I just wanted to let anyone who is interested know about an LFS server offer (with permission from LFS techs).

I have 3 U.S servers - Specs are Dual Core, Dual Xeon, hyperthreaded (4 cores per server, 8 virtual CPU's per server), 1066 Mhz FSB, 4 Gigabyte single sided RAM, 15k SCSI's with RAID 0, Windows 2003 Server, 100 M/bit connection. They are very serious servers on fast commercial networks.

I have one on the East Coast, one in central U.S and one on the West Coast available right now.

Asking $50 per month for 20 car private. Public also available.

All three servers are running as public servers, so feel free to try them out. I also have 1 demo server up and running (from Texas). Servers are under the name Trackday Media.

Also (this is sounding like a stake knife advertisment !) ... also I am offering a free website with each server (either sub domain or your own domain name) .

I'm an LFSer from way back, love the game, love motorsport and hope that I can be part of LFS by offering this service.

If you are intested drop me an email at [email protected] or reply to this post.

Regards,
Steve

is that not a bit expensive?
i mean i rent a 23 slot server from liveforspeed.fr for €19.90 ($25.25 conversion from www.xe.com)

Yeah.. one could have his one server for that amount..

Actually you can have one of these servers for $5000 U.S + $600 US for the bandwidth for each server, that is the facts. $50 to hire a large percentage of one of those servers is a fair price, hopefully enough so I can break even and continue the service.

Umm....CoRe Racing and Land Of The Free get our 23-connection LFS servers from VSK Server Rentals for 60% of that price, and our servers are consistantly the lowest pings in North America. Server location is in St. Louis. You need to lower your prices if you want be competitive in the states.

Quote from soarer :

Actually you can have one of these servers for $5000 U.S + $600 US for the bandwidth for each server, that is the facts. $50 to hire a large percentage of one of those servers is a fair price, hopefully enough so I can break even and continue the service.

Well, I didnt mean you could buy one for $50.
But (at least here) you can rent fairly decent root servers (with full ssh access) for less than $50..

hmm, well I guess I am approaching this from a different perspective, rather than trying to be the cheapest or most competitive in price, I am trying to offer the best in performance for those that want it. I've not even looked at pricing of other services.

The way I have setup the pricing is so that each LFS cleint gets 1 whole virtual CPU for the 20 car share of the server without overselling. To go lower in price would mean having to stack more than one client per virtual CPU, which can be done, but it means a hotter server than I would normally like to see.

Anyway I do appreciate your comments and I will take them on board.

Regards.
Steve

People will go for the lower price in most cases (unless the company has a bad reputation).

I had a clan mate that went into lending Half-Life servers. He eventually gave up because it was not profitable. That was with 2 servers/(single cpu)machine. (And I assume HL servers take more resources than LFS ones). The prices of the big companies were just so low, because they either put more servers on a machine, paid less for the servers or - most likely - a combination of both.
Having said that, I think that your only chance is to offer extra services that the big companies don't have. (Like stats for all races on the server or something like that).
I think the best-performance thing is not really important for the customers, as the LFS server is not that much of a resource eater that other companies would have a much worse performance to turn costumers to you.. (I've never been on a LFS server and thought "Uh.. this server sucks.")

Yeah it's hard to beat the big guys, I know all about that.

I've got a few options for these servers, hosting LFS was the fun / dream option. I may need to look at plan B.

Thanks again for you input.

Maybe if you host a LFS server as well as another racing game or two (as some people/clans play more than one racing game online) or another game like CSS or something then it might be a bit better value for money. Small idea.

$50??

What would be the minimum hardware requirements for a dedicated 20 slot server? I'm pretty sure those servers are overkill and if you plan to have more then one server on one machine then listing the specs is irrelevant.

You say you have 3 servers. Is that 3 virtual server on which you have multiple dedicated LFS hosts, and if so, how many LFS hosts per server? Those specs should be enough to run say, 8 LFS hosts per dedicated server. Not really sure about that in technical terms regarding what comp specs are needed for multiple LFS hosts, but Dual Core Xeons on 100Mbit connection? That should be more than enough.

EDIT: DOH!! kurent beat me to it.

I have three physical servers, one in Seattle, one in Texas and one in N.Y. all waiting and eager to do some work ! They aren't just Dual Xeon, they are Dual Core Dual Xeon, I spec'ed them personally and everything in them is the best.

I'm not interested in hosting any of the killing games, my heart is in racing not shooting.

How about this, does anyone want to do a beta test for me ? I'll offer a free LFS 20 car 'server' free for 14 days. There is nothing else running on the servers at all, so I can then do some proper testing and get feedback from the beta testers and then maybe I could look at a different pricing model. I have web hosting servers, and it has always been a rule to run them at around 5% CPU average usage to keep them fast and reliable ... I guess with game servers it is a different story.

Is anyone interested in doing that ? Free 20 slot server for 14 days,

I suggest you set up some servers, invite people to test with the incentive that those who test the servers for a pre-determined amount of time (days, hours, whatever) can get a discount.

Oh, and you better make it 23 slots, as LFS can handle 23 connections with 20 (officially) on track.

ok, I'm going to discuss this with my partner further today and then make a new post with the final beta test offer.

Thanks for your advise and do feel free to email me if you want to take a server for a spin for the beta test

Wow! I bet you feel black and blue, soarer!

The LFS dedicated server's primary objective is to collect and distribute packets of data. There's not a lot of physics calculations involved in the server application itself. The thing your server will need more than processor power is burstable bandwidth. You can probably comfortably run 10 or more LFS servers at full capacity on a single CPU without breaking 10% usage, but you'll need a healthy connection on an exceedingly stable network. That would be the priority, IMO.

It's great to hear that another LFS provider is planning to start operations in the US, and that you're a racing enthusiast is a plus. More exposure for LFS in the New World can only be good for our community.

hehe, I guess you call it the free market ... demand and supply and all that kind of stuff. I'm certainly not out to rip anyone off or make a killing out of this.

Anyway I think I have definately over estimated how much resources are needed for LFS instance, so I should be able to drop that priced based on that fact. Each server is on 100 M/bit burstable, so BW won't be an issue.

Thanks for your support. LFS is an awesome SIM, easily the best. Keep up the good work. I think I'll go and do a few laps now actually

Quote from soarer :

hehe, I guess you call it the free market ... demand and supply and all that kind of stuff. I'm certainly not out to rip anyone off or make a killing out of this.

Anyway I think I have definately over estimated how much resources are needed for LFS instance, so I should be able to drop that priced based on that fact. Each server is on 100 M/bit burstable, so BW won't be an issue.

Thanks for your support. LFS is an awesome SIM, easily the best. Keep up the good work. I think I'll go and do a few laps now actually

As Banshee noted earlier, we do have a VSK server.
If we can get a server here in the states for no more than say $375.00 per year, we'll probaby bite on that in March '07.

Keep up the good effort!