Question about game platform and servers...

I'm planning on buying a cheap (if $300 is cheap) server to host planetary annihilation when it comes out... HOWEVER, after looking at the $700 price tag on windows server, I'll say that I most definitely will be using ubuntu on it. If I bought one game key... Will I be able to download the linux version for my server and the windows version for my PC? If this is possible, will I be able to host a game on the server (which will most likely have a bad graphics card...) and play in the game on my PC. For example, if I had a server hosting a clan battle, but the graphics card in the server was too weak, would I be able to play in the clan battle on my PC WITHOUT buying another game key (as in, one game key will work on multiple computers at the same time across a WAN game, so long as they are all connected to the same IP or LAN)? :shock:
I'm sorry if it's too early in the development process

All servers will be compatible with all clients on all platforms.

Also gfx cards are not going to be a problem with your server. CPU is.

I cant be sure but it's likely that the dedicated server itself won't require a key to encourage players to set them up.

the CPU is good enough to run the simulation -yes-, however, the GPU is not good enough to actually play the game, so I'd have to do that on a different PC. I don't exactly know how this will work, if a server can run multiple matches and act as a lobby, or if a server can host only individual matches. If a server can only host individual matches from within the game client, then it will require a key (which is how most people will play)... If the server acts as a lobby, with several matches hosted within that (like battle.net), it most likely will not need a key.

It would be very silly of Uber to make server software prepaid. In most cases dedicated servers are free for use, but they relay crucial parts of authentication process to vendor-controlled server to prevent piracy (which is not effective, BTW).

I hope the server browser will always display user made servers even if uber (I doubt) has to cut off support for PA.

Aren't the graphics all rendered client-side? Why would you need a gpu on the server?

If I host a game on the server, and I want to play in that same game... I can't do it on the server itself because the GPU sucks, I would have to use my PC to play in the game.

Uhh... take the original call of duty 1 for example... you had to buy the game to host a server, and this is how it is in most games, just buy the game and there should be a button "host a game" or "host a server" in the multiplayer lobby. The alternate way of doing it is just run a separate service that acts as a host for several games that connects to Uber's lobby system, kind of like the mobile game Raging Thunder 2 does it. Multiple servers, each one with multiple matches.

So let me get this straight.
You have a server box.
You also have a PC.
Your server is cheap, with no dedicated gpu and probably a low end cpu.

---Here is what I thought your problem was---
You were concerned that the server lacked the gpu grunt to run the server.
I say, don't worry bro- that server wont need gpu for server stuff.
I also say, what about your cpu bro? That PA server could use it pretty hard and your server might not be able to cope, depending on the cpu's grunt and what else is on it.
--

---Here is what you just said---
You were concerned that you had to be using the same computer to host the game AND play it.
Why? This is not how a dedicated server works. Look at all Source games for example, they have their own separate dedicated server, and one for linux to despite the games not being on linux. In fact most games have a separate dedicated server, mainly because all the graphics stuff is just a massive unnecessary overhead. Your example of CoD is extremely old and since then the CoD series has evolved to Dedicated servers (~CoD4) and then devolved to publisher-owned servers (CoD5+)

The server has dual quad core xeons @2.8ghz and 16gb of RAM... about 2 years old, about same as my PC's sandy bridge i5. There are two things that made it so cheap... it's got no OS (ubuntu is free...) and it's rack mounted, so it sounds like a jet engine.
As far as I'm concerned, I'll do fine with a dedicated server, so long as I don't have to use console commands to set it up... I can deal with the DOS commands, linux is a bit different.

New question. How did you get that for $300? Although, I guess not factoring in storage.

If you have a server then you really want to learn the absolute basics of linux terminal, how to start/stop services, how to kill processes etc. Many common server functions dont have a gui in linux so it will be a requirement in ubuntu. And any form of gui is just wasteful overhead anyway.

it's got 2 scsi drives... not the greatest, I only need one. Well, I do have a linux book somewhere, (I hope a 7 year old book will help me -_-) . I can get it used... and that's not including shipping. Amazon.com ftw. I haven't bought it yet, and it has dual quad 2.33 ghz. not bad... There's a barebones version of the same system for $229 (I suppose without HDD or RAM -those are cheap though-).

[quote="theseeker2"The alternate way of doing it is just run a separate service that acts as a host for several games that connects to Uber's lobby system, kind of like the mobile game Raging Thunder 2 does it. Multiple servers, each one with multiple matches.[/quote]
That's how it would be done. Dedicated servers. It was in initial KS description. I never heard of dedicated server requiring a license.

Alright then, sounds good, all I have to do is figure out how to set the thing up
Although not the greatest machine, I believe the poweredge 2950 would make a great private clan server.

depending on how many clients should connect to your server, the network setup might be more of an issue with a private clan server. At least neutrino dropped some hints towards that direction.

as long as it's connected to Ethernet... I have pretty fast internet, no dial up here.

really stupid question i probably shouldn't post here but how would a dedicated server help with offloading the resources from the client? i mean me and a couple of friends usually come up and play games like supcom, soase and such and our games get really laggy because of their pc's lategame. i'm totally prepared to use my "main" as a dedicated host and play on a laptop or something like that but i need to know if it would be worth it. stupid questions, great answers please

Since the host does all the processing, it only makes sense to use a server to host very large scale battles, (like clan battles). Your everyday PC will most likely be able to run a mid sized game, but nothing with 40 players... If you have a desktop PC, I would suggest playing it there, since laptop GPUs are still horrid (until haswell....).

Servers can be bigger, stronger, and more expensive than your friend's PC. They can take complex problems like pathing, orbits or AI, and do all the heavy lifting. Some of these problems can get incredibly complex, taking up a huge amount of CPU resources and memory. However, the answers are incredibly simple. They boil down to things like "go left", "asteroid bomb goes this way", or "build a factory".

Instead of doing all that stuff on your computer, the hard work gets pushed away to a dedicated machine. This means your PC can spend more time doing awesome stuff like shiny robots and big explosions.

Servers also make it much easier to control cheating. It's easy for a player's computer to say "I do X" and have it happen. It's easy for a player to turn off fog of war and see everything the computer knows. A server can say "You can't do that" and "you don't know that". More importantly, the server can enforce these rules by denying bad orders and refusing to give secret intel. Anti cheating is a pretty important thing for not just any competitive game, but any game in general.