How CafeServer downloads and serves games

A short explanation of how CafeServer works, to help you read the numbers on the Console and pick the right settings.

1. Knowing which games need updates

CafeServer regularly fetches the latest game catalog. Games in your café that are older than the catalog and set to Auto join the update queue. Games set to Manual only show "Update available" and wait for you.

2. Downloading only what changed

Each game is split into many small pieces. When updating, CafeServer compares them and downloads only the pieces that changed — so a few-hundred-MB update never means re-downloading a 50 GB game.

• Update (Quick): downloads the changes from the known list — fast.
• Full Update: re-checks every file and fills in anything missing or damaged — slower but thorough.

3. Several sources at once

To download fast and spare your connection, CafeServer gets pieces from:

• the system's update servers;
• other cafés that already have those pieces (peer-to-peer — P2P).

In return your server shares the game data it has with other cafés. Sharing is capped by the Upload limit in Settings, so it never affects your players.

4. Serving games to workstations

Workstations get games directly from your server over the LAN. Each group only sees its assigned games, running from the local drive or a virtual drive as configured.

5. Your own games & external sources

Games you add yourself need an index (Generate Index) so workstations can download them over the LAN. Games downloaded with BitTorrent get their index automatically when the download finishes.