Two questions, haven't found the answers.

[bad_captain]

To answer you question about servers having 32 GB of ram: each zone uses a certain amount of ram, and so, the more ram you have, the more zones youc can load at one time. You can use dynamic zones, which only boot up when someone enters them, or static zones which are up all the time.

One benefit of dynamic zones is that it keeps the number of concurrently running zones down, which uses fewer resources. The main benefit of static zones, however, is it keeps the zones up to help preserve the states of raid events or quests. Events or quests may reset when unloading/loading zones.

If you are the only client in a zone trying to trigger a spawn, and you gate or die, and the zone shuts down, you will most likely have to start event over and have to deal with respawn times etc. A static zone would prevent that, but it comes with the cost of added ram being used. Most larger servers run many static zones of frequently used zones as well as critical raid zones as static, with the rest available as dynamic.

[hexluther]

Originally Posted by bad_captain

To answer you question about servers having 32 GB of ram: each zone uses a certain amount of ram, and so, the more ram you have, the more zones youc can load at one time. You can use dynamic zones, which only boot up when someone enters them, or static zones which are up all the time.

One benefit of dynamic zones is that it keeps the number of concurrently running zones down, which uses fewer resources. The main benefit of static zones, however, is it keeps the zones up to help preserve the states of raid events or quests. Events or quests may reset when unloading/loading zones.

If you are the only client in a zone trying to trigger a spawn, and you gate or die, and the zone shuts down, you will most likely have to start event over and have to deal with respawn times etc. A static zone would prevent that, but it comes with the cost of added ram being used. Most larger servers run many static zones of frequently used zones as well as critical raid zones as static, with the rest available as dynamic.

That's what I was figuring. Starter zones (as many seem to modify this to a centralized place), main leveling and raid zones, etc. are ones that I assumed were static (finally an assumption gone right heh).

Now, one thing about your reply. Each zone uses a different amount of RAM you say? Makes sense depending upon (assuming here again look out) how many objects, size, etc. there is in the zone?

I assume besides the instanced zones, that all the zones on the live servers would have been "static" per se then?

I do wonder what P1999's server hardware is, as just about every other Legends server has their hardware listed somewhere, but, 1999 seems to have the most concurrent members on on a regular basis. I imagine it's equivalent to the others, if not superior, but, would be great knowing they get away with a server with less umpf.

[lerxst2112]

Originally Posted by hexluther

I do wonder what P1999's server hardware is, as just about every other Legends server has their hardware listed somewhere, but, 1999 seems to have the most concurrent members on on a regular basis. I imagine it's equivalent to the others, if not superior, but, would be great knowing they get away with a server with less umpf.

You may have heard the term "Hack the Gibson" before, well P99 runs on the actual Gibson.

[hexluther]

Originally Posted by bad_captain

...Events or quests may reset when unloading/loading [dynamic] zones.

If you are the only client in a zone trying to trigger a spawn, and you gate or die, and the zone shuts down, you will most likely have to start event over and have to deal with respawn times etc. A static zone would prevent that, but it comes with the cost of added ram being used. Most larger servers run many static zones of frequently used zones as well as critical raid zones as static, with the rest available as dynamic.

Hmm, I just re-read this. From a resources stand-point, dynamic zones make sense, but, if that means the zone could essentially reset (are the times/timers not saved anywhere, say in the DB, etc.?) then, why would anyone that wishes to ensure they have a stable and consistent running server use them at all? Is a genuine question.

Were the dynamic zones implemented to allow those that may have say, only one group of people hanging out together on a server to play whilst the server's resource consumption is kept at a all time low?

I plan to have a public server up and running within 2 months or so (difficult to say with the utmost certainty as life throws a wrench in the works) so I'm really trying to get an accurate idea of what type of hardware I should look at. It sounds as though, at the very least, I should get an ample amount of RAM (16+? may as well go 32GB) to allow keeping the majority of the zones with notable/quest NPC's, raid mobs, etc. up and running at all times.

Too bad there isn't a post with all the server owners replying with the server hardware specifications, OS (and version), etc.

[bad_captain]

Originally Posted by hexluther

Hmm, I just re-read this. From a resources stand-point, dynamic zones make sense, but, if that means the zone could essentially reset (are the times/timers not saved anywhere, say in the DB, etc.?) then, why would anyone that wishes to ensure they have a stable and consistent running server use them at all? Is a genuine question.

Were the dynamic zones implemented to allow those that may have say, only one group of people hanging out together on a server to play whilst the server's resource consumption is kept at a all time low?

I plan to have a public server up and running within 2 months or so (difficult to say with the utmost certainty as life throws a wrench in the works) so I'm really trying to get an accurate idea of what type of hardware I should look at. It sounds as though, at the very least, I should get an ample amount of RAM (16+? may as well go 32GB) to allow keeping the majority of the zones with notable/quest NPC's, raid mobs, etc. up and running at all times.

Too bad there isn't a post with all the server owners replying with the server hardware specifications, OS (and version), etc.

I did a quick check of my zones running on my server with no one in them- they take between 16-39 MB of RAM each. Say average of 30, you could have ~34 zones running per GB or so of RAM if my math is correct. This is without any clients remember. With however many hundreds of zones, that's a lot of RAM. But mostly, dynamic zones were made to keep resource usage down (no need to have 100 zones running if you are the only one playing). So, someone running 1 GB of RAM could theoretically run the server, DB, and EQ on the same machine (which I have done before). Us poor people need our EQ, too.

TBH, I think the bigger limiting factor is bandwidth, not hardware. I think I could run a couple hundred players hardware wise, but I don't have the connection for it.