Dedicated Server Multiplayer

Development Programming & Scripting
1

Okay so I am very new at this. I just started learning about online multiplayer today, and from what I can tell, I should be able to do online multiplayer just as simply as doing LAN multiplayer. I have a few questions though.

  1. What specs do I need in a dedicated server to be able to host a relatively light Unreal Engine game? I’d like to minimize costs here as much as possible, but I also want to be able to have upwards of 10,000 people active online at any given time.

  2. I want to be able to squeeze as many games into one server as I can, but I don’t know what exactly I need.

  3. How many separate “games” (unique sessions) can I run on one dedicated server? For reference, the sessions will host up to 4 people.

Sorry for being so green in this area, but I don’t know where to start. I don’t want to purchase anything without first knowing what I need.

2

You would run your game servers on different ports and this would allow you to run multiple instances on the same server.

As for how many instances you could run on a server would depend entirely on the game in question.

Your best answer would be to package a dedicated server build, deploy it on to your server, start it up and start playing … monitor utilisation and resources on the server. That would be able to give you a fairly accurate representation of how many instances you should be able to run.

This however will only ever be an indication and will not take in to account extraneous activity on the server itself or the operating system.