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Game server density

Documentation for Game server density
Read time 1 minuteLast updated 15 hours ago
A game server is an instance of a game server binary running on a machine. Each game server consumes resources from its host machine, and each machine has a finite amount of resources. Therefore, a machine can only host a finite number of game servers based on the specifications of the machine and the resource consumption of the game server binary. The number of game servers that each machine in a fleet can host simultaneously is the server density of the fleet. Clanforge runs a suite of performance tests on your game server binary during the onboarding process to determine how much CPU power, RAM, and network bandwidth the game server binary uses. After capturing the data about the resource consumption of your game server binary, Clanforge uses the worst-case scenario data to calculate the ideal machine specifications and server density for your fleet. This way, if a game server experiences a spike in resource consumption, it won’t affect the other game servers on the machine.

Game modes and server density

The optimal number of server slots per machine often differs between game modes because they use different amounts of resources. For example, a game server in a capture the flag game mode might use fewer resources than a game server in a battle royale game mode. To keep the balance between cost-efficiency and performance, Clanforge recommends splitting game servers which run different game modes into separate fleets to facilitate better resource management. During the onboarding process, the Clanforge team calculates the optimal server density based on finding a balance between cost-efficiency and player performance. If any of the factors that go into the calculation change, Clanforge works with you to recalculate the server density. Although it’s not always the case, server densities might differ between bare metal and cloud machines because of the differences in specifications between the two types of machines. Refer to Machine capacity.