[Joe]

Yeah mine's a micro so probably only good for the practice server, wouldn't want to run two server instances on it. Does sound like the latter option would be better if you can run both on it, but let me know 

[marty]

The micro should handle the numbers on a thursday nite, not sure if stracker does cause much extra load but you can check cpu usage with it during a nite with more people in. I found it would get fairly high and that was before running stracker. The netcode has improved a bit since and that was also when flow control was a server option and we really had no idea what it did other then cause a server to crap itself at certain limits.

I did have 24 cars in at times on the micro and it was about on its limits but something that can be tested fairly easily is run an open server with a basic combo and see what happens when it fills. You could likely just find a sweet spot with the hz rate to reduce server load and get away with the micro even with 24-30 users in it.

[Bird]

cpu-wise the micro and small instances are equal.
You can only see an extra core on the medium instances.

What the small has extra, is more cpu "credits" per hour - which you can burst-use in case you need it.
And of course 1GB extra ram.

Just sayin'.

http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/instance-types/

[Bird]

okay, miss read, didn't take enough notice
If numbers stay small, micro is okay... now thinking...

use Joe's Free server for Thursday's 24/7 practice server +  use a t2.small for race nights to always be able to accommodate greater numbers @ ~10/month ($360 for 3 years)
or
3 years upfront payment for a t2.small to run both practice and racenight (and anything else, ie Tuesday backup, Dirt Rally, rFactor...) at $303 for 3 years...

think I am leaning towards the latter again.

If you're renting a t2.small you might get away with running the practice server on it, too.  But I'm not sure how the dirt, rF and other games like this fairly weak linux instance...

Also: a t2.small 3yr full up-front price is $581 (1yr=$257).   I think you've looked at the micro pricing - that's around that mark ($290 in fact).


Edit: the best way to check prices is to go into the management console for ec2, go to "reserved instances" and click the button to purchase reserved instances.  Filter it for your zone, usage (all upfront) and the instance type, and hit search.

Mind you this does not contain any other costs (eg storage & bandwidth) however small they are.


Edit2:
I'm wondering, Marty, do you usually check the monitoring on your server, how it behaves during load times? 

[Guybrush Threepwood]

Why doesn't XGN just have one decent server.

Run two instances on it during non-race nights for Tues and Thurs practice (I've never seen more than a half-dozen people practicing at once), then on Tuesday night make it the Tuesday night race server, then Thursday night make it the Thursday night race server.

Why have all these different servers with different names, administrators, etc. everywhere?

I also think the practice servers should be public to get the XGN name out there and attract more people to the league.  I still wouldn't know about XGN if it weren't for the public servers advertising XGN.com when MP first came out.  You can always give members the password to kick, or practice offline.  Of course, this might mean a restriction on the number of players allowed to join.

That's just my opinion anyway.

[Bird]

I think the reason behind all the servers & admins is twofold:
- it was free
- everyone likes to be The Admin on his own domain.  It's understandable; my mistakes won't mess up others' stuff, and other's won't mess up my stuff

The other thing; to have a decent server running 24/7 with empty instances is not feasible.  It costs a lot.
It's much cheaper to have a tiny instance for praccy, always on, and fire up the bigger gun for the race.

[Wally]

There's a certain sense to what you say. The problem with Amazon servers though, is that someone has to put their credit card on the line. I leave the Tuesday night server up for as short a time as possible - a few hours a week. If I were to forget to shut it down after race night, the $$$ would rack up fast. If you let two admins share such an instance, one of them would have to put their credit card on the line, and I wouldn't be comfortable doing that. It's also relatively cheap doing it this way. It's about $15 per month roughly to run the Tuesday night server, if you bring it up and down. A reserved C3.large instance, which the Tuesday night server is, would be $1345 for 1 year to be 24x7.

I agree that a permanent XGN server for practice (and maybe doubling for Thursday night races) is a good idea though.

[Wally]

Yep, Bird and I just said essentially the same thing

[Guybrush Threepwood]

Oh, OK.  For some reason I thought it was $15 a month regardless.  I didn't realise that cost was dependent on time up or data used, or whatever it is.

I still think the prac servers should be public though.

[Phil.8]

has the practice the server has run out.  I am happy to donate mine which is 24 slot if you dont mind me posting the link for shared pay if anyone wants to contribute. Not even using it as no one seems to play AC multiplayer much. I can give wally and flattop full access or whoever needs it and you can call it whatever you want.  Its hosted by https://www.streamline-servers.com/ if you want to have a look and see if it would be ok.

its hosted on a 1gbit line

[marty]

I just put mine up now so jump on that regular xgn pass, 1x tyres and fuel. Next week I will set it up with Wally's settings whatever they are/were or leave it at 1x if guys would prefer that.

[Bird]

has the practice the server has run out.  I am happy to donate mine which is 24 slot if you dont mind me posting the link for shared pay if anyone wants to contribute. Not even using it as no one seems to play AC multiplayer much. I can give wally and flattop full access or whoever needs it and you can call it whatever you want.  Its hosted by https://www.streamline-servers.com/ if you want to have a look and see if it would be ok.

its hosted on a 1gbit line

Phil, do you think that's beefy enough for race nights?

Oh, OK.  For some reason I thought it was $15 a month regardless.  I didn't realise that cost was dependent on time up or data used, or whatever it is.

I still think the prac servers should be public though.

Yes, Amazon AWS pricing strucures aren't simple.
You pay for processing power the most, but you pay per instance per hour (an instance is eg a tiny cpu share with 1GB ram and 8GB storage).
A micro instance costs something like $0.02/hr, a small costs $0.04/hr, etc.  Each have different hourly rates (check the pricing page link I posted before) 
Then you pay more for extra storage, and you pay for traffic, separately.  Although these costs are minuscule by all means.

It's a great system if you need servers temporarily - like we do for racing.  You can start up the instance, have the race, then shut it down, and only pay for the usage.

[Phil.8]

I think so  , but if we want to do a test night tomorrow or thursday thats cool

[Bruce]

I think so  , but if we want to do a test night tomorrow or thursday thats cool

That is a plan Phil. Great offer!
et al, I have finally applied some time to read and digest things... thanks Bird for the correction, I have been jumping around and not taking it all in, ahh busy life!
Lets test this this Thursday, if it works happy to contribute, as it costs ~$AUS12/month to run the race server on just the Thursday, and happy to chip in to Phil's account if all works well, (it all works out a lot cheaper than the rFactor slots per month, as an aside I am running an rFactor server on the t2.small instance for some form of experiement, not sure why, yet )

I have the current AC Thursday site zipped up and ready for installation....

[Gratulin]

I have a free server running. I created it a couple of months ago to test that web app I wrote. It's running and actually gets quite a bit of use, but I'm happy for it to be used as one of the Thursday servers if needed.

Which server is that?

I just HAD to Google the name! Interesting...

It's currently called Kernow Bys Vyken. Just one of the AWS free instances. If you want to use it as a Thursday server happy to rename it and give you a password.