Hello, what are the best rf2 dedicated server providers ? I found markmods but they don't have lots of informations on how to manage it. There are only old posts here ... I woul like to buy a server with a simple UI to setup ... Do they exist ? Is anybody setting up their server fully themselves ? Thanks for any information.
Despite what some people say it's not that difficult to set up a rF2 dedicated server. There are a few YouTube videos that explain what needs to be done. You do however need to be reasonably OK with editing the JSON files and router firewall configuration. Try this link which explains it all I've beeen running - on and off - a Windows 10 PC which hosts a couple of rF2 dedicated servers, plus servers for AC and ACC. It doesn't need to have a powerful GPU - mine only has I think 1Mb and runs in "headless mode" so I connect using an RDP connection - no need for keyboard, mouse or monitor. I'd suggest a decent amount of RAM would be required, and a good fast broadband connection.
Thanks. I already own a dedicated server on my PC which works perfectly. Problem is bandwith, cpu performance ... getting a real server like aws or else is a lot more usable. I already found some solutions like ikoula, with 30€ per month for a way better service for players, unlimited bandwith usage, 1Gb/s ... I wonder if all the server i see are old pc on some people's garage There should be some more reliable/performant solution.
We've been with NRT for many years. Value, full control and fast service. Dave suffered bad injuries some time back however, and I'm unsure as to their future atm.
There have been some posts about using AWS but I wasn't able to get it to work, and I believe others had issues using the notes in the posts. I was fortunate to get some old hardware from work so my rF2 dedicated server machine has 96 Gb Ram, dual Xeon processors, 3 TB SSD drives, 4x 1Gb NIC adaptors, dual PSU and runs Windows 10 Enterprise. That cost me nothing as it came up for disposal when it was just three years old! Broadband is 300 Mb up and down - and I have a fixed external IP address. The best thing about hosting it at home yourself is that you have total control over the system. You can mess about with it however you want, rebuilt, update and configure exactly how you want. I mentioned I run two rF2 servers; of course I can have as many as I wish. I have another similar machine running a RRE server and a Teamspeak server. If you have somewhere to have a standalone PC at home for this then that's the route I would use - buy hey! I'm tight with my money I couldn't justify spending any significant sum each month on a hosted server service like NRT or MarkMods
You're a lucky guy ... you clearly have all you need and probably could sell web services on what you use and earn money Most people don't have that chance ... we need a solution
Thanks, didn't know that ... That's probably that kind of service that games like iRacing use. They do all the setup and amazon sells the service "at demand". It looks like some more professional service.
let me split that into two answers. First dedicated server providers, second simple UI. Server providers Offering game servers requries (besides some other topics) in majority two requirements: Automation (to put the action behind a (web) interface) Verbosity (to know what is currently going on in detail) Which the rFactor 2 server is both lacking (suprise!). The providers listed in this thread are actually just providers of virtual machines and or hardware boxes. You still need to maintain them in terms of security updates, firewall, incident response. Besides having just a dedicated gameserver (e. g. at Nitrado), you are responsible for the stuff the server does. It your (e.g AWS based) machine get's hacked _you_ are responsible for it. On dedicated gameservers, this is quite often in the area of responsibility of the hoster. This is important. Unless you know what you are actually doing, I would never recommend any newbies just to rent a server somewhere on the internet without proper preparation. And aditionally, costs. You need a Windows box for rFactor 2, which raises the costs by alot. With the current state of rFactor 2, you will never get the hosted session expierience like seen in iRacing. And before the argument "self hosting at a pc at home" appears.... Most providers actively attempt to make that not usable. Either throught network architectures or just with disabling some features you need to host servers at home. It might work, but if not, happy debugging. It's super hard to debug this. UI Besides other platforms, the rFactor 2 servers is not "all-in-one". It consist out of several tools put together in a pipeline to build, package and use modpacks for the server. It's not difficult to follow tutorials (to make that clear), but the debugging ist just...Awful. While building a server, you have so many variables you can f*ckup, that you might spend days until to get it working (per race). And here, we can again mention the topic verbosity. It's just not existing. There is no such thing as an simple UI for the rFactor 2 server. But there are some tools to automate *some* parts of the process. My APX project (see in my signature) was ridiculously close to actually add a "simple" UI (or atleast an abstraction layer possible to add an unified UI) to the server (besides all the f*ckup needed to get there), managing all the required steps, but there was only little interest and resulted in a (3-ish year) long fight against issue either never being adressed or just being ignored. I got it working towards some degree (I guess there is like 1 community actually using it), but at the end, decided to halt the project until I see an actual reason to continue it. There are still a few devs in the community writing tools for some sections of the process, but still the rFactor 2 community is lightyears away from having an simple, unified, verbose and beginner friendly user interface. Wrapping up To answer both of your questions: No, and No.
Thanks for the clear response. That confirm what i can found on the web ... Nothing I now know why rF2 seems so slow to evolve to good multiplayer. I like the game, know lots of people who love it too but can't find good conditions to play easilly. Maybe rF2 is too "professional", i see lots of closed leagues, why no simple system for all. With their 3 open servers they are going in the good direction. I will probably make a try with a dedicated server, i already know how it works with packages/mods ... worth a try.
You say, DanRZ, that you have a working rF2 dedicated server already on a PC at home. A few questions... Does this show up OK in the online servers listings? And can people connect from the outside world OK? Who do you want to connect to the server? Is it an open server for everyone or is it a "controlled group"? What is your broadband capability? Have a look at the posts by @Paul McC / Tarmac Terrorist and his Potato server "project" https://forum.studio-397.com/index.php?threads/potato-pickup-play-public-server.65866/
Hello, yes i have a dedicated server on my own PC. It just needs to understand the working of steamcmd and the MAS system of rF2. People can connect from anywhere but i have a fixed IP and i had to make some NAT rules to forward the right ports. But my bandwith is low : 0.9 Mbps upload and 5 Mbps download. It's just to maintain a server for a little community ... I've found a dedicated server provider and now my server is online (ikoula) and works pretty well ... Just need to see if RAM and bandwith is enough for 46 players.
Hello, analysed today : Max "incoming" traffic : 90 Mbps !!! Down and Upload rates were about 4 or 5 Mbps for ~20 players. I have 1 Gbps symetrical. It looks OK CPU 3.X GHz 4 Cores Xeon is enough too.
