Argo Smart Routing for game servers?

[Erveon]

Hi! We’d like to explore Argo Smart Routing for our game servers.

We currently serve about 8-10TB of outbound traffic to game clients per month with dedicated servers in a game where every millisecond counts. BGP is letting us down more often than not so we’re desperate for at least stable latency and ideally less of it.

Our biggest problem is that we do not know the game server IP address until the game server is created right before the match. I’m afraid that using the CF API to add a DNS record at that moment may result in that record not propagating quick enough for most users to connect a second afterwards.

In an ideal scenario, we would be able to wildcard the IP address, e.g. x-x-x-x.gameserver.example.com, translating the x-x-x-x to the IP address, but I can only find an enterprise setting for would potentially make that work, which might very well be overkill. We’re happy to pay the 800-1000/mo for the traffic but several thousands on top for an enterprise plan is not economically viable for this use case.

Is there any intended way to make this work? According to the ‘Cloudflare for Gaming’ marketing briefs, it should be possible somehow.

Thanks!

[albert]

For non-HTTP applications such as game servers, an Enterprise agreement with Cloudflare Spectrum is necessary. Cloudflare Spectrum can integrate with Argo Smart Routing for TCP applications.

I would not be too concerned about propagating. This usually completes worldwide within a few seconds. Testing is highly recommended though.

Do note that Enterprise agreements start at a couple thousand dollars per month, and Spectrum would only add to that. I’d recommend reaching out to sales for a quote.

[Erveon]

Thanks for your answer, I was afraid that’d be the case. I’ll continue looking elsewhere for a potential solution.