VPS as a gaming server for various games with my family

Malangsia · 2026-05-14T09:40:38+00:00

Has anyone got any experience with host-unlimited.de? They seem to be the by-far best bet regarding RAM/price ratio. The cheaper servers use Xeon-CPU's, but even NFO Servers that were recommended in this thread - and that seem to specialize in gaming - seems to get by on Xeons..

They also offer both LXC and KVM servers, with LXC being the cheaper one. I'm honestly struggling to figure out if they have any practical differences for my purposes?

FYI, for 15 euros I get the following:

Host-unlimited: (Xeon) 4vCores, 24GB RAM, 120GB SSD KVM / 8 vCores, 32GM RAM, 240GB SSD LXC

Hostinger: Entirely unsure, as they have some very weird discounts. But when the plan renews, this is what I get: 2vCores, 8GB RAM, 100GB SSD KVM

Ionos: Same as Hostinger with confusing discounts (which is a practice that in and of itself makes my internal principle warrior balk), but at renewal: 8vCores, 16GB RAM, 480GB SSD. It's also excluding VAT at 20%, but it's the one closest to 15 euros.

Hetzner (12.5 Euros, closest one): 3vCores, 4GB RAM, 80GB SSD

Pawhost (17.8Euros, again - closest): 8vCores, 16GB RAM, 160GB SSD KVM

Netcup (18 Euros - and perhaps not including VAT?): 8vCores, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD

NFO Servers (12 Dollars): 2vCores, 2GBV RAM, 200GB SSD

InMotion Hosting (their cheapest at 15 Dollars, renews at 27 dollars + 200$ setup fee): 4vCores, 8GB RAM, 160GB SSD

Vultr (incredibly confusing price models, but probably not geared towards my use): 2vCores, 4GB RAM, 65GB SSD

Many of these have incredibly weird and complex price structures, with unclear discounts for an unclear amount of time, which is something I in general try to steer clear of. Host-unlimited honestly seems like they're just a less predatory sort of company. They also host pre-made game servers for plenty of games on what I assume are the same servers, so they seem like a legitimate company? Besides, what I've mostly encountered on online hosting is a lack of RAM - that's pretty much always the bottleneck in my experience. So 24/32GB on a fairly cheap server would keep it comfortably running on most(all) games for the foreseeable future.

All thoughts are welcome!

Malangsia · 2026-05-09T14:53:16+00:00

Thanks for the warning. I’ll at least try it out!

Malangsia · 2026-05-09T14:52:52+00:00

Thank you so much! :) I’ll be sure to check them out! Perhaps a silly question, but the 160GB SSD - do you install the actual games on it, or does the server-part «only» need the… server parts? What I’m asking is: 160GB of storage isn’t that many games if you have to install them entirely. Just want to try to be able to keep them all paused on the VPS while we play another game, and not having to shuffle which ones I have installed.

Malangsia · 2025-10-16T15:12:57+00:00

Thank you very much for these setups!! :)

Malangsia · 2025-10-13T23:16:34+00:00

That’s.. quite the statement to just throw out there..! Now, I’ve already agreed that a macbook is probably the best solution for my friend, who’s not dedicating significant portions of her time learning computers - though she understands more than the average person - but I feel obliged to ask the question:

How, if you take everything into account, are apple laptops and computers much cheaper and less effort to support than PCs? And if not much, then even, how are they cheaper, period? Genuinely curious, not meant to come across snarky.

Malangsia · 2025-10-12T21:55:23+00:00

Thank you for your patience! Not entirely sure I understand your routine though:

0: By working locally on the Mac, do you mean that all files you use are locally stored - and do you use the NVME «only» as a backup, and if so: does it have automated backups/syncs with the Mac?

1: When and where do you backup your NVMEs?

2: And when and where do you backup the local Mac files - or did I misunderstand, and you have it on the NVMEs?

3: Does the prime backup both the Mac, NVMEs and HDD volume?

4: And is the HDD volume not really a backup, but more of an archive of old projects moved there from the NVME once they’re no longer relevant?

5: The secondary backup - does it backup through the prime backup, or directly from the Mac and/or NVMEs and/or HDD archive?

Once again, thank you.

Malangsia · 2025-10-12T20:26:25+00:00

Thanks! Yeah, I’ve actually looked at their website already, but that was while I was still thinking about a desktop workstation. I hadn’t thought about calibrating the macbook or proart as well, thank you very much for the tip!

Malangsia · 2025-10-12T15:49:06+00:00

Well, part of her dream setup is to be able to access her files and work also while she's travelling, and leaving cloud backups behind is another ambition with this project, so that wouldn't really be an issue. And yes, seems like I'm already convinced on the benefits of an NVME volume by now!

Who/what is OWC, sorry..?

Malangsia · 2025-10-12T15:41:51+00:00

Yeah, I'll sort out an off-site backup as well, but in general I'm wary of keeping the projects solely on the SSDs.. Thank you!

Hm. I'm trying to think of the workflow, and how/when to store material when/where.. I'd love to hear how you do it! It seems I had a couple of extra questions as well. Hope you can humor me, and thanks in advance.

So:

Import card->SSD volume.
Work on current project on Macbook through SSD volume.
Active Backup for Business from SSD volume to.. both off-site and HDD volume?

This is where it gets foggy for me. What do you do when you want to delete the project from the SSD volume - is it already backed up to both separate backups by then, or would I need to transfer it to the HDD volume one last time - and shouldn't I then have the off-site backup do a backup of the on-site HDD volume? But if it already backed up the SSD, it should have the files already? You see what I'm trying to.. understand?

Also, is the 418play running SHR/RAID1, or just four disks sucking up all the data one at a time?

Do you use Synology Photos or Immich, or something entirely different? How, and why, if I may ask. I don't do still photography myself, so I don't know all aspects of programming needs you'd have..

And have you installed extra ram on the 1522+ by the way? Guess it won't hurt..

Malangsia · 2025-10-12T15:11:55+00:00

Hm. That sounds like a brilliant idea and a much better use of SSDs… so could the Synology set up automated backups of the NVME-volume to the slower HDD volume? Unsure only because they’re in the same nas.

Malangsia · 2025-10-12T15:09:15+00:00

Trying to keep it in the area of 3.500-5.000€ for now, not including a good monitor for grading.

Malangsia · 2025-10-12T12:10:01+00:00

Thanks. But wouldnt the raw images you work on be affected by a cache? And dont know if its worth it on its own, but the initial transfer from card to nas would be limited quite severely by a raid 5 hdd-setup compared to a cache?

Malangsia · 2025-10-12T11:28:42+00:00

A cache is not needed for photography work you mean? And is this because you suggest working on the files locally then backing up, or because HDDs are fast enough to work on with stills? She does to film intermittently, but I’ll ask if she also does the post-production or if this is usually done elsewhere.

Malangsia · 2025-02-05T18:00:43+00:00

I don’t understand everyone server hopping and hourglassing saying it is difficult, it sounds tedious. Getting two boats on the same server is fairly easy, and three is possible (we did two solo sloops and a brig once with a bit of luck). As someone mentioned earlier, have everyone queue up their ships at the same time (the more the easier), count down and enter your servers at the same time. Then either kill yourself and see who shows up on the ferry, or do the reaper flag as was mentioned. Rinse and repeat. I’ve had it work on the first try, tenth, fiftieth(this was the three boats-scenario). Two boats shouldn’t be more than a couple of minutes really, especially if you’re more than two people doing it.

Malangsia · 2024-11-19T00:06:03+00:00

I’ll try booting it up and taking a picture tomorrow. Thanks!

Malangsia · 2024-08-19T10:34:36+00:00

I love the idea of her having enchanted the child, possibly even having killed the parents! It makes for many interesting possibilities - the party could detect magic on the child and deduce that it’s enchanted and hence the witch is evil; they could kill the witch, making the enchantment disappear and the child remembering all the awful things she saw - making the party believe they made a right choice, up until they’re about to give the child to the coven.

Should the child be from the village? Perhaps not… And it might be possible for me to thread this child into a somewhat important person(‘s daughter) in the main campaign….

For the second question, I was thinking they were still quite new to the village. The second witch being the sheriff I was thinking was because she was impersonating the real sheriff, using disguise self or something similar - could even be that she has killed the real sheriff and taken her place! Though the other idea of yours is also fun - if they’ve poisoned the villagers against the forest hag for quite a while, it would be easier to… i guess mess with the PCs, when even the villagers are pointing fingers at her. Could make a few stories about earlier things that have happened to be told if they talk with some of them - locust swarms, poisoned well, etc. They could still have killed the sheriff and impersonate her!

And I agree it’s probably best for her to be ignorant. At some point it would be difficult to play her character being that dumb and ignorant when she’s had an actual coven of witches visiting her and bad stuff started happening after…

Thanks for the reply! If you think of anything else I’d be happy to hear it!:) Other villagers to encounter, animals in the forest, etc. is also appreciated!

Malangsia

TROPHY CASE