Why do you need a dedicated server?

There are two ways you can set up a server for playing network games. One is dedicated server and the other is non-dedicated server. The performance of these setups depends on the number of computers connected to the server. Non-dedicated servers will not deliver good enough performance when there are more than eight players connected.

New games are heavy and use greater resources compared to older games so as number of players is increases server becomes slower. Non-dedicated servers are even sometimes called as Listen mode. In this set up you can host the game as well as play on the same computer the one acting as server. But here the computer should be fast enough to up date the every computer as game proceeds. The responsibilities of server include tracking all other players, sending messages to players and update game at all the player computers with all the high end 3D graphics used.

This entire list of jobs can make any average server overloaded and slower. When computer games become overloaded, it will set priority for the things to be done and as a result local player’s game tends to run at better speed than other remote players. Remote players may have to wait for longer time before they can get their requests executed. This makes game bit bias on local player when some players suffer lagging. These lagging or longer processing time is nothing but bad ping time. The factor of ping time is most important in network games.

Dedicated servers have good pinging time; it can send messages to all players sooner. The reason is dedicated server skips all high graphics and devotes all its time to communication between computers. It tracks the actions of players, position of every player, who shot who, and broadcasting that information back to all of its participants very quickly. The game runs at equal speed for all the players and every one gets fair chance to play their part in game. Basically dedicated servers give real meaning to net games.

Non-dedicated servers can only give good performance when the server is fast enough and players are not more than seven or eight. They can work in place for dedicated servers if computer is fast one and runs no other heavy application along with games. This setup can be recommended for smaller group of network. But using a dedicated server will be the best idea to make sure the game play competitive.

With a dedicated server, you have the freedom to install multiple games on your server. The administration of the game servers is under your control, installing and configuring game modes and also downloading the game server executables. A dedicated server allows you more freedom but requires some system administration experience.

A dedicated server allows you to lease and manage your own machine while taking advantage of available bandwidth. You can install any operating system you like, host as many games as you want, and even host your own websites. The dedicated server choice is recommended to clans that are interested in purchasing multiple game servers