Project Zomboid Server - Android?

[Strider]

I've a feeling I might be laughed out the room for this but hey, I'm going to suggest it anyway. 

 

I like the idea of using an old/current phone as a dedicated 'pc' to host the server as opposed to running it from my PC. I don't need to be an expert to appreciate how little work the server does and how easily my phone could host.

Hell, my phone spec is better than 90% of the PCs I've had previously:

 

FEATURES OS Android OS, v4.2 (Jelly Bean), upgradable to v4.4.2 (KitKat) Chipset Qualcomm APQ8064 Snapdragon CPU Quad-core 1.5 GHz Krait GPU Adreno 320

 

Also, I think it might have been this absurdly versatile app that got to thinking that the phone might be used in this way.

Servers Ultimate: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.icecoldapps.serversultimate

[Connall]

Web servers are a different beast from game servers, the main bottleneck really comes down to the CPU and RAM, you need to be looking at a minimum of 2GB of RAM on the device to really get a decent amount out of it. Outside of that, I won't argue networking for Android or a mobile device though I imagine there are some hoops you would really have to jump through.

 

So yeah... I don't know how reliable of a platform mobile devices would be. So that's my short two cents.

[Strider]

Web servers are a different beast from game servers, the main bottleneck really comes down to the CPU and RAM, you need to be looking at a minimum of 2GB of RAM on the device to really get a decent amount out of it.

 

Yeah, this was on the same spec page:

 

MEMORY Card slot No Internal 8/16 GB storage, 2 GB RAM

 

 

Outside of that, I won't argue networking for Android or a mobile device though I imagine there are some hoops you would really have to jump through.

 

Cool

 

So yeah... I don't know how reliable of a platform mobile devices would be. So that's my short two cents.

 

As for reliability, Android is built from the Linux kernal and (in my ignorance) I believe that's what many servers are running. I'd imagine it's pretty stable. No less stable than a Windows OS which the PZ server presently has to sit on.

Anyway, thanks for getting back to me. I appreciate it.

[Connall]

 

Web servers are a different beast from game servers, the main bottleneck really comes down to the CPU and RAM, you need to be looking at a minimum of 2GB of RAM on the device to really get a decent amount out of it.

 

Yeah, this was on the same spec page:

 

MEMORY Card slot No Internal 8/16 GB storage, 2 GB RAM

 

 

Outside of that, I won't argue networking for Android or a mobile device though I imagine there are some hoops you would really have to jump through.

 

Cool

 

So yeah... I don't know how reliable of a platform mobile devices would be. So that's my short two cents.

 

As for reliability, Android is built from the Linux kernal and (in my ignorance) I believe that's what many servers are running. I'd imagine it's pretty stable. No less stable than a Windows OS which the PZ server presently has to sit on.

Anyway, thanks for getting back to me. I appreciate it.

 

 

Well when I say 2GB RAM I mean you need a dedicated 2GB of RAM, rather than just 2GB of RAM. Thinking more on the issue I realised the biggest issue with Android.

 

The Libraries required for it to run. While yes Android is an offset of Linux, things like Raspberry Pi OS (Forget it's name) CentOS and a couple other derivatives still don't work due to incompatible libraries or software that hasn't been set to work on these systems. Even if Android was to be a viable platform in a hardware sense, the software required to get the thing working would be a challenge itself.

 

Again, that kind of thing is more the domain of Kirrus, he might be able to give an idea how hard/easy it would be to do that, but I know Rasp Pi has inherent flaw that makes it impossible for their to ever have a hosted server on there, perhaps Android has the same thing. Don't know. There's just a lot of unknowns to this and don't think it would be all that easy or really great as a platform for hosting a server.

[Rathlord]

I actually did get a server running on Raspberry Pi after some effort recompiling libs from one of our members- the problem was, the device was too slow to ever get anything out of it.

 

The phone specs you listed were very high (for a phone) but still unlikely to ever be able to host more than 1 person playing on it without grinding to a halt. 1.5 Ghz is slower than anything that can run the game without problems already, and of the 2 GB RAM large portions of it will go to OS and background processes.

 

While it might be within the realm of possibility that someone could strip down a phone that was high enough spec for this to work with a server for 2 people, the chances are incredibly slim and it would be a huge waste of dev time. It's not a bad idea, all things considered, it just wouldn't work from a technical standpoint.

[Strider]

I actually did get a server running on Raspberry Pi after some effort recompiling libs from one of our members- the problem was, the device was too slow to ever get anything out of it.

 

The phone specs you listed were very high (for a phone) but still unlikely to ever be able to host more than 1 person playing on it without grinding to a halt. 1.5 Ghz is slower than anything that can run the game without problems already, and of the 2 GB RAM large portions of it will go to OS and background processes.

 

While it might be within the realm of possibility that someone could strip down a phone that was high enough spec for this to work with a server for 2 people, the chances are incredibly slim and it would be a huge waste of dev time. It's not a bad idea, all things considered, it just wouldn't work from a technical standpoint.

 

Fair enough. I don't know enough to say either way but I thought it was a question worth asking, or a suggestion worth making.

[Rathlord]

For what it's worth, it might not be tooooo hard to actually do for someone intimately familiar with both Android's version of linux and compiling libs, so someone could certainly try it and I can help with the libs- but that's about all I can offer.