Hosting a game server on a virtual machine - Impact on performance?

Gimpymoo · 1 Feb 2016 at 13:40

If I setup a VM for the purpose of game server hosting, what is the performance hit, if any going to be compared to hosting it directly. Will it make the game servers performance lower than it should be.

Reason for doing this is I need to give other people access to the PC BUT I feel it is more secure to give them access to a VM and not the complete host system, if that makes sense?

Appreciate any help.

Thanks.

Rroff · 1 Feb 2016 at 13:43

Depends a bit on the game and the VM. I've hosted minecraft and Quake 2 from VMs without any noticeable impact on performance but you might find bigger FPS games of the BF4 type variety are impacted either in handling the CPU load with bigger player loads or that low level responsiveness - which can be quite an odd one.

If you go with a bare metal virtualisation type approach i.e. hypervisors even better.

KIA · 1 Feb 2016 at 14:33

Are you going to isolate the network connection?

Gimpymoo · 1 Feb 2016 at 14:41

KIA said:
Are you going to isolate the network connection?

Can you clarify please? Do you mean isolate it from my home network? If so, yes.

On Holiday · 1 Feb 2016 at 15:03

Probably not what you're planning on doing. But ARMA 3 and more than 30 players on a VM does not perform well.

Gimpymoo · 1 Feb 2016 at 15:30

Archeum said:
Probably not what you're planning on doing. But ARMA 3 and more than 30 players on a VM does not perform well.

You are right, not what I am planning

Avalon · 1 Feb 2016 at 17:05

If you could perhaps tell us what game and what sort of loading you're planning on putting on it then someone may well have tried it already and be able to give a real world perspective rather than general advice.

Gimpymoo · 1 Feb 2016 at 18:42

Server usage:
Killing Floor 2
Teamspeak 3
CS:GO
Arma 3 (only a very small PVE coop server)

Unlikely all of the above will be in use at the same time. At most, TS3 and a game server.

File server for home and maybe an FTP daemon.

On Holiday · 1 Feb 2016 at 22:11

All those run fine in a VM with the exception of ARMA 3 but as above.
I've run them before in a VM apart from CS:GO but I imagine that'll be okay too.

What are the specs of the server though and how much are you assigning to the VM ?

Gimpymoo · 1 Feb 2016 at 22:26

It is a new build.

I have a "spec me" thread in General Hardware.

I suppose I could give just specific user access via remote desktop although I am unsure how much of a security risk this is? Anymroe or any less than if using a VM?