Game Server Management
From KoshWiki
Contents |
Summary
This article is to summarize Game Server Management software and if possible to indicate known problems with products.
Management Software
Below is a compiled list of Game Server Management software with summaries and quick pros/cons.
ServerChecker
Server Checker[1] is available for free under the GPL, it supports most of the major games using HL/HL2, Quake3, Quake2, GameSpy, GameSpy2, GameSpy3, Doom3, Raven Shield and All-Seeing-Eye Protocols. Known Issue: Any automatic restarts which kill the process will lose the settings since last time the application was loaded, it only saves settings on a clean close of the program. Simple to use and setup.
Linux Script Available, Windows.
| Pricing | Free[2] |
| Support | Low - Being a Free Product the Creator will add features and reply where possible. |
| Ease of Use | High - Very simple design, no real setup. |
| Usability | Average - Although perfect for running a server, not quite as basic as other offerings |
- Pros
- Simple, Free
- Caveats
- Overly simplified, Running in remote desktop, no remote control.
GameCP
GameCP stub. Check out FreeWebSpace Forums - Game Server Control Panel?
gamecp is a pile. I had used it back when I was first starting the game venture. The support is awful, the owner is rude, and the software was extremely buggy. Not to mention he has been banned from several forums for being a jerk/screwing people over. The plesk module is not designed for full game server usage, just a handful of games, same as the cpanel addon You can not serve WOW games, this is reserved for blizzard only, no independent gameservers can be run. have a strong look at tcadmin.com, that is who we currently use and will continue to use until the world ends. Their support is fantastic, the product is solid and they are very open to improvement suggestions. You cannot ask for anything better
Reply:
gamecp is a pile. I had used it back when I was first starting the game venture. The support is awful, the owner is rude, and the software was extremely buggy. Not to mention he has been banned from several forums for being a jerk/screwing people over. Never "screwed" anyone over and not banned from any forums, just to clear some of this bad mouthing up (better late then never). Support is given when people e-mail, post and call with their issues, not sure what AvailNetworks problems were but I am sure we tried to resolve them if we were contacted. Now with free installs its kind of hard to make a mistake and not get GameCP to work since we'll do it for you. All you need to do to get GameCP on your Windows machine is fill out the form on our home page and we'll set it all up for free, with 2 games and you can use the 31 day trial (windows only), this way you can see its working and be happy. We did not offer this in the past and with past versions of our Windows support things were not the same as they are today (3 months worth of revisions).
cPanel
cPanel stub.
Plesk - GameServer Module
Plesk GameServer Module is designed for use with the main Plesk Control Panel, it supports Battlefield 2 and CounterStrike, I was unable to find any other games listed in it's support or use. After reading through the forums there seems to be some problems with options being saved and custom command line parameters for the server [3]
Linux
| Pricing | $199USD on Bought Licenses, Alot cheaper on Leased Licenses |
| Support | High - Plesk Support will log into your server and help with diagnosing problems |
| Ease of Use | Average - Lack of Game Support for many games, supports the two "major players" though. |
| Usability | High - Integrating with Plesk makes it easy to have your websites and game servers administered easily. |
- Pros
- Integrating with Plesk
- Caveats
- Lack of Support for many games, Linux Only
TCAdmin
TCAdmin is based on Windows with web remote management, it is licensed in once off and monthly schemes. Searching the forums and support I couldn't find many issues, mainly installing and some pre-sales questions.
Windows XP/2003
| Pricing | Master and Remote Servers $15.95USD/mo - Remote Server $150.00USD - Master Server - $200.00USD |
| Support | Above Average - Forums, Knowledge Base |
| Ease of Use | Average - Good games support, nice interface, but I believe you edit the cfg files in a "raw" mode (just text) as I can't test this in the demo site. |
| Usability | High - Straight forward interface, large buttons, obvious descriptions of items. |
- Pros
- Easy to use interface, Searching forums didn't turn up any major problems.
- Caveats
- Not Free, Doesn't run on Linux.
FireDaemon
FireDaemon is the "screen for windows", it turns programs into services and is commonly used to get Game Servers to run under windows as services.
Windows
| Pricing | Pro - $50AUD per Server |
| Support | Average - Primarily Forums and Email based, Google your best option for HOWTO's on setting up a game server. |
| Ease of Use | Low - since it's just a service encapsulation program. |
| Usability | High - Ability to fine tune any setting you like since you're writing everything from command line to configs. |
- Pros
- Windows Services ability to restart/start/stop servers.
- Caveats
- Requires intimate understanding of the game servers to accomplish properly.
Screen
GNU Screen is added to the list as a wild card entry, this section is more about scripting server setup. Using your own scripts and some screens you can setup a game server fairly easily.
Linux
| Pricing | Elbow Grease |
| Support | Low - Google becomes your ever present friend. |
| Ease of Use | Low - See Support |
| Usability | High - Ability to fine tune any setting you like. |
- Pros
- Cmon, it's hardcore.
- Caveats
- Requires intimate understanding of the game servers to accomplish properly.
Bandwidth
- Main articles: CS: Source Lag Compensation, and [[]], and [[]], and [[]], and [[]]
The main article has indepth coverage of CS: Source bandwidth usage
References
- ↑ ServerChecker v3.02 Readme
- ↑ ServerChecker Released under GPL
- ↑ SWsoft – Forums - Several Problems with Counter Strike Module
