Hosting one’s own gaming server is a practice almost as old as the gaming industry itself. With time, official, publisher-supported servers have gained prominence and have become mainstream. This process however has not reduced the popularity of hosting your own game servers. This is especially true for servers that are used to host classic games that no longer enjoy developer support and maintenance. Hosting a game server is also used to customize an online gaming session to be more in line with what the players want to experience. These changes are often performed via implementing mods on the game server.
Gaming servers in the past mostly operated using dedicated traditional servers with rather limited control panels, potentially limiting customization menus, and complex and headache-inducing UIs. Nowadays, however, the VPS technology allows for the hosting and simultaneous management of the server using an OS. So, in recent years gaming VPS options have gained more and more prominence and are on their way to becoming part of the mainstream. But what should you look out for if you want to get a gaming VPS service for the first time?
3 Tips to Consider when Choosing a Game VPS Server?
There are a lot of VPS service providers out there and choosing the right one can get complicated, especially if you are a beginner at VPS use and don’t know your way around handling a VPS. So, in this section I will outline three of the most important things to keep track of when choosing a gaming VPS.
Locations
The location of your VPS service directly affects how much latency you and other gamers who will be using this server will experience. As such, it is important to know that a desirable location for your server is already supported by your VPS provider of choice. A good metric of evaluating a VPS provider’s performance is the number of their locations.
A good VPS provider for example offers diverse VPS packages, while also remaining active on several continents. Due to the central location of Europe, people from the MENA region, Europe and even Americas can connect and play there. So, a Europe VPS is a good shout if you want to start making your own gaming VPS server.
Uptime
Uptime rate is the amount of active server operation within a certain time measurement unit. It can be days, weeks or months. The opposite of server uptime is server downtime during which you cannot access the server and whatever howting you may have done on it will be unavailable. So naturally you would want to maximize uptime when it comes to your choice of gaming VPS. Look either for a VPS with Cloud support that allows it to stay operational even during downtime, or for a VPS with uptime in 99th percentile.
Payment Options
IF you are running your server from a country that does not have access to conventional payment methods such as international credit cards or debit cards, then your best option for payment would be cryptocurrencies. So, consider choosing a VPS provider that accepts cryptocurrencies.
Cloudzy offers the chance to buy a VPS server with crypto options for cheap. Ensuring access to VPS for people around the world with its diverse set of supported coins, as well as the option to anonymously buy VPS using privacy coins like Monero.
Why Should I Choose VPS for my Game Server?
Here are the three main advantages of using a gaming VPS compared to traditional dedicated servers and other hosting methods.
Extra Security
As I already mentioned, a gaming VPS package usually comes with lots of additional security measures. Especially with regards to DDoS attacks which constitute the largest percent of online attacks against gaming servers, VPS servers are better protected in every way. You also can further enhance your server by adding additional security measures as well.
Direct Access
With other types of hosting, you get access to a rather limiting user interface from which you will manage the options that the provider has deemed necessary for you to manage. With a VPS you essentially get access to a remote computer and you can manage and alter nearly every aspect of your server as you please.
Hosting Diversity
Most gaming server providers allow you to choose from a list of supported games and you can only support games from that specific list. With a gaming VPS however, you can host nearly every game you like and customize it as much as you like as well.
VPS vs Dedicated Server
In general, if you are aiming for a server to server as your gaming host, then VPS is almost superior and more flexible in every single category. You get direct access to the OS to make whatever change you want, and you will have a much higher uptime since a virtual machine can easily replace hardware pieces that need maintenance. It also tends to be cheaper than dedicated servers.
Wrap up
Running a gaming server is about much more than just running a quality server. But no doubt your server optimization and quality will make or break the entire effort depending on its performance. So make sure that you take into account all the different variables related to your server’s performance in order to avoid connection and lagging issues for your gamer base.
