Best OS For a Dedicated Server and For Playing Quake

[Team Xlink]

Hello.

I have finally gotten tired of dealing with operating system issues for older things.

My goals are this:

Be able to Play Quake and QuakeWorld without a hitch
Be able to host a dedicated Server preferably a headless server without a hitch

So my question is which OS is Best for this. Also which engine would be best to host a dedicated server?

Thank you.

EDIT: I am also open to the idea of using linux as well.

[Spirit]

That depends on a lot of things. First and most importantly if you want to use the OS for other things too, if you are willing to learn and if you will feel comfortable and at home.

I would never go back to Windows after I got used to Linux (archlinux now). But Linux can be a huge pain in the ass, just like Windows. Also you will have a headache with sound and Quake unless you either have a great soundcard or use OSSv4 (OpenSound System, I use it anyways because I like it much much better than ALSA).

[Dark$oul71]

Hi all.

hm, for dedicated server I would always go for Linux and use a distribution here with main focus on servers (e.g. Debian). IMO Linux is perfect for server applications such as running a jboss, apache webserver, iSCSI target and so on. To me distributions with focus on stability (e.g. CentOS, Debian, add your favourite server disti here) should be favoured over those "cutting edge" distributions such as Fedora Core, Ubunutu, etc.

The later one often include kernel features which are not always mature and free from bugs.

Just my 2 cents and YMMV

Linux of course requires some knowledge and/or the willingness to learn & read a lot.

A small print Linux disti gives you also nice options like running Linux within a VM on a Windows host (e.g. with VMWare, VirtualBox, etc). This encapsules the dedicated server and from my experiences (we have a lot Windows servers running as VM on a Linux host).

. Also you will have a headache with sound and Quake unless you either have a great soundcard or use OSSv4 (OpenSound System, I use it anyways because I like it much much better than ALSA).

Hm, I can not comment on OSS but I´ve been using a lot of different soundcards lately together with ALSA without any hickups. The list includes:
- Intel HDA Onboard Sound
- VIA Onboard Sound
- Soundblaster MP3+ (USB)
- SB LIVE 5.1
- Realtek No Name 5.1 Soundcard
All those worked and work fine without hickup. I use Ubuntu (various 8.x and 9.x flavours) and Sidux (Debian Sid based).
The only thing I dislike it this PulseAudio stuff which Ubuntu is now focusing on. It´s interesting to hear that OSS is still being developed.

In regard to OSS vs. ALSA there is a nice comparison in the ArchWiki:
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ope ... _with_ALSA

For me the most modern linux distributions have better hardware detection and integrated drivers than WinXP or Vista. At least they mostly do not require too much manual interaction to get sound running. This is of course only true for "standard" sound and not for specialities such as digital sound out, HDMI sound, etc.

The main problem I see for Linux when using it as Client system is more in the graphic department. For NVidia you have a nearly no chance but using the closed source driver for 3d games. For me (using a GF 7900GS) this works great and I can even play more demanding games under WINE (e.g. UT2k4, Prey).

For ATI you can use either the closed source driver fglrx which works for a lot of peoples out there but I had only non working combinations with Ubuntu 9.X and ATI (X1900XT / HD4670). For older Radeons the open source variants (radeon / radeonhd) become very performant. I think in a few month you can easily play DarkPlaces with higher details on ATI 19X, ATI HD 4XXX and so on. Newer graphic adapters (HD 5XXX) are not well supported (no 3D) but this is only a question of time.

Here is a video of an enhanced version of GLQuake running the mod SuperDuper Quake:
http://www.youtube.com/user/darksoul71#p/a/u/1/pqUt31U7Fmo

Edit:
I´ve uploaded a 2nd video showing GLQuake with the radeon drivers to YouTube. Might take some time until it´s available in full *err* "quality

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dMDPEAqnbo

It´s a bit slow but keep in mind that for my graphic adapter (HD 4670) there is no IRQ support. Enhanced GLQuake and Darkplaces work quite well with SDQuake but tend to horribly slow down in big maps. Well, since I also run Windows on a system I can wait

Sorry for the long rant...

Have a nice weekend,
D$

[Teiman]

All OS's can run Quake decently (he!.. thats the point of engines like DCQuake, DSQuake, etc... ).
As for hosting, use the OS you know better and has better remote features. Thats for me Ubuntu, but yours could be different.

[Spirit]

ALSA never managed to mix properly when I tried. Most Quake engines use OSS. When I tried listening to music and play Quake at the same time, it did not work. Also I had huge problems with latency in ezQuake. That was 1-2 years ago though (I have not heard good things about PulseAudio, heh), so things might have changed.

[Dark$oul71]

@Spirit:
I can not comment on OSS but take my word:
ALSA works fine here on two PCs using the onboard soundchips (ATI/Intel HDA & VIA 7XXX).
I can listen to webradio or MP3 and play quake without hickups.
Not shure about Quake engines and OSS though. Since SuperDuper Quake has some issues
under Linux (modells are not found) I am using Wine together with Windows enhanced GLQuake/darkplaces
anyway.

Pulseaudio on the other hand is "simply" a layer above either OSS or ALSA but never worked fine for me. Unfortunately since Ubuntu 9.X its more or less the standard sound output system.

[Spike]

I've never had much success with ALSA. Either huge latency issues, or a lack of sound mixing (which is whas alsa was kinda meant to fix in the first place).
OSS4 just works. Pretty much everyone who has tried both agree that OSS4 has lower latency, and still supports mixing.
PulseAudio is another layer over the top and thus induces additional latency.
The recommendations I've seen generally recommend the use of SDL for audio (the rest can be native still if you want). The SDL layer is fairly thin and thus doesn't induce too much extra latency (unlike pulse audio which buffers it and sends it over networks). But it is enough to abstract the differences between ALSA and OSS, as well as work around all the ALSA bugs for you.
A cross platform sound API is more useful than native sound apis for linux. That's my opinion of linux sound anyway. Nuff said.
SDL uses whatever the distro is configured to use by default. The rest is the user's fault, not the app. :P

With a linux server, you can easily make a chroot jail for it. Along with a script to restart it every 4 days to prevent floats from overflowing...

If you're running linux, you can start up the server in a named screen. So you can ssh in from various locations and reconfigure it as needed. With QuakeWorld you can use rcon for such things, but for regular Quake, you don't get rcon. The 'screen' application is great as an alternative, and can be nice even with a server that supports rcon.

For actually playing, most engines support windows better than linux. Its not about choice of operating system, its about how well the engine works with that operating system (like which sound api it uses - most only support OSS3 for linux, for example).

[Irritant]

For server, a linux OS will do just fine, though the truth is, for servers it's not going to matter much one way or another.

For clients, Windows XP is probably your best bet for ease of use and performance. You might get slightly better performance in some Linux OS's, but that can depend. There are some issues with ATI and drivers, and there is almost always headaches with sound. All you have to do is peruse the boards of Ubuntu, or any of the other OS's to see the many threads asking how to get sound working.

Just my 2 cents, and it won't be a popular opinion for sure.

[xaGe]

..I've yet to have a problem with the Linux OS with the exception of straight out physical hardware failure that I couldn't fix asking/reading on forums & Linux web sites. When I think of stability its not Windows 7 I think of 1st! but I do run Window 7 & Mint Linux 8(Ubuntu based), but there are several other distro's I do like available.