[8-30-16]Small Update - NFO vs OVH, My Lack Of Activity

[Roy 10,832 / 0]

Hello, I would like to give a small update on what has been happening recently.

 

TL;DR

NFO vs OVH

• Moving to OVH will highly benefit us as long as it doesn't affect server population.
• If we move to OVH, having our IPs set to Chicago's Geo Location, we will likely receive more population than having it set to Montreal.
• A majority of the top servers in Garry's Mod use OVH with Geo Locations set to Chicago (probably why they are succeeding with OVH).
• Moving to OVH will save us $359.96/m ($679.96 - $320.00).
• OVH has more powerful hardware (e.g. Intel  i7-4790K @ 4.0 GHz w/ overclocking support vs Intel Xeon 1270v5 @ 3.6 GHz w/o overclocking support).
• Our monthly income will need to become stable before purchasing our first (test) OVH machine.
• Putting ads on games like Garry's Mod and CS:S will help with monthly ad revenue.

 

The "Next" Major Update

• Currently on-hold.
• Lack of activity from myself and the BoD team.

 

My Lack Of Activity & Schedule

• Lack of activity from me will continue.
• I will be working the rest of this week including the weekend (into next week).
• Likely will get another job after this Summer job.
• Rust server development will be on-hold until I have time and energy to develop/configure it further (may look into getting a manager).
• Unsure about the future.

 

NFO vs OVH

As a few of you saw, I've made multiple posts on the "Valve's Server Browser" thread with a lot of information on how the server browser actually works. After spending two days investigating, I've not only confirmed how the server browser actually works, but I believe I've also discovered how a majority of the top servers running with OVH are succeeding in Garry's Mod. Currently, the browser attempts to choose servers close to you according to the Geo location. When we hosted game servers on OVH, the Valve server browser did not favor our servers. Why? Well, Montreal, CA is close to upstate New York which honestly doesn't have many players.

 

How are the top servers in Garry's Mod succeeding then? Well, after using this website to track IP locations according to the Geo Location, I've discovered they actually set their Geo location to Chicago instead of Montreal, CA. I believe this can be done with OVH according to this article. However, I couldn't find any options on our OVH web machine to back that up (I will put a ticket in later).

 

You've probably seen me talk about how much I want to move to OVH before. I really honestly do want to move from NFO to OVH. Why? Well, firstly, we would cut down on server expenses by more than two times (more than 50%). For example, an OVH GAME machine is only $80.00/m compared to a regular dedicated machine with NFO which is $179.99/m.

 

With that said, the machine's processor would be more powerful and we would have the option to overclock (like we did last time). OVH's GAME machine processor is the Intel  i7-4790K @ 4.0 GHz (we can overclock to 4.4 GHz) while the most powerful CPU we have with NFO is the Intel Xeon 1270v5 @ 3.6 GHz (no overclocking). We would also have better (D)DoS protection (300 gbps+ instead of ~100 gbps).

 

OVH's machines are likely less expensive because the processor isn't a "server" processor like the NFO ones are. However, that won't matter to us.

 

I also feel limited with NFO. For example, to disable the automatic "-condebug" (for advanced logging) tool, we need to contact the CEO of NFO (we have "managed" NFO machines). He has denied the request and said the normal logging should give everything we need (it does not). I've also been fed up with NFO's general support. They are clueless when it comes to talking about advanced technical stuff and they always deny forwarding the ticket to the CEO (John).

 

We will also have to purchase a control panel if we move to OVH. I have one reliable one in mind and one of our affiliates are very good friends with the developer of it. I'm going to take his word for it and say that this future control panel will be very great to use for GFL.

 

Monthly Income

Now, if we do move to OVH, we obviously won't require as many donations/ad money. However, as of right now, it isn't guaranteed that we will be moving to OVH. Why? Well, although we can likely change the Geo Location of the server, we have no proof it won't slowly kill our population since technically the server would still be located in Montreal (although, OVH is planning to expand into the US this year).

 

We will try to slowly expand into OVH by purchasing one GAME machine and perhaps moving some servers to it and see if it affects population. In order to do this, we need money. Although we technically have the money to do it right now, I still feel we aren't stable enough. The only reason we have survived this far is because of ad revenue which is going down each month (from ~$500.00/m to ~$140.00/m). Yes, the amount of income we are receiving from ads has gone down a lot and that's due to our CS:GO servers dying (we only have ads enabled on our CS:GO servers). Therefore, we need to start enabling ads on our Garry's Mod servers. I planned to do this months ago but gave up when my loading screen part of it failed (the loading screen itself appears to be inconsistent). I also want to enable it on CS:S. Sadly, I don't plan on enabling it for TF2 due to the player base being highly against community servers already.

 

Overall, I hope we can move completely to OVH. Although I like NFO and the CEO is a great guy, I just feel the price, limitations, and poor support are starting to affect us negatively.

 

The "Next" Major Update

I started another update post around a month ago that was going to introduce a lot of great things to GFL. However, that post has been on-hold for a long time now. Unfortunately, I don't have the time to work on it right now and it appears the BoD team doesn't either...

 

Once I get the time, I will start working on it again. There have been many other suggestions, etc that I will need to implement to the post as well.

 

My Lack Of Communication & Schedule

As most of you likely know, I started my Summer job back on July 11th. This job is coming to an end soon but I will likely find another job. Currently, I am assigned to a big project. One of the major High Schools in our major school district (biggest school district in New Jersey) needs to be completely put back together and school starts next Tuesday. I will be likely working for the next week straight. Usually, I am off on Fridays and the weekends, however, this project is just too large and we don't have much time at all.

 

My lack of activity will continue but I will do my best to do things while I am available. I won't be available much for the next week though. Unfortunately, the Rust server is going to have to wait until I become available for further development and configuration (I may look into getting a server manager).

 

Conclusion

Overall, GFL's current state is "okay". However, things could be much better. I just feel many of us are busy with work, school, life, etc and GFL's development is slow at the moment. I hope most of us get the time to start working on GFL again though and maybe we can have a big comeback!

 

Thanks for reading.

[Bigtime 320 / 6,406]

I guess it's a good thing when you said something about changing GEO Locations that I googled it

[Roy 10,832 / 0]

Just to confirm, we aren't moving to OVH unless if the population survives/grows with changing the Geo Location to Chicago. We would be doing a lot of testing beforehand and moving servers like CS:GO Zombie Escape would come last.

 

If the population stays and grows, then I see no reason to deny OVH. Especially with the price and hardware.

 

If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

 

Thanks.

[Joshy 4,297 / 42,765]

That's a great find regarding the location!  I love that you are able to interpret data and use it for something - that's a great skill.

 

I've been wondering about that update thread.  I don't think I'd be able to touch the technical stuff, but I can propose some verbiage/paragraphs to help prepare the post for announcement.  I'll probably just post it in the thread and you can massage the wording as the update comes along.

 

Congratulations on your work in real life.  You're doing great.

Edited August 31, 2016 by Joshy
added the word "able"

[foxbyday 37 / 2,782]

I've been saying there's been a need of hardware change for a long while now, better late than never . OVH is far superior.  Cheers.

 

edit:

 

1 hour ago, Roy said:

Just to confirm, we aren't moving to OVH unless if the population survives/grows with changing the Geo Location to Chicago. We would be doing a lot of testing beforehand and moving servers like CS:GO Zombie Escape would come last.

 

If the population stays and grows, then I see no reason to deny OVH. Especially with the price and hardware.

 

If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

 

Thanks.

 

oh nvm. Well I hope we get there soon!

Edited August 31, 2016 by foxbyday