Hosting your own Active World requires either a PC running Windows or Linux. For maximum uptime and reliability, a server-oriented operating system is recommended, along with a dedicated 24-hour Internet connection.
It is possible to host a world on your PC at home, but in this case, your world will only be accessible while your PC is connected to the Internet. If you want your world to be accessible 24 hours a day, you must either keep your PC up and running and connected to the Internet 24 hours a day, or pay someone to host your world for you. Activeworlds Inc. can host your world for you for an additional fee. See our hosting page for hosting prices.
In order to host your own Active World, you must first download and install the Active Worlds Server on your computer.
It is possible to run more than one world at a time on the same computer. The number of worlds that can be run on a single computer is limited only by the available resources on that computer.
Note: The requirements listed below do not include the disk space and bandwidth required to host the objects for your world. The artwork for a given world can be on any web site on the World Wide Web; there is no requirement that they be hosted on the same machine that is running the Active Worlds Server. The amount of disk space and bandwidth required by the web server varies widely depending on how many objects your world has and how big the artwork files are.
Hardware Requirements
The Active Worlds Server has been designed to use as little RAM, CPU, and disk space as possible. On a typical PC running Windows, 500 megabytes of RAM should be sufficient for running a single server. Under Windows servers especially systems that are running other applications concurrently, we recommend a minimum of at least 1 gigabyte of RAM.
Hosting a typical personal world should require less than 50 megabytes of disk space. Larger commercial worlds, in particular worlds which are open for public building, can require up to 100 megabytes of disk space, or even more if your world is especially large.
The Active Worlds Server requires very little CPU power to run. For example, an Active Worlds Server for a world with 100 users in it simultaneously would typically use less than 10% of the CPU of a 1 Ghz server. Thus, even an older CPU is more than enough power to run a typical Active Worlds Server.
Bandwidth Requirements
The bandwidth required for each visitor to your world varies considerably. Usage is highest when a user enters your world for the first time, when their browser will use most of their available bandwidth for a brief period of time. This is due to the (usually) large amount of property information they need to receive on first entry in order to display the contents of your world. On subsequent visits, information transmitted to the user should drop significantly, because everything previously received is cached on their hard disk. You can estimate the amount of bandwidth you will need by assuming an average of about 150 bytes per seconds per user. The table below shows our suggestions for the maximum number of simultaneous users that can be supported on some common types of connections. These limits can be exceeded but visitors to your world(s) may experience reduced performance.
Connection Type
Maximum Users
56K Modem
20
DSL or cable
100
T1
1000
Note: If you are hosting more than one world on your server, the above maximums will apply to the combined total of all users in all of your worlds. The maximum user count will be considerably less if you are serving the objects for your worlds over the same connection. It is not possible to reliably estimate here the additional amount of bandwidth required to serve objects, since as with any web site this is a function of how many different images and files a visitor to your world will need to download.
Network Requirements
The World Server requires unrestricted access to the Internet in order to function. Running behind a firewall, proxy server, or any other type of network configuration that blocks incoming connections may be configured to work but is NOT supported.