Porkchop Technology Review's

Since I use to own and operate many gaming servers in the past, including a gaming server that was in the top 10, of the world, in ranking of popularity.  I will be reviewing a couple game servers that I suggest you take a look at.  If you are a gamer and never have looked at getting a game server, you just join and play on servers, owning a game server can be a lot of fun, and also gain you experience.  The great thing about gaming servers is that you can build communities off them, and if your server is very popular, you will even get donations from loyal players, and even then maybe move to a dedicated server, which is a lot better, than a shared gaming server, but since the cost of a game server on a shared place is more cost effective, I will be reviewing a few gaming servers that I have used and highly recommend.

NuclearFallout was the best gaming servers that I have owned, very quick, great support, and no lag in games.  Even now I always join NuclearFallout servers when I play games, I always look for them, because I know I will get a good ping and not lag.  Also in games like Counter-Strike: Source, its not only about the connection speed, but also the server hardware, the best hardware, will make the gameplay improve greatly.  For example, when you fire a shot in counter-strike at someones head, and it does not register as a hit, that is because the server is slow at registering everything.  NuclearFallout has several server locations, and they host there servers on the best data-centers, such as Internap, one of the worlds largest data-centers.  They have servers for various games, and include free webspace with each purchase of a server.  They also give you a 2 day free trial, in which, you can cancel in those 2 days if you are not happy.  When you sign up for a server its ready in seconds, there’s no need to wait, that is because they use automatic scripts they have written, another awesome feature of NuclearFallout is that they have a script that balances servers around, say for example the machine your server is on is running a little bit slow, the resources are high and CPU, well the script automatically moves you to a better server.  The control panel is easy, everything is done through the control panel, as well through FTP, for maps and mods.  The game server is also easy to restart, no need to contact an admin to restart your server, just restart it in your control panel.  The only bad thing about it all, is it does cost a lot, but you are paying for performance.

Hi-Definition gaming is another good server provider for gaming, but they are really expensive, but there servers are the best.  They do not overload there servers which most gaming server companies do, to increase there profit.  Hi-Definition gaming is mostly used for clan battles/matches, people usually buy a private server on there for these matches because they know there will be no lag and the registry will be perfect.  I would only suggest them for a private server if you have a team that does CS:S matches and play in CAL league, I would not buy a public server from them, because of the price.   They run 1200 FPS servers, which means that the server is running at 1200 frames per second, to achieve that they need really good server hardware, and graphic cards.  Also this high FPS, also is known to cause premature hardware failure, that is why they probably charge so much.

Gameservers is the cheapest servers out of both of those, they are alright servers for public servers, but would not suggest them for clan match servers.  I see they just added 500fps servers, which they did not have at the time.  The problem with Gameservers is that they are so popular that they overload there servers, and thus have a cheap price and lower quality.  But as I said for a large public server of 32+ players its fine, since even a huge server like that on the servers listed above, would cost  just as much as a dedicated server probably.  So give Gameservers a try if you want an affordable server.  Gameservers is the largest gaming server provider in the world.

Nation Voice does not supply game servers, but I thought it was worth mentioning, they are a Ventrilo company, which is VOIP online client, that people connect to using the Ventrilo program and use it to chat.  This is superior to in game chat, because it is, its standalone program, and it is very clear, can be more clearer than telephone.  Once you have a game server its a good idea, to pick up a Ventrilo server, because then you can have people that join your server, join your ventrilo server at the same time.  This will make your server a lot more popular and more active, getting people to stick around and play.  Ventrilo also makes gaming fun, since you can use ventrilo for any game out there, even when you are not gaming.

So this is just a small start for some of you interested in hosting a game server, of course running a game server requires a lot of time and work, because first of all you have to make it popular, which is waiting on the server for hours on end until people join.  Don’t expect people to just join it, there are tons of servers out there, you have to have a good name, and reason why people should join it.  The companies above are the ones I have used in the past for my servers, and all of them have worked well, and have good reputations.  It’s important to tell you, the good companies around for game servers, because I one time bought a Ventrilo server from this company that went under, and I pre-paid 6months of service, and they left, and there was no way to get that money back, and especially with the economy now, a lot of scams are going around the Internet doing this, so its worthwhile to say which companies are good to go with.