I spend $18/mo to run servers I barely race on, so I built a pay-per-hour alternative
Disclosure: It's my project, I'm a professional engineer, it's not AI slop. It is a paid service, but I'd love you to try it free and give me feedback.
I'm thankful many tech wizards put time, money, and effort into self-hosting and operating race servers for ACC. That's why Kunos shipped the dedicated server. But, I think an in-game feature to launch multiplayer servers would have allowed less technical people to organize more leagues, more endurance events, and more populated pubbies than we already enjoy.
Though I can't put that feature in the game, I can put it on the web.
Racetrim launched a year ago, with monthly ACC rentals at the cost to run them. It was a start, not perfect, but our discord grew in lobbies named "NOT SPA OR MONZA! TRY IT!". Today, more than 250,000 laps have run on our public servers and weekly events.
The problem: I paid $18/mo per server to run them 24/7, and that's how much I charged for them, even though in our active discord the servers still go 90% unused over the course of a month. This week, I released a rebuild of Racetrim that let's us start and stop servers whenever we want, and only pay $0.05/hr when they're on.
Honest math: With this rate, it's $36/mo to run a server 24/7. If that's what you need, you should rent a 24-slot server from GPORTAL for $29/mo. However, if you need a server 20 hours/mo, thats $1 on Racetrim, and you don't have to pay 700 hours no one is racing.
Racetrim servers for ACC on PC:
- Dedicated Windows cloud servers, launched in <30 seconds
- Available on 5 continents, move and resize them at-will.
- No slot or connection limits like GPORTAL and Nitrado
- Managed in the browser, no install or JSON files.
- Laps data & results stored, analyzed, reviewable, and exportable.
- When you sign up, get 10 server hours FREE to try.
I'm not trying to get rich on this, my goals are:
- To create an old-school Web 1.0 app that is refreshing to use, and fun for me to work on.
- To break even on the costs to run it.
- To create something that is better for sim racing leagues and players than anything else that exists.
Find out more about it, here.
What track do you never get to race because nobody hosts it? Wanna run it?
