Multiplayer server pricing

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Ryan Steckler asked Aug 9, '21

Multiplayer server pricing

Hi -

It looks like the Development Tier has 750 core hours free each month until billing starts. That equates to one core for the entire month. I've noticed that when spinning up a Build, the lowest VM choice I have is a 2-core machine (Standard_D2as_v4).

I've also noticed that the Usage page shows those cores are consumed while the Server is in Standby mode.

If I upload a build and leave it in standby all month, should I expect I'll incur 750 hours of usage? (2 cores * 1 month = 1500 hours)

As a user, it seems odd that uploading a build to the lowest spec possible and letting it sit there would incur costs, so I think I'm probably just missing something.

To make it more confusing, the Services Summary at the bottom of the Servers page shows 750 free hours remaining, but a Last Updated date of two days ago when I joined, so I'm not actually sure how the hours are being deducted or when that number will update. Also, clicking into the View Billing Summary page right next to the Service Summary doesn't show the hours used by the Multiplayer Servers, so that doesn't help either.

Thanks!

pricing

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Answer 1 · 2021-08-10T07:23:07Z

Rick Chen answered Aug 10, '21

According to this document: Consumption pricing for PlayFab Multiplayer Servers, the Virtual machine instance hours are the hours of virtual machine time that your game servers are utilizing. Theoretically, if you leave a server in standby mode for 30 days, then it will consume 30 x 24 = 720 hours of usage. However, please note that the running hours are added to your invoice when the VM is unassigned. This means that if the VM starts on previous month but ends on this month, the total running hours will be added to this month’s invoice and could cause the overflow hours. This is by designed since the system wouldn’t know how long before the server ends. PlayFab Multiplayer is designed for session-based games, rather than for a long-running service. I recommend planning on using servers for no more than a few hours at a time.

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Answer 2 · 2021-08-11T01:51:23Z

Ryan Steckler answered Aug 11, '21

That makes sense, as in your description is clear, but I'm still unsure if that behavior is intended.

All of the pricing docs, including the one you linked to, show dasv4 as an option. The document you linked actually says you can get 750 free hours on a dasv4 instance, or 375 hours on a das2v4 instance.

Only, you can't choose a dasv4 (single core) instance when you deploy a build.

It sure seems like the intent was to allow a developer to keep one small dasv4 instance alive all month for free, but then the deployment interface didn't match up with the documentation. That would match the way that aws and azure free tier both offer 750 free hours of a small vm for development.

In any case, the solution is just to shut down the deallocate the standby servers manually every night, then spin then back up in the morning as needed.

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Rick Chen ♦ commented · Aug 16, 2021 at 03:08 AM

For titles in the development mode, the 750 free hours in the quota are only for testing purpose. The intent is that most game developers can do their build tests ahead of release without generating costs (most developers usually need to use VMs with more cores, but since they commonly only need a few days of test time for a build, that usually works out just fine). It is not intended to provide a way to run a title completely free. Server time does have very real cost to us, which does have to be accounted for - we cannot provide unlimited server hosting for free. In order to minimize your usage, please make sure to shut down running servers when you're not testing, by setting the Standby server count to 0 for all regions you've configured.

You can refer to this similar thread for more detail: https://community.playfab.com/questions/50569/750-free-compute-hours-really-worthinformation-abo.html

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Ryan Steckler Rick Chen ♦ commented · Aug 16, 2021 at 03:45 AM

Cool. Marked this as the answer. My suggestion would be to at least update the documentation to remove the lines that say one can have 750 hours of a single core machine, given that there's no such thing in the MPS configuration.

Thanks for the replies.

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Ryan Steckler Ryan Steckler commented · Aug 16, 2021 at 03:46 AM

Also, the other thread you linked to says that you can have a single core machine for a full month for free. It seems like this was available (and WAS the intent) previously, but not anymore.

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