Game Servers The Secret behind MMORPGs

In massively multi-player online role playing games (MMORPGs), dedicated game servers are a requirement for seamless game play that makes these games so appealing. The fact that you can connect and play a game like War of Warcraft or Modern Warfare with thousands of other players is no small matter. But thanks to dedicated game servers, online game playing has been taken to a whole new level. Just like you would log into your companys database online and view or post data onto the servers, game playing online has also made it possible to log in play a game level, save your game and continue exactly from where you left off. In order to do this, lots of information must be moved between the client and the server as the game progresses and handling all this information requires lots of processing power. Only dedicated servers can help unload slow processors from the client side and allow the ability to use the processing and graphic power of remote processors in dedicated servers.

Game servers do a lot of work. For example, a game server will compare and calculate a characters position, distant from other players and animates a character among other things. Servers also notify a client during an attack, reports damage, calculate projectiles as well as determine what kills a character in games like modern warfare.

In the real world however, a dedicated server is actually a misnomer. A number of dedicated game servers are needed for most MMORPGs. Why a number of servers when one has a lot of processing power? These games generally require players to log in, chat or access account information. All servers can be separated and handled by different servers for a number of reasons. A login server, for example, allow gamers to put in their login information and access the game world from anywhere in the world. Chat servers relay text information between different players. A VoIP server allows for voice traffic.

Game servers particularly utilize upstream bandwidth as a result, hosted game servers thus require data centers that allow fast read and data transmission speeds that the average home broadband connection cannot provide. Since most dedicated game servers are run by the software company that owns the game title, they can more easily control and update information and offer the required speeds and environments that allow for the best game play features that can be offered. So the next time you log in to play your War of Warcraft game, remember that dedicated game servers are behind the scene in all that you do.