and do some testing on a Unix box, just to check that everything works.

I do this with all my code, except that I primarily code on Linux and boot to Windows every now and then to do some testing. I have, with success, done network games that can have both Windows and Linux clients connected to either a Windows or Linux server.

I personally would not use a Windows server for anything, especially game servers. The problem with Windows-based servers is that they require access to the console (the machine itself) to control the server. Another solution is a remote desktop service of some sort, but I don't know how they work. Windows has a text based remote access system too, but it is very limited. On a unix box, on the other hand, you can connect with SSH and have a pretty unlimited access to whatever you want to do, thus you can control the server without having it in your home or complicated and/or expensive remote desktop solutions.

I don't know about Windows-based hosting servers.

My advice: make the server cross platform, so you can run it on unixes.
-Riku

Quote:

Original post by Caroline_M Hi All, Apologies if this is a little off-topic but I couldn't see a more appropriate forum. I want to develop a simple online game for the windows platform and I'm looking for a host but I'm really struggling. I found a load of Linux-based MUD hosts and I could probably convince one of those to host my game as its not completly text-based but not far off. However, I have no intention of developing under Linux. On the windows side of things, all I could turn up was hosting for commercial games like Counterstrike etc. Any idea where I could find a windows-based hosting service that is not exclusively for text-based games? Many thanks, Caroline M.

It depends if your willing to pay $50+ a month for your hosting services or not. Windows is pretty much limited to VPS or Dedicated servers for what your asking for. You could try WebHostingTalk, they probably would be better equipped to help you find a host that fits your needs.

If your willing to pay ~$90 a month, I'd suggest HiVelocity hosting. It's who I use for my personal projects (all piled on 1 dedicated server admittedly).