Source: https://gameye.com/glossary/server-regions/ --- title: "Server Regions | Gameye" description: "Server regions are geographic locations where game servers run. Placing servers near players is the most effective way to reduce multiplayer latency." --- # Server Regions Server regions are the geographic locations where your dedicated game servers run. A region is typically a city or metropolitan area — Amsterdam, São Paulo, Singapore, Chicago — where one or more data centres host your server infrastructure. ## Why region placement determines player experience The speed of light sets a hard floor on network latency. A player in Tokyo connecting to a server in London will experience at least 150–200ms of round-trip time — no amount of optimisation can change physics. Placing servers close to your players is the single highest-impact infrastructure decision you can make for multiplayer feel. As a rough guide: - **Under 40ms** — imperceptible, ideal for all genres - **40–80ms** — acceptable for most genres, competitive games start to feel sluggish - **80–150ms** — noticeable lag, problematic for fast-paced shooters and fighting games - **Over 150ms** — significant impact on gameplay quality and player retention ## Choosing which regions to cover Start with where your players actually are, not where you think they might be. Analytics from a soft launch, beta, or similar titles in the genre can tell you the geographic distribution of your player base. Prioritise the regions that cover the largest share of concurrent players first, then expand. Common starting points for global coverage: one region in North America (East or West), one in Western Europe, one in Southeast Asia or Oceania. South America, Japan, and the Middle East are often added based on player data. ## How region selection works with an orchestrator With an orchestrator like Gameye, your matchmaker passes a preferred region (or a ranked list of regions) when requesting a session. The orchestrator places the server in the optimal location from those options, based on current capacity and availability. Players receive the connection address for a server already running near them — the latency is low from the moment the match starts. Gameye operates in major population centres across North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and South America, with capacity regularly added based on customer demand. **See also:** [Latency](https://gameye.com/glossary/latency/) · [Bare metal servers](https://gameye.com/glossary/bare-metal-servers/) · [Session hosting](https://gameye.com/glossary/session-hosting/) · [How Gameye game server orchestration works](https://gameye.com/how-it-works/) Building a multiplayer game? Gameye hosts dedicated game servers: ship your server as a Docker container and start one per match with a single API call, in a region near your players. [See how it works →](https://gameye.com/how-it-works/) [Back to Glossary](https://gameye.com/glossary/) ## Related terms - ### Latency Latency is how fast data is moving. How quickly does it get from point A to point B? (And it’s generally measured in milliseconds.) [Read more](https://gameye.com/glossary/latency/) - ### Data center A data center is a facility that houses servers used to store, process, and manage large volumes of data for applications and games. [Read more](https://gameye.com/glossary/data-center/) - ### Bare-metal servers A bare-metal server is a physical machine which lives inside a data centre. It’s a place where you’ll host your games matches and sessions. [Read more](https://gameye.com/glossary/bare-metal-servers/) - ### Edge Node An edge node is a server or machine positioned at the boundary of a network, closer to end users than a central data center — used to reduce latency by processing requests near the player. [Read more](https://gameye.com/glossary/edge-node/) - ### Session hosting Session hosting is when a server, or computer, runs your game’s matches. Each match, with a set group of people, is considered a session. [Read more](https://gameye.com/glossary/session-hosting/)