The video game industry is a billion-dollar business. However, as more people enter the gaming scene and explore multi-player metaverses, seasoned gamers will be all too familiar with that excitement-killing lag.
There's nothing worse than slow loading times, especially when it causes you to drop out of a game. As servers host thousands of live gamers, it’s no surprise that you’re fighting against more than your internet connection for continuous uptime.
With your own gaming server, constant uptime is guaranteed, and slow-loading graphics are a thing of the past.
A dedicated game server is a physical server used solely for hosting multiplayer games. Unlike shared servers, where multiple games are run simultaneously, a dedicated game server is devoted to a single personal computer (PC) game.
With this in mind, we’ve put together a guide to optimising your own personal gaming server for a high-end gaming experience.
A well-optimised dedicated game server comes with many advantages you might not get with shared servers.
Games with dedicated servers offer players exciting ways to create and manage their own private gaming rooms for multiplayer gaming, enhancing the gamer's experience.
Popular games such as Minecraft, Among Us, Team Fortress 2, Squad, Risk of Rain 2, and DayZ use dedicated game servers.
Here are some of the benefits of using a dedicated game server for multiplayer games:
The lack of resource contention with other games allows the server to perform better even during peak times. So, gamers experience faster load times, fewer interruptions, and a more seamless environment.
Dedicated servers provide a consistent and stable performance for all players, which is essential for competitive gaming, where fairness and equal conditions are critical.
Dedicated servers are often hosted in data centres with power supplies, robust cooling systems, and multiple internet connections. This ensures that games remain available and playable, even during network issues or hardware failures.
Dedicated game server users have complete control over player limits, game modes, and rules. They are also able to install custom plugins and optimise performance settings.
Dedicated servers can be upgraded with additional CPU power, memory, and bandwidth, which is crucial for maintaining a high-quality experience as the player base expands. Most hosting providers offer flexible plans for easy upgrades.
Since you do not share the dedicated server with other games or applications, it is a more secure environment compared to other shared hosting options. In addition, many hosting providers can implement security measures such as firewalls and DDoS prevention.
A dedicated Internet Protocol (IP) address is the only one you can use. Most hosting providers will give you a unique IP address, so you get the protection of a VPN connection and a fixed IP address.
A poorly optimised server can cause significant lag or even disconnection, especially when many players access the system at the same time. Luckily, this article explores five simple ways for beginners to optimise their dedicated game server.
Choosing and installing lightweight software helps free up your server hardware resources, which you can reallocate for other components.
For example, try using the Linux operating system instead of Windows, as this is known to run more efficiently and be more secure.
Installing too many add-ons or extensions on your game host server can significantly reduce performance. In addition to consuming storage space, loading them also requires more random-access memory (RAM) and central processing unit (CPU) power.
To optimise your server performance, regularly check and remove unused add-ons and extensions. While this process is relatively safe, we recommend backing up your VPS files and checking with users to avoid removing the wrong mod.
Here are several common server settings you should consider changing in order to optimise the performance of your dedicated game server:
Memory limit. The memory limit sets the maximum RAM size your gaming server can use. To maintain optimal performance, you should ideally set it as high as possible but below your system's total memory capacity.
Maximum ping. A ping measures the time a packet needs to travel between the gamer and the server. The higher the value, the higher the latency and input lag. Some games let you automatically kick or reject a player if their ping exceeds a threshold. This ensures players who can connect to the server have optimal gameplay experience. For those with a high network latency, you can set up a host closer to their geographical location to minimise lag.
Map size. A big map requires higher computing power since your VPS must load more assets and scripts. To maintain an optimal gaming experience, we recommend setting it based on the number of players on your server. If you have a small player base, setting the map too large can waste resources since some of the areas might be vacant.
Player slot. The number of players significantly affects your game server RAM consumption. Optimising player slots is crucial for public servers to allow everyone to join. We recommend starting with a low limit, like 8 or 10, and gradually increasing it.
Autosave. Game servers save the current gameplay state at a specific interval to ensure players don't lose progress. During the process, your system might experience a performance hiccup since this task requires writing data on the storage. Prolonging the interval can help reduce the occasional lag for less powerful VPSs. We recommend setting it to 30 minutes at the maximum.
After changing any settings, remember to run tests and monitor the host's performance to ensure stability.
As the number of players in your server increases, you must scale the hosting environment to accommodate their needs. Otherwise, your system will run out of resources and perform poorly.
There are two ways to scale a dedicated game server: vertically by upgrading the current system or horizontally by adding new instances.
Vertical scaling is more straightforward since you don't have to duplicate your files or set up a new system. This method also provides a single point of management for a more efficient workflow and lower network overhead.
However, vertical scaling can be limited if your hosting provider doesn't offer a more powerful plan. It also creates a single point of failure, meaning you don't have a backup system to take over during downtime.
Horizontal scaling is more flexible since you can set up multiple systems to offload the traffic from the main game server. If you already use the most powerful plan from your hosting provider, you can simply configure a new instance. In addition, if a game server fails, others can take over to maintain service uptime.
However, horizontal scaling is more difficult and time-consuming. It is also expensive and might cause incompatibility issues for some applications.
To enable multiplayer gameplay, your server connects and exchanges data with players' computers over a network. Optimising this transfer process is crucial to avoid performance issues and ensure responsiveness.
An important measure is choosing a server location closest to your audience base. This reduces the travel distance between the host and the clients to minimise latency, resulting in a lag-free gaming experience.
Large hosting companies will have access to multiple data centres across different continents, including North America, Asia, and Europe. So, users can freely choose one that suits them and switch locations anytime.
You can also set up a reverse proxy using a solution like Cloudflare Spectrum, which routes traffic to a data centre closest to players' location to reduce latency and maintain responsiveness.
Online games are unstable and vulnerable when running on an inadequate server. So, optimising your dedicated game server is crucial for a responsive and lag-free multiplayer gaming experience.
Not only does it positively impact performance, but it also helps with security. Many hosting providers offer automatic weekly backups, malware scanners, a built-in firewall, and DDoS protection to secure your server from cyber threats.
However, it is important to think about the disadvantages of a dedicated game server, such as the more expensive costs, the requirement for skills, the long-term commitment, and the responsibility for conducting maintenance.