[fitkoh]

In this case then, indeed, a full-blown registration module is needed... and if you'll be sticking with PHP then I would still recommend redis or memcached as a NoSQL-database-solution to store sessions data. PHP has its own extensions to communicate with them... Again never use an RDBMS (MySQL, mariaDB etc..) for session storage unless you're out of options...

I've adopted Node.js since 2012 and I've coded (in JavaScript) a versatile Web server around it that I keep using anytime a REAL-TIME web application is needed.. I don't do Games, but a JavaScript-based Game is definetly a real-time app (in multi-player mode at least), never forget that... and that's my main message here and what I've read in your OP doesn't square well with this very fact (ie it will induce a huge latency penalty..)

Anyway, you can build a full PHP solution of your game, then you'll see for yourself its limitations. Then, after familiarizing yourself with Node.js and Redis in the back-end, try to port it with these Technologies and then you'll see the difference.

A Node.js-based Web server is an Async server and Redis stores data in memory in JSON form with a filesystem caching for persistence; that's where their high-performance comes from and that's why they are suited for real-time Apps development.

Good luck!

From what I've read recently memcached may be better for me at the present. The system requirements to run redis seem a bit steep for a small fry like myself. From the redis docs, 4GB ram is recommended for development; for a production environment start at 15GB and 3 nodes. From your experience, would you say these recommendations are appropriate? Such a set up is unfortunately beyond my means at present.

Memcached, from what I've read seems a lot more forgiving and flexible in terms of system requirements; I believe I could set up a development environment with the tools I have on hand, which is a big perk for me.

I did a bit of browsing at w3schools and the nodejs web server looks fairly straight forward. I think it would be a relatively simple matter to port my php scripts over to nodejs within a few days or maybe a week. I'm curious what techniques you used for your node web server; if there are any particular pitfalls or caveats to avoid; or anything you'd specifically recommend. Perhaps that would be a topic for another thread?

One thing I'm having some trouble with is finding what I would call a "good" tutorial for either memcached or redis. There's plenty of docs, which is fine, and I'll read them (grudgingly and slowly), but I'd like to find something a little friendlier to the uninformed.