I use one virtual L4D server (Xen, Linux as both the host and guest OS), which mainly operates in campaign mode, so serves up to 4 players. The host machine is an old IBM server with dual 1.3GHz P3 CPU (Coppermine) and a RAID5 array with SCSI disks, 3 units. The virtual (guest) machine has the allocated resources of a single 1.3GHz CPU, 256MB RAM and it runs happily without any performance issues (I play the game quite much and never had any problem, nor the small community which uses it).
But I also tried to run L4D server temporarily on my desktop PC (Raptor HDD, E8400, 8GB RAM) and a few L4D instances quickly consumed all the available hardware resources. To be honest (considering that I'm neither a Linux, nor a HLDS expert), for me it seems that L4D/HLDS will consume all the resources quickly what you provide to it, although it can operate very nice with moderate hardware like as I described above. Maybe you should try to setup guest machines under Xen with limited hardware resources and make some tests with real workload (then reduce the allocated resources, as long as it does not impact the performance). Also, if you consider to use virtualization, purchase a CPU which supports it; that will significantly reduce the overhead associated with it. Cheers, Barny Logan Rogers-Follis wrote: > I am not sure of the exact hardware needs (RAM/CPU) for TF2 and L4D. I > currently have a L4D server running on a Windows XP Pro w/ 512MB RAM and > a P4 2.0Ghz, which runs good until we get more than 6 real players on VS > then it tends to lag a bit. So I am looking to buy/build a server that > will run the game better and which I can also run a TF2 server on. > > What kind of specs should I be looking for when building/buying a server > that I want to have Left 4 Dead and Team Fortress 2 running on. I plan > to load the machine with CentOS 5.x and virtualize it using Xen so I can > have one instance of CentOS running Team Fortress 2 with it's own > resources and then another running 1-3 instances of Left 4 Dead (ie. 1 > VS and 1-2 Survival/Campaign). > > I was looking at a machine with the following specs, would it be enough > to provide smooth gaming for the above setup? > > Dual Xeon 2.8Ghz CPU > 4GB DDR PC2100 ECC RAM > 4x 36GB SCSI 10K RPM Hard Drives (RAID 1) > > I'm thinking and hoping it will. > > Thanks, > Logan Rogers-Follis > > _______________________________________________ > To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please > visit: > http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds_linux > > _______________________________________________ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds_linux
