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What's the best way to host files and updates for games?
So let's assume we already have a launcher and an update server program made. The launcher contacts the update server at a certain address, and the update server tells it which files or patches need to be downloaded.
What is the best way to host files that might be downloaded thousands of times, without eating through my VPS cap?
Comments
@Mozilla
Perhaps a CDN will do?
Can you recommend me a CDN? The only two CDNs I know are CloudFlare and MaxCDN and I don't think they do anything like file hosting.
How large are the files/updates? It could get exapensive to use a cdn unless you use bunnycdn
Anally with an arrow pointing toward the patch.
I think you should use a vps ssd from the ovh and then add the cloudflare with a rule of the cache page everything (but don't abuse, non-html cache is forbidden by cloudflare terms of use)
Take a look at BunnyCDN
Pay as you go etc... @BunnySpeed
If I use BunnyCDN and I replace a file with the same file name in my BunnyCDN storage, do I need to purge my BunnyCDN cache for the new file to take effect?
how large and what type of files? cloudflare caches alot free.
There are about 50,000 .img files ranging from 1KB to 50 MB. Total size comes out to be about 6 GB.
honestly you could do this with cloudflare. cloudflare is max size 512mb and cover most img formats.
Then if I use CloudFlare and I upload and replace existing files in my update server (for the launcher to download the new updates), do I need to purge my CloudFlare cache for the new files to get cached so the new files gets downloaded instead of the old ones?
Why not instruct the client to download from domain.com/game/v2.0/files instead of from domain.com/game/v1.9/files? No need to purge cache for that.
well cloudflare is dynamic. unless you are changing files while keeping the same file names than there is no need to clear it but there is a setting to purge their cache which takes time to build.
That is actually a smart idea.
Awesome, so I do need to purge the CloudFlare cache whenever I change the files that have the same file names. Thanks for your help!
If your files will be downloaded thousands of times/day, the. It's really inevitable to reach your BW cap even with CDNs. The best way to deal with it is to make sure that you use the best compression method that you can use. Also, you can add a P2P feature in your client and make sure that your users can configure it on/off. This way, people who are geologically located near each other can just P2P all the way and you get free bandwidth from that.
somebody putting Mozilla's mighty name in shame here. Kindergarten question.
Torrent Inside App Launcher to torrent your updates.
P2P is your best option, just have a server for the initial transfers. I'm sure many people would seed game patches just to help out.