Incognito's server farm of dedicated PS3 servers for Warhawk

Since 6663 Days

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2007/08/08/behind-t...

Posted by PlayStationBlog

All that said, we still want to make sure that there are always an abundance of wicked-fast Ranked Dedicated servers available for players. The images that accompany this post were taken by our very talented IT team here at SCEA. And yes, what you’re looking at is an enormous server cluster for Warhawk…of rack-mounted PS3s!

During the public beta, many of you wanted *way more* Ranked-Dedicated servers to play on so you could level-up and earn awards, rank upgrades, etc….

Well…ask and ye shall receive!

In addition to players being able to host their own servers, 32-player “dedicated” servers for your clan practices or 24-player “player” servers, SONY has made a great commitment to all of our Warhawk players by staging Warhawk Server clusters similar to this one all over the world.

Apparently you can also set up your own dedicated server on a PS3 for Warhawk and even play on it using split-screen. Best of both worlds.

Somebody needs to send this over to the Live team, STAT. It's possible at present to have dedicated server type setups on Live. I think a couple of Xbox 1 games even allowed you to set up an Xbox as a dedicated server (Counterstrike and maybe Unreal)

In any event, it's not being done on Live on this scale and certainly not for free. Will be interested to see how they might fund it as it's sure to be costing a bomb. In game ads or micro-transactions for in-game content maybe?

In reply to

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2007/08/08/behind-the-curtain-the-warhawk-servers/
[quote=PlayStationBlog]All that said, we still want to make sure that there are always an abundance of wicked-fast Ranked Dedicated servers available for players. The images that accompany this post were taken by our very talented IT team here at SCEA. And yes, what you’re looking at is an enormous server cluster for Warhawk…of rack-mounted PS3s!

During the public beta, many of you wanted *way more* Ranked-Dedicated servers to play on so you could level-up and earn awards, rank upgrades, etc….

Well…ask and ye shall receive!

In addition to players being able to host their own servers, 32-player “dedicated” servers for your clan practices or 24-player “player” servers, SONY has made a great commitment to all of our Warhawk players by staging Warhawk Server clusters similar to this one all over the world. [/quote]

Apparently you can also set up your own dedicated server on a PS3 for Warhawk and even play on it using split-screen. Best of both worlds.

Somebody needs to send this over to the Live team, STAT. It's possible at present to have dedicated server type setups on Live. I think a couple of Xbox 1 games even allowed you to set up an Xbox as a dedicated server (Counterstrike and maybe Unreal)

In any event, it's not being done on Live on this scale and certainly not for free. Will be interested to see how they might fund it as it's sure to be costing a bomb. In game ads or micro-transactions for in-game content maybe?

deco

Since 6366 Days

This is ridiculous 360 owners are paying for their service and they still can't get this. Seriously, who do I have to give a hand job to so that I can play gears of war without shooting a guy and dieing 3 seconds after.

In reply to

GriftGFX

Since 6795 Days

Posted by deco

This is ridiculous 360 owners are paying for their service and they still can't get this. Seriously, who do I have to give a hand job to so that I can play gears of war without shooting a guy and dieing 3 seconds after.

Frontlines: Fuel of War -- dedicated servers on every platform!

In reply to

deco

Since 6366 Days

Posted by GriftGFX

Frontlines: Fuel of War -- dedicated servers on every platform!

But I'm talking about MGS games...

In reply to

Heretic

Since 6768 Days

Halo 3 will have its own servers

In reply to

Finish The Fight Sept. 25th

Halo 3 Bitches!!!

Beware, Heretic is on the prowl!!!

Optimusv2

Since 6687 Days

If this is done in GT5 i'll be impressed. Wouldn't touch Warhawk with a 10 foot pole.

In reply to

Hironobu Sakaguchi is coming back to reclaim the throne :)

October 20th 2007 (A good day)

Don't ask any questions just shut up and buy Halo : Ghosts of the Onyx one of the greatest books ever.

pssh! more like electronic gay-ming monthly! amirite

GriftGFX

Since 6795 Days

1) Halo 3 is still peer to peer Heretic--it doesn't use dedicated servers for BTB (which is why it's big lag battle)--when has bungie ever claimed otherwise?

They may run their own match-making servers but that's hardly the same thing. FFOW looks to be the first 360 game with dedicated servers.. and 32 player support as well.

2) WarHawk looks cool.. and it's cheap. I'm getting the retail bundle though. Useful pack-in ftw.

In reply to

alimokrane

Since 6725 Days

MS needs to get over itself give us something similar.

In reply to

Acert93

Since 6766 Days

Posted by alimokrane

MS needs to get over itself give us something similar.

Yep. But they don't want to compete with the PC, among other things...

In reply to

The fans have spoken. Concerning the graphics of the Halo 3 Beta: "There's so many little effects and things going on that make this game pretty much 2nd only to Gears at the moment."

JediMasterMalik

Since 6530 Days

Posted by Optimusv2

If this is done in GT5 i'll be impressed. Wouldn't touch Warhawk with a 10 foot pole.

Why's that? The beta was really fun.

In reply to

GriftGFX

Since 6795 Days

I gotta love how people play down all of Sony's serious effort and just take a dump on PSN despite some serious advantages--fee free! No BLB here.

Just needs a killer app.

I wish I played the beta Jedi.. how is the non-warhawk gameplay? Does it compete with other online console games?

In reply to

Inflatable

Since 7432 Days

Using gameconsoles as dedicated gamerservers like that is silly.. Smells like another PR stunt to me, 'look at what the PS3 can do' type of BS..

It's silly because consoles are not very effective servers, simply because they lack the memory to host multiple gameservers for lots of players (especially the PS3 with only 256MB dedicated systemmemory).. It would have been much more efficient to use normal dedicated x86 servers with lots of memory.. But that's not much of a PS3 PR stunt offcourse, so I kindof understand..

And yes, I want dedicated servers on XBL aswell.. But I sure hope MS leaves the BS marketing and PR out of it, and just uses normal x86 servers..

In reply to

http://www.cyberwarriors.nl
http://home.xmsnet.nl/bigbear/fiat124.jpg

Eddy186

Since 6741 Days

Posted by Inflatable

Using gameconsoles as dedicated gamerservers like that is silly.. Smells like another PR stunt to me, 'look at what the PS3 can do' type of BS..

It's silly because consoles are not very effective servers, simply because they lack the memory to host multiple gameservers for lots of players (especially the PS3 with only 256MB dedicated systemmemory).. It would have been much more efficient to use normal dedicated x86 servers with lots of memory.. But that's not much of a PS3 PR stunt offcourse, so I kindof understand..

And yes, I want dedicated servers on XBL aswell.. But I sure hope MS leaves the BS marketing and PR out of it, and just uses normal x86 servers..

I do agree with you that this is a PR type of thing because running ps3s as servers is inefficient.

In reply to

deftangel

Since 6663 Days

It's not inefficient when you've not sold 6m of them yet and have a bunch of them lying around which you've already paid for

PR stunt all the same it's still kinda cool.

In reply to

JediMasterMalik

Since 6530 Days

Posted by GriftGFX

I wish I played the beta Jedi.. how is the non-warhawk gameplay? Does it compete with other online console games?

Surprisingly well, and it's all very balanced too. The Warhawks are NOT completely over powered like you'd think. My favourite thing is actually the flak cannon turrets, the flamethrower on foot is really fun too. There's even a set of binoculars you can pick up and use for artillary strikes. I never played with a good team, but it'd be even better if you had one. I myself had plenty of fun just messing around alone.

Zones gameplay is awesome aswell.

In reply to

Acert93

Since 6766 Days

Posted by Inflatable

It's silly because consoles are not very effective servers, simply because they lack the memory to host multiple gameservers for lots of players (especially the PS3 with only 256MB dedicated systemmemory).. It would have been much more efficient to use normal dedicated x86 servers with lots of memory..

Now this is PC fan drivel.

1. A multi-core PC with "lots of memory" isn't cheap -- and it ain't multipurpose to play PS3 games and server PS3 games.

2. PS3 games run fine on 256MB of system memory, so running the client of the same game shouldn't be an issue. Seeing as you won't be storing any audio, user interface, nor most art assets you just lowered the demand on system memory compared to the actual game.

3. Seeing as Cell can read from GDDR3 (and RSX can just copy content back and forth very quickly) the PS3 effectively has 512MB of system memory -- and it doesn't have to deal with the 30MB framebuffer either.

4. Show me a $600 PC that has a very fast multicore CPU, G70 level graphics, and BDR and can a) be used for high level gaming and b) server a secondary role as a server. Now show me one that can do that and serve 4 or 5 32-64 player servers at the same time...

Sony is in the console market, not the PC. Using the PS3 as a dedicated server makes a lot of sense. It relieves some data facillity needs from Sony's end -- hence keeping their service as cheap/free as possible -- and it allows users to control their own servers. And they are multipurpose. Your friend can bring his over for a LAN style party and serve (and do split screen on a PS3 or two), you can host games online, and when not in use if you have 2 PS3s you can a) use one as a media center / HD movie center or b) do system link with games like GT and such.

I know a *lot* of people who have extra PCs that run as single client game servers -- and they are only servers and cost more than a PS3. Heck, we even done that at my old office to play BF1942. If we could have got a PC that would have served well as a server as well as a gaming station and all the other stuff the PS3 does, yeah, that would have been way better.

In reply to

[quote=Inflatable]It's silly because consoles are not very effective servers, simply because they lack the memory to host multiple gameservers for lots of players (especially the PS3 with only 256MB dedicated systemmemory).. It would have been much more efficient to use normal dedicated x86 servers with lots of memory..[/quote]

Now this is PC fan drivel.

1. A multi-core PC with "lots of memory" isn't cheap -- and it ain't multipurpose to play PS3 games [b]and server PS3 games[/b].

2. PS3 games run fine on 256MB of system memory, so running the client of the same game shouldn't be an issue. Seeing as you won't be storing any audio, user interface, nor most art assets you just lowered the demand on system memory compared to the actual game.

3. Seeing as Cell can read from GDDR3 (and RSX can just copy content back and forth very quickly) the PS3 effectively has 512MB of system memory -- and it doesn't have to deal with the 30MB framebuffer either.

4. Show me a $600 PC that has a very fast multicore CPU, G70 level graphics, and BDR and can a) be used for high level gaming and b) server a secondary role as a server. Now show me one that can do that and serve 4 or 5 32-64 player servers at the same time...

Sony is in the console market, not the PC. Using the PS3 as a dedicated server makes a lot of sense. It relieves some data facillity needs from Sony's end -- hence keeping their service as cheap/free as possible -- and it allows users to control their own servers. And they are multipurpose. Your friend can bring his over for a LAN style party and serve (and do split screen on a PS3 or two), you can host games online, and when not in use if you have 2 PS3s you can a) use one as a media center / HD movie center or b) do system link with games like GT and such.

I know a  *lot* of people who have extra PCs that run as single client game servers -- and they are only servers and cost more than a PS3. Heck, we even done that at my old office to play BF1942. If we could have got a PC that would have served well as a server as well as a gaming station and all the other stuff the PS3 does, yeah, that would have been way better.

The fans have spoken. Concerning the graphics of the Halo 3 Beta: "There's so many little effects and things going on that make this game pretty much 2nd only to Gears at the moment."