Right then. I know it is a day early, but I am like a little kid on christmas eve at this point.

I was going to buy it tomorrow, but I went ahead and ordered it now!

Will take 2-9 days to be setup.

Coffer had $145 in it, which of course is now drained to pay for this dedi, and I covered the remaining balance of $115


Woot woot!

So.
I know this is about 6 months overdue.... But I am now on track to get the server upgraded.

Essentially we will be moving from a VPS (Virtual Private Server) to a full dedicated server. Basically this means much higher performance, more stable and reliable as well. This will also allow us to increase pop size if we wished it without having any lag. The main constraint with Warband is the dedicated server software is not multi-core compatible. Meaning it will run on a single core only instead of spreading across all of them. Which means, the higher the clock speed determines how many slots we can have on our servers.
You may start asking yourself, why do we need this? Simple answer. So we can grow and expand.
GK is a brand name now. Why should we not keep the ball rolling?
What happens when Bannerlords rolls out? We need a bigger box to support the new servers when that launches.
All in all, this will allow for alot of expansion to other games as well as improving our existing ones.

So let's get to the geek stuff.

Current setup:
1 Socket, 6 Virtual Processors on Xeon E5-2690 v2 @3.00GHz
8GB Ram
10GB SSD
24000GB Monthly Bandwidth

New Setup:
Xeon E3-1271v3 - 4 Physical Turbo/HyperThread/OC @4.0GHz
32GB DDR3 1600 ECC
240GB SSD plus 2TB 7200RPM SATA Drive
36000 GB Monthly Bandwidth

Obviously the CPU we are currently on is *technically* better since it is for huge servers and costs around $2,000... But what we need is clock speed. Plus we will be on a physical setup rather than in a virtualized environment which is a huge increase by itself.
One of the key points is the SSD being used for the OS drive, this will also provide a bonus having everything running from an SSD rather than just a few selected items.
Obviously having 32GB of RAM kind of speaks for itself... More RAM = More stuff running!

Now we get to the billing aspect.
Current charges:

$105/Month


New Charges:
$210/Month
$50 One-Time Setup Fee

Yes. The price is doubled. Before the rage starts read the next part.
Obviously this is a huge difference, but as long as the community continues their current contributions, I will provide the remaining balance. Plus I am thinking with the increase in performance, we may find the donations start rolling in alot more like they used to. As I said before when I wanted to do this, I am willing to cover the difference for several reasons. First, I want to see GK grow and expand. I would like to see us a powerhouse of server hosting and this is the first step. The more we get our name out there, the better we are. Second, I have an awesome job and lots of excess cash laying around that I tend to spend frivolously. By having a new outlet to spend my money to a worthwhile goal makes me feel alot better and less selfish. Third and lastly, I will also be using the server for my own server hosting for games I like to play, mainly with other GK members as well so maybe it isn't "for myself" as much as it sounds.


Anyway, that is what's going to happen by next weekend. I will be ordering the server Saturday evening. This will allow time for anyone who wishes to get their donations in early to do so as this change will require the full first month plus the setup fee to order it. Currently we have $80 in the server balance, which will be applied towards that.


So there it is folks.