Redeemer Insanity
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TEASER QUESTION
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Author:  ThE OnE [ Sun Oct 19, 2003 3:04 pm ]
Post subject:  TEASER QUESTION
FOR ALL YOU TECH HEADS OUT THERE

WHAT WOULD BE THE PERFECT SERVER

FROM THE CONNECTION,MACHINE,ISP,OS,EVERYTHING YOU CAN THINK OF MONEY HAS NO MEANING HERE SO GO MAD MAKE THE PERFECT UT SERVER

COME ON (EXPLAIN THE TECH THINGS)
Author:  The Jargonaut [ Sun Oct 19, 2003 4:53 pm ]
Post subject: 
I have no idea about servers, but it don't matter if you have 15000 RPM SCSI HDs in a RAID array, a 64 bit operating system and processor, and 4 gigs of RAM... If ya ain't got a fat connection to the internet, it really doesn't matter...

Does it?
Author:  Hermskii [ Sun Oct 19, 2003 5:46 pm ]
Post subject:  yeah
What Jarg said sounds great. Get one and let me know how it goes.
Author:  ThE OnE [ Mon Oct 20, 2003 3:04 pm ]
Post subject: 
it was a theretical question if money wasnt an option what would make the perfect server.

just in case i win the lottery
Author:  deadsun [ Mon Oct 20, 2003 3:35 pm ]
Post subject: 
Here is a good start...
Author:  clemmentine [ Mon Oct 20, 2003 5:15 pm ]
Post subject: 
look here

http://www.top500.org/list/2003/06/?page

port UT to NEC's Earth-Simulator computer and play "Global Thermonuclear War".. :lol: :lol: :lol:

a more serious answer is still to come..

- clemmentine ( ARWEN_EVENSTAR / [MoR]Eowyn / Trinity. / Maiden_Arashi )
Author:  Mahatma [ Mon Oct 20, 2003 7:03 pm ]
Post subject: 
WOULD YOU LIKE TO PLAY A GAME, PROF. FAULKEN?
Author:  Mortis [ Mon Oct 20, 2003 8:22 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: TEASER QUESTION
ThE OnE wrote:

WHAT WOULD BE THE PERFECT SERVER



A really good, big one that is completely paid for. :D
Author:  clemmentine [ Wed Oct 22, 2003 8:49 pm ]
Post subject: 
the quest for the perfect UT server..

you said server, right? there's no guarantee that this box will be one you want to run the client on.. this will be server oriented.

for UT servers, start with this page:

http://unreal.epicgames.com/

there's a link there about running UT servers.

ok, since UT runs on linux, mac os, and windows, all three will be considered. I know it also runs on consoles (ps2 and dreamcast), but we're talking about server hardware here.

let's start with the general, non OS specific stuff.

run a dedicated server. this is after all a server, and running a client on the same machine will only slow it down.

since it's a server, a big part will be its connection to the clients. if we're talking about a server on the internet, then its connection to the internet is very important. from what Epic is saying, a T1 or better is recommended. I'd say the next best thing would be running it in a LAN setup where all the clients are on the same network as the server.

about a server with multiple processors. Epic is saying that UT does not take advantage of the second processor, so having 2 or more processors in your machine will do no better than a system with one processor. if you have multiple processors in your server, the advantage is the ability to run multiple instances of the UT server. but still that multi-processor setup won't be as good as if you had distinct machines (1 UT server per machine). the reason is that in a multi-processor system, many other hardware resources (such as the connection to main memory and to the network card and hard drives) are shared. sharing resources is a bad thing if you want top performance. so it's better to get 1 fast processor than to have many slow processors. because of that, let's limit this system to up to 2 processors.

another thing to note is that since this is a server, it should run a server operating system. that means consumer-level OS like windows 9x is out of the running.

now for some OS specific stuff. let's start with Mac OS.

of the 3 operating systems mentioned above, Mac OS seems to be the least popular kind for servers as I don't see as much information about running UT servers on Mac OS than on the other two. nonetheless, here's what I think is the best UT server on Mac OS:

Mac OS X Server
go to www.apple.com and max out the Power Mac G5 system. you can get dual 2GHz PowerPC G5 processors, loads of DDR RAM, 2 Serial ATA drives and other stuff all for about $15K.


linux and windows.

pick your favorite Linux distribution. for windows, if windows server 2003 is too new to you, then go with windows 2000 server. I suppose windows xp pro is also a possibility, though it's not really a server OS.

I'm more familiar with PC hardware, so I'll just talk about those. please add to it if you know Linux runs better on some other hardware. one of the top 5 fastest computer in the world runs some variant of Linux, so maybe somehow we can get UT running on there? that'd be something to see..


AMD -

Athlon XP is slower than a Pentium 4, so Athlon XP is out.

Athlon 64, Athlon 64 FX, and Opteron all just came out recently, so the hardware and software support is not quite there yet. they will become contenders come next year.


Intel -

Itanium / Itanium 2 requires a 64-bit OS. I'm thinking that UT doesn't run on a 64-bit OS.

Xeon (Pentium 4 variant) is for servers, but they don't have the fastest clock speeds. they do have much more cache on the processor than our regular Pentium 4s.

Pentium 4 (and also the new Pentium 4 Extreme Edition, which is really a Xeon). these have the fastest clock speeds, though don't have as much cache as the Xeons.


so for the processor, it's either a Xeon (if you want more cache) or a Pentium 4 (if you want faster clock speed).

main memory. DDR RAM and lots of it (on the order of several GBs). put in as much as your motherboard can take.


this is getting long; I'll continue this another day.


- clemmentine ( ARWEN_EVENSTAR / [MoR]Eowyn / Trinity. / Maiden_Arashi )
Author:  clemmentine [ Fri Oct 24, 2003 5:54 pm ]
Post subject: 
note to self:

build the server so that the bottleneck is not inside the server.

server connection to the outside
- to switch: Gigabit Ethernet or ATM
- to internet (through routers, switches, hubs): T1, T3, ..., OC-48

network card to rest of system needs to be able to handle ~1Gbps. PCI may be just enough, but also consider PCI-X and motherboards with built-in network capability.

high motherboard bus speed would be a good thing, but depends on processor choice.

processor. need to balance internal core speed, amount of built-in cache, and external bus speed. UT2003 seems to like cache, bus speed, then core speed, in that order.

main memory. max out RAM on motherboard. DDR, or should RDRAM be considered at all?

hard drive(s). one fastest drive or many drives in RAID array?

video. forget video; this is a server.

UPS will be needed to maximize uptime. redundant power supplies / cooling fans? hot-swap hard drives?


- clemmentine ( ARWEN_EVENSTAR / [MoR]Eowyn / Trinity. / Maiden_Arashi )
Author:  ThE OnE [ Sat Oct 25, 2003 12:37 am ]
Post subject: 
clem its nice to see you are still thinking of it but you have totally lost me now, :roll: :roll: :roll:

BUT if i do win the lottery i know who i will be contacting,
you could come to the uk for a holiday and build it :lol: :lol: :lol:

thanks for your efforts
Author:  Kruger [ Sat Oct 25, 2003 1:44 am ]
Post subject:  SGI
I think that a Silicon graphics ONYX Server would make the ultimate one with 128 processors but the cost?
Author:  clemmentine [ Sat Oct 25, 2003 1:23 pm ]
Post subject: 
ThE OnE wrote:
clem its nice to see you are still thinking of it but you have totally lost me now, :roll: :roll: :roll:

BUT if i do win the lottery i know who i will be contacting,
you could come to the uk for a holiday and build it :lol: :lol: :lol:

thanks for your efforts


but I don't know servers and never built one.. I'm just reading about it on the web and posting it here to share what I've found out, in case someone's interested in building one on his/her own. to make things simple, I'd just call up Apple or Dell or someone like that and have them build it. the reality of it is there's too much hassle to find all the parts and get them all working perfectly all on your own. I'm just taking your question as a hypothetical question to see what is needed to build a perfect UT server.

- clemmentine ( ARWEN_EVENSTAR / [MoR]Eowyn / Trinity. / Maiden_Arashi )
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