Hi there,

Battlefield 3 schedule update. Please read the section below related to your service(s).


Standalone game server customers (customers renting a single instance(s) of BC2 or MOH):

Over the course of the next month, we will be upgrading all physical servers currently hosting BC2/MOH game servers from Windows 2003 to Windows 2008; this is a mandatory upgrade in order to support the BF3 executable.

There is no set date as to when each IP:port will be affected as it depends heavily on our support load on any given day. The upgrade will take around 3hrs per physical machine; if your game server goes down on x day, the OS upgrade will have been in progress and you can expect to see your server back online within a few hours. All old game server files will be copied over to the new OS.


Dedicated server customers (customers renting physical machines that host Ranked Game Servers)

Over the course of September and October, we'll be upgrading boxes from Win 2003 to 2008. If you have already updated or were already running Windows 2008, the OS upgrade schedule below can be ignored.

As a gesture of goodwill, we will not be charging for the OS upgrade. This is a U-turn on our previous announcement but feel it's the only way to get the ball rolling and get BF3 accessible to everyone who wants it. If you have already paid the OS fee to upgrade, please contact support.

There is also a BF3 support fee per physical machine. Unfortunately, we have to charge for this but are heavily subsidizing the cost. In order to support BF3 on your server, an additional £18 (incl VAT) will be charged; this fee applies even if you only want to run one BF3 game server instance. Accounts will be updated as and when we complete server migrations. The fee is only applicable from the Official release date.

With time being of the essence, please can all dedicated server customers wishing to support Battlefield 3 notify us on or before the 20th of September, if you have not done so already. A simple support ticket via http://www.killercreation.co.uk/cp will suffice. This also applies to customers that are thinking of dedicated server upgrades and waiting for the beta usage results to decide; we still need to know your intention to be able to plan ahead.

As to a specific time and date of when the OS upgrade to your box will occur, apologies but we cannot give individual times per customer due to the sheer volume of upgrades and our busy schedule that changes depending on support load. We will carry out upgrades during the morning through to 17:00 latest on any given day. If your server goes down during these hours, we'll be in the process of upgrading your OS. Rest assured that your existing game servers will be migrated to the new OS.

64 slot BF3 server support. The following ranges will be capable of multiple 64 slot servers:

Dell R210 II
Dell R210 Plus
Dell R210

Other Dell quad core boxes:

Dell R300: This hardware spec is a 50/50 as to whether it is going to be suitable for running multiple 64 slot instances, but generally towards the higher slot count (e.g. 50+ slot servers) should be fine.

Dell R200: It's unlikely the Dell R200 will be suitable for 64 slot instances at launch, but towards the higher slot count of 40+ should be fine.

As with Bad Company 2, the likely hood is the server side code will be optimised over the coming months. So while the hardware requirements are high at present, the CPU usage might drop over time with updates.

Kind regards