Game Server Hosting on Windows VPS

Windows VPS Game Server Hosting

In the World where everyone is obsessed with “Games” Age and Gender do not matter. With the recent growth in technology, people turned to play multiplayer Games online instead of buying Expensive Gaming Consoles. All you want is just Computer and Internet connection.

Importance of Hosting a Game Server in a Professional Data Center

Over the last few years gaming industry has become one of the most quickly growing area. Decision of choosing a proper platform with appropriate resources is somewhat crucial when you are facing neck to neck competition.

We strongly recommend hosting your game server in a professional data center. Professional data center offers you state of the art infrastructure at your finger tip. You will have a reliable & easily scalable network, latest security tools, continuous support, flexibility in hardware expansion and also reduced requirement for your in house IT department.

VPS Hosting – best solution for running a Game Server?

Virtual Private server technology was introduced to provide robust resources at affordable prices. VPS are affordable in price and offers latest tools in technology, that means, you will have better resources at affordable price. Windows VPS Cutting edge technologies like Hyper-V on your VPS will ascertain that your Game server will run smoothly.

Apart from technology advantage, other eye-catching benefits of using VPS for hosting your Game Server are as following:

  • Most VPS servers come with a static IP address which is a primary requirement for a multi-player Game server.
  • You have full administrative access to install and manage your Game server through A Remote Desktop. Setup of Game server using RDP is like installing a game server on your local machine.
  • VPS servers are easy to access and Gamer can easily update server files as they are changing in their local machine.
  • Gamers can install Proxy Server to run a Game server.

Windows VS. Linux – Which Operating System is the best for Game Server hosting?

Licensing Expense: It might be challenging for any new gamer to choose between these OS giants. By choosing Linux over Windows, you can cut the expense of licensing as Linux OS is open source. However, you will have limited or no support on Linux platform. On the other end, cost of a windows license is negligible and you get a full support from the OS developer team.

Environment: If you are going for Linux-based game server, that means you are familiar with Linux platform and capable to manage Linux servers through Shell commands.

GUI: Windows VPS comes with Graphical User Interface (GUI) called Remote Desktop. It that can be used to access and manage your virtual server as easy as you manage your Home Desktop. Whereas to operate a Linux VPS, you must be a professional and skilled for Linux platform.

Maintenance:  Hosting Game server demands maintenance, settings, server hardening, upgrade and regular monitoring which may turn out to be a headache without GUI.

Price: Linux VPS hosting can be a great option if you are technically sound and little short on budget. On the other end, Windows VPS is far more convenient option that offers you support, features and variety of application support at affordable price. 1 GB RAM Windows VPS from AccuWebHosting will hardly cost you $8.15 per month. If you want to run a Game server on VPS, Linux VPS may be the cheaper choice but not wiser.

Game Server Running Slow? Try SSD VPS …

Solid State Drive (SSD) is the latest technology that offers 100 times faster storage of your data. VPS with SSD storage technology has several noticeable advantages over traditional VPS. SSD VPS are built with Solid State Drives which has 100X faster response compared to SATA Hard disk Drives. Due to its Solid State factor average boot up time, access time and Read/Write speed is too faster.

You can refer complete comparison from following URL:

https://manage.accuwebhosting.com/knowledgebase/1262/Traditional-VPS-Hosting-vors-SSD-VPS-Hosting-.html

That means, using SSD based VPS, your Game Server will run 100 times faster than your traditional VPS.

My Game Server is Big now, what should I do? Time to upgrade to a dedicated server?

You should consider an upgrade when you feel that your needs are increased and you don’t want to run with risk of Game server crash or slowness. Generally, people do not know when to switch to Dedicated server.

Game Performance: A lagging response of Games and the Games server crashes when multiple users are playing, it is a sign that it is time to upgrade.

Resources: If installed game is resource hungry and chewing almost CPU and RAM resources you should consider an upgrade.

Number of Gamers: If number of gamers have increased beyond what your VPS can handle, you should consider an upgrade.

Expansion: If you begin with Small Game server and now you have expanded enough to accommodate big number of gamers then consider an upgrade.

Number of Games: If you are running number of games and your VPS will likely not be able to accommodate multiple requests, it is good to upgrade.

Troubleshooting a Game Server Hosting? Common Problems and their Solutions

Errors occur while installing a Game Server

Such kind of errors depend upon various software mechanism, its requirements and dependencies. We are here providing you some general outline to solve them:

  • You might have selected a corrupted copy of installation. Download one fresh copy from authorized vendor and install it. It is recommended to directly download via remote login rather than uploading the executable file through FTP or any other content uploading method.
  • If any other applications are opened in your server and you are attempting to install a Game Server then it may give you an error. You should close all unwanted applications and then install your Game Server.
  • Game Server’s prerequisites are very important part of installation. Game Server generally has some specific requirements like Java plugin, .Net Frameworks, Sound/Video drivers, etc. If these dependencies are not installed/configured then it may throw an error. Hence, it is good to read a documentation before installation.
  • A few Game Servers throw an error while installing it from wizard. In that case, you can attempt to  install a Game Server using command line utilities.

Game Server’s service is not starting and throwing an error

After successful installation of a Game Server, when you try to start its service a new error occurs. Here are some common issues and their solutions,

  • It may possible that after the completion of Game Server’s installation, its service automatically started hence when you attempt to start it again, it throws an error. In this case, you can end current running service from Task Manager and attempt to start.
  • Some Game Servers require special privileges to start and run. Hence, if you are attempting to start the service from the account which do not have sufficient privileges then it can throw an error. In this case, you can open the service wizard menu from administrator account or you can assign required rights to your account.
  • Game Server runs on specific port. If the configured port to run a Game Server is being used by other application then it will throw an error and won’t allow you to start the service. In this case, you can either change the port in Game Server configuration or stop the service running on same port to start your Game Server.

Game Server crashes while being played

Your players sometimes complain that Game server crashes while being played. There may be numerous reasons for such incidents, a few of them are listed below,

  • Your Game Server is running an outdated or vulnerable version. Go to your vendor’s website and download a latest stable version and then reinstall it in your server.
  • The server in which you are running your Game Server does not have sufficient resources to cope up your players’ requests due to which your Game Server crashes. To beat this situation, you should think about an upgrade.
  • At the time of running a Game Server, it may possible that a few other programs are also running in your server. Sometimes, such a background process can cause an issue for your Game Server. You can stop all other ongoing processes and then check with your Game Server.

After a server reboot, my Game Server won’t start automatically

This happens if your Game Server’s service is not set to start automatically.

Windows users can check this from Services (Start > Administrative Tools > Services) menu.  Here, you can go to the properties of your Game Server’s service and navigate to Recovery tab. It will give you options to set for 1st Failure, 2nd Failure and Subsequent Failures. You can set “Restart the service” values for all or any of these options as per your need.

Is Your Game Server Being Targeted by DDoS Attack? Follow these Security Measures …

Windows VPS Game Server SecurityA denial-of-service (DoS) or distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) can be referred as cumulative effort of multiple persons or single “script kid” to make a computer/network resource unavailable or prevent it from functioning properly.

DoS attack can be rectified if packets come from only one location. Real headache is Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) where packets will come from multiple locations. Following are some basic measures you can take to prevent DDoS:

  • When you are assured that you are being targeted, first thing you should do is change your IP address or tell your ISP to null route it. You can also detach the network cable from your computer meanwhile your ISP assign you a new IP address.
  • However, changing an IP address is not the permanent solution, you will find yourself under attack again, if attacker will know your new IP address. There are very less chance, you face Distributed Denial of Service attack with dynamic IP address. But if your IP address is static, there are wide chances that you will be hit by massive amount of tiny packets. In this case, you can use any third-party VPN services which can provide you huge number of VPN server selection. Simply, you can connect them and based on their location, you will be assigned new IP address each time.
  • If you hit by an isolated location, you can determine the attack following simple steps:
    1. From command line ping to any popular website and notice the latency and % of lost packets. Check these measures at regular interval. If you are under attack you will see big jumps in latency time and % loss of packets in few hours interval.
    2. Netstat is another method. Just type netstat -ano in command line and you will see all current TCP/IP connections. If you notice huge number of open connections from the same IP address. You can block this IP address in firewall or antivirus software.
    3. You can also determine location of DoS through program “TCPView”. TCPView displays all the current connections on your server. If you notice 100’s of connections from same IP address, you can block such IP address.
    4. You can install any third-party Anti-DDoS software, Microsoft Security Essentials or Windows Firewall. You can close unwanted ports and block necessary IP addresses. You can also set up hardware firewall which might be the costliest option.
    5. If you are victim of ICMP attack such as ping of death, you can simply close the ICMP echo requests (ping) coming to your computer.
    6. If you do not use DNS service of your Game server then it should be disabled rather than leaving it as an open resolver. It will save you from being used as part of an attack.
    7. To avoid syn attack (the attacker opens a TCP connection and keeps it hanging without finishing the initial handshake.) you can increase TCP backlog and reduce the  Syn-Received timer, or one can use Syn caches.

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