This step by step tutorial covers setting up a VPS game server on Windows VPS. If you are new to this, you should know about certain requirements such as what disk size, RAM and resources are required.
First decide on which game you want to install. Then you will need to check the hardware requirements of your chosen game. For some games like Minecraft, 20GB disk space and 2GB RAM are enough but it also depends on the usage.
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Player Slot Limit
3 to 10 players can connect to your game server at any time on a basic type of virtual machine with 1GB or 2GB RAM. Poor player slot setup can cause many problems like slow server speed or it can even crash your server. It asks from you to be wise when setting the maximum number of players by counting how much RAM can be used by each player and leaving some RAM for the system itself.
Upgrade
As you already know, you can host between 3 and 10 players without experiencing lag. However, if your site becomes more popular and the number of players starts to increase with each passing day, you will have to upgrade your server resource. With Dewlance, your plan can be upgraded to 16GB RAM VPS and after that you can purchase a dedicated server without a problem. If you upgrade on the same DC, your IP will remain the same.
Installing Game server via Remote Desktop
You can use the RDP Application to access your VPS. This application is also available on Linux / MacOS. Installation is a little bit difficult but our tutorial will make it easier for you. If you don’t know how to access your VPS from RDP, don’t worry – you can read our Text and Video-based tutorial from MacOS Windows RDP and Windows RDP
The first thing to do is to connect to your Windows VPS game server and download the game files to your desktop, and extract them in the desktop folder. Then follow the instructions of your game provider. I know it is easier said than done so I am giving you an example to help you install it without problems. If you want to install the “Minecraft” server on your Virtual Machine, then open the official Minecraft website and download the server edition software from it. Then run it and follow the instructions but one thing you have to keep in mind is that you may need to open a firewall port to access it via a Minecraft client.
How to Secure and Protect your Game Server from a DDoS Attack?
There is a high risk of DDoS attacks and you can deal with this by changing a port number. This is simple and you just need to open the port in Windows Firewall and change the port setting in your game server settings.
On a public server, changing a port won’t help you because you will need to tell your game players that you’ve changed your port number and you will need to purchase a DDoS protection, which helps you filter bad traffic. You can purchase it from your server provider. We provide 10Gbps DDoS protection for game servers at an additional price.
Monitoring Windows Game Server
It is a crucial task to monitor your server IP. You can buy monitoring service or use a Linux VPS and run a Cron job to notify you of a server connection error.
Pricing – Personal vs Public Server
If you need a game server for personal use, then, of course, the cost will be lower than that of a public game server because you won’t need to give your port number/IP to the public – something that increases the risk of a DDoS attack. It will save you from buying an expensive DDoS protection as your server will only be used by you.
How to choose a good Windows VPS provider for gaming?
Your provider must have a good business model, which means that they shouldn’t be selling a 100GB disk space for just $10 or $20. This is an example of a bad business model and they will be unable to finance backup servers, which will result in a huge data loss later. Example of a good business plan is selling at a realistic price of $10 per 15GB to 20GB disk space so that you are not required to switch providers every month.
– How many users are hosted on each server?
To earn more money from you, some providers don’t care about the speed or the performance of a server and they will sell 100 VPS accounts on each server with 48GB to 128GB of RAM. Beware of this type of providers.
– How long has your hosting company been in business?
Many companies fool their clients by showing false domain registration dates. However, you don’t need to worry about this anymore because there are some tools that allow you to check the content of a website at a previous point in time. I hope you have already heard about the Wayback Archive.
– What About the Internet Speed?
A not oversold 100Mbps port speed is better than an oversold 1Gbps so check the file download/upload speed before purchasing. You can open a ticket with your provider, ask for location and test the file download link.
– What About the Backup?
You don’t want to lose all the data and files on your game server, which also contains players’ data and their progress so it will be a good idea to purchase a backup server or set up your own FTP server on a Windows VPS and enable automated backup.