Win2000 Pro "real world" sys requirements??

Hi gang,

I'm thinking of building a server, and setting it up as a NASCAR 4 server. I'm close to haveing all of the "bits and pieces" to put the actual rig together, and plan on running Win2000 Pro for an OS.

I'll have at my disposal;

P/// 700E, running at 933MHz (133FSB), I'll run it there, though it's capable of more, to keep the buses in spec.

512MB PC133

Abit SH6 mobo

Hard drive: undetermined. Any "budget" suggestions??

The only other thing this rig will do, is Fold@home, when it's not being used for NASCAR 4. This is going to be a 3rd rig (the main components are now my 2nd rig, but I've got a Shuttle AK31 v.3.1 coming, and will be getting a 1.4 T-Bird for that. That'll bump the P/// rig down to 3rd fiddle.

Are the above components capable of what I'm interested in doing?? I want to run an IDE HDD, so I know 7200RPM is more important that ATA100 over ATA66, right??

Any suggestions or comments are welcomed! Thanks!

Mr B

I'd say yes... as far as 7200 rpm being more important... seek time would probably be the biggest benefit. Good lookin rig Your game server will probably kick the crap out of my only rig

*edit* oh... and I'd say a 10 or 15 gig would do the job right

7200rpm
ATA 100 is a must.

I would recommend upping the ram to 1024 because I've seen servers with alot of lag spikes because their ram is really not enough and most of those server only run 512.

Get a dual board!

Yodums

Yodums said:

7200rpm
ATA 100 is a must.

I would recommend upping the ram to 1024 because I've seen servers with alot of lag spikes because their ram is really not enough and most of those server only run 512.

Get a dual board!

Yodums

Click to expand...

Wow... I thought for sure that 7200 rpm would be more important... Am I just wrong for the application? Would 7200 rpm be more important for a web server or would ATA 100 still be more important?

Rain I meant they are both important and you should have them both.


Both are important for webservers since you need a faster hard drive which where the 7200rpm will help, and if you have a fast connection you'll want to get the retrieval from the HDD fast and the ATA100 will support 100meg/sec

Ok... I was thinking that ata66 would be enough but 7200 rpm was more important. I can see how 100 would be beneficial. Thanks for the clarification

Thanks for the replies, guys! Keep the hints comin'...

I suppose I should have mentioned in the first post....I've got broadband cable for an internet connection, Yodums, so that's not an issue..

ATA100 + 7200 RPM. Ok, I kinda thought that, but wasn't sure if it was an "absolute" necessity.

Can I get away with a 10GB drive?? There's really not gonna be a hell of a lot of stuff installed on this rig...

Upping the SDRAM would be the biggest bugger. I've got 4 sticks of 128MB. To get 1024 (1GB ram), I'd have to sell what I have, and get 4 x 256, or 2 512 sticks. I think the SH6 supports 512MB sticks of SDRAM...I'll have to look. I'm not looking to be cheezy, but a gig of RAM is really that required??

I guess I'm thinking of that quote of Bill Gates..."Who would ever need more that 640K of RAM?" lol.

OK, keep talkin, I'm listening....

Personally... I'd go with the 1 gig of ram. Running win2k... if your only goin to have 2 maybe 3 people playing then you could probably get away with 512. But for more players... more ram And 10 gig hd is pleanty... shouldn't need more than os, game, etc... so as long as it'll fit on 10gigs... it's enough.

Well if you want you can try 512 ram first and see how it goes with lots of people and where it starts to lag and stuff or where the server may get choppy.


Yodums

By the way either way drives that come out now already have ATA100 and either 5000rpm or 7000rpm.

Yodums

Yodums said:

By the way either way drives that come out now already have ATA100 and either 5000rpm or 7000rpm.

Yodums

Click to expand...

True, but ATM I don't have the $$ to get a new drive.

I've got a mobo coming, and will be looking for a T-Bird for that first... Then, I can turn my attentions fully towards this project.

But, it sounds like I need to upgrade my ram, and get a hard drive, and I'll be pretty well set.

The other Mods have got me hooked on UT....now I wanna get this going, and get them racin'..

Mr B said:

True, but ATM I don't have the $$ to get a new drive.

I've got a mobo coming, and will be looking for a T-Bird for that first... Then, I can turn my attentions fully towards this project.

But, it sounds like I need to upgrade my ram, and get a hard drive, and I'll be pretty well set.

The other Mods have got me hooked on UT....now I wanna get this going, and get them racin'..

Click to expand...

I saw a 40Gb on ubid for less then $100 - they even have generic drives 7200rpm dirt cheap! but you could go 20-30 even 10Gb

tbird? - go 266fsb - not 200fsb for same price mightas well....


Joe

Mr.B...

I have a K6-2 500 @ 525 (damb thing wont go higher) running 2k advanced server with no problems. LOTS OF RAM IS A MUST
256 i would say is the real min....
And about the harddrive, if you really must a 2Gig drive will do the trick.... But that will be pushing it, dont expect to have to many user accounts with that.

As you are runnig a gaming server...
Also make sure that the hardare is what you feel can run the game well. So a faster hardrive would always be better.....
but you got 512 of ram so...
you shouldnt have much paging going on anyways....

Do you even need a 40 gig drive? really a 10 would be fine....
How much data do you plan to store on that server if it is only running Games and folding?
Also are you planing on runnig a DOMAIN at home? or Active directory? as that (the services you run on the server) will have the greatest effect on the server.

Don't know anything about the game but if it has a dedicated server available other than having to install the complete game you're in luck.

You can get by with any hard drive so long as it's big enough hold WinK, programs and a swapfile as big as the amount of memory you have installed, in this case 1GB.

Download RAMDiskNT, will probably need to liscense it but it will be worth it. Create a RAMDisk of about 512MB-768MB largest you can get by with over the install size of the game. This will create a new Z: drive. Install the dedicated server to this drive.

Speed will be unbelievable and hard disk access will be kept to a minimum. The swapfile needs to be at least as large as the RAMDrive + about 512MB in case of a crash. Also need enough space to hold the temp file that RAMDiskNT writes to hard drive when shutting down the drive or PC (this file is as large as the RAMDrive also).

It's not hard at all to set up considering there is a dedicated server application for the game. I ran a Half-Life server for DoD on my local LAN full of bots to practice against when I got bored and it's fast as lightning when using a RAMDisk...no lag as far as resource lag goes.

Most important things on a game server are connection, memory processor...pretty much in that order. Hard drive access and speed doesn't play a huge part in the servers I've run (HL, UT, Quake and numerous mods for all those).

EDIT:

If you do have to install the entire game to run a server you can still use a RAMDisk as long as the install size isn't tremendously large. You want to have at the very least 256MB (512MB+ optimal) of free memory left over after creating the disk. More is better.