Host a DCS Server in Azure
In my free time, I love flying digital airplanes in the battlefield simulator DCS World. Online play is great, too! But, playing online requires a server. Hosting a server can seem daunting. Many people host on their personal PC (with poor performance) or pay a king's ransom to host on expensive hardware. Let's fix this with the Azure Cloud! Why Host in Azure? Geo-locate your server to minimize latency Easy to start and stop your server Pay for what you use Super-reliable compute and networking power Windows license is included How to Host 1. Signup for Azure You can get a free trial or $100 free if you're a student. https://azure.microsoft.com/free/ https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/free/students/ 2. Make a new Virtual Machine This is where you'll pick the size of the virutal machine and the region. For the size, I recommend: Standard D8s v3 (8 vcpus, 32 GB memory). I've hosted up to 25 people on a complex mission with this setup. My recommendations: Minimum 16 GB RAM Minimum 8 Cores Latest Windows 10 Client Premium SSD (we'll end up with 2 of these: one for the OS and one for the game) For the region: this is one of the amazing things about Azure. You can host the server in a location wich is best for the players. For example, I live the North West of the USA. But, I host my server where my online buddies fly: in the UK. These instructions will help you make your first Virtual Machine: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/windows/quick-create-portal 3. Add Some Storage DCS World takes a lot of disk space. And, the load and update processes are very disk heavy. So, don't skimp on the disk. I recommend a 256 GB Premium SSD. Here's the instructions: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/windows/attach-managed-disk-portal 4. Open DCS TCP & UDP Ports DCS World hosts on port 10308 for both TCP & UDP. You need to open this port in the Azure Firewall to allow users to connect to your server. Use these instructions: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/windows/nsg-quickstart-portal Use these details: Protocol: Any (TCP & UDP) Port: 10308 Source: Any | Destination: Any Action: Allow Priority: 310 (Any # between 310 and 65500) 5. Get into your VM Find your VM in the azure portal. Start it, then connect using the Connect button. This will open Microsoft Remote Desktop. Enter your VM using the username and password you provided during creation. 6. Install DCS World Most servers choose to run the Open Beta. But, with the 256GB, you can fit both. Download and install from: https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/downloads/world/ Your server does not need to "own" the pay modules: the base game can host all released aircraft with no DLC. The full install takes about 30 minutes. 7. Configure DCS World to disable 3d render Your VM (probably) doesn't have a graphics card. So, if you skip this step and just start hosting a server, DCS World will attempt to render 3d frames on the CPUs. This won't go well! We can solve this by disabling 3d rendering. This replaces all 3d renders with a simple black frame. Perfect for a dedicated server. Credit to this forum post for teaching me how to do it! Open notepad to make a new file. Add these lines: options.graphics.fullScreen = true options.graphics.render3D = false Save it as: %user%\Saved Games\DCS\Config\autoexec.cfg %user%\Saved Games\DCS.openbeta\Config\autoexec.cfg 8. Fire it up! Start up DCS World. Sign in (reminder: you don't need to own any DLC on the account you use for hosting!). Multiplayer -> New Sever. Follow the on-screen instructions. I find that it takes 5 minutes for the first mission to load. From there on, it should only take about 2 minutes to stop and restart the server. Don't forget to Stop your VM in the portal when you're done! I hope you find this guide helpful. See you in the skies! PlanR
edge://surf | Change back the background
One day I wanted to come over and play the Microsoft Edge Surfing game (URL: edge://surf), but when I opened it, I found that the background had become water. Although the gameplay is the same, I think it is weird because the background is water. Maybe for some reason I think the background of the snow is a little better, and after it turns into water, it looks like a bit unaccustomed... (Maybe it's because of those frames) I don't know if there are settings that change the background back to snow (maybe HTML?), but I still want to change the background back to snow. I hope not to programming, I suggest adding: use the "Settings" (gear) button in the upper right corner to directly change the background back to snow. (Or remove those frames but keep the water background)Add mini forums for each game in Xbox app so people can communicate with each other about the game
Just like Steam has community for each game, Xbox needs to have the same thing. simple forums for each game so that gamers can discuss about the game, communicate, find each other, talk about missions, solve problems etc. this is really useful and I can clearly see the need for this in Xbox app. also the moderation of these mini forums can be assigned to Game developer and/or Xbox global moderator. Please upvote this in Feedback hub: https://aka.ms/AAafaj5
