Hardware

[cezarica]

Hi,

I have a linux server with some old hardware that is idle most of the time cos serves another purpose, and since lately it's huffing and puffing (Master takes ~60% CPU with 2-3 players and Caves another ~18% with nobody on it from my poor Intel Core2 Duo E8200) I'm thinking about saving some money for a true dedicated server and I'm not sure about on what should be considered the bare minimal specs for it to run smoothly. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[cezarica]

Why isn't anyone willing to share some specs? I'm talking about something like CPU at least of xGHz, x GB of ram.. stuff like this. And if have own server running in a decent manner I would more than happy to hear what specs it has.

[Arlesienne]

Well, not certain how it works with dedis since I need to redesign my network to even think about having them, but I can tell you this as a rule of thumb: as much RAM as you can get plus at least 2 GHz when it comes to CPU. I am comparing Lenovo Y530, Lenovo Y580 and Lenovo Y700. I can host from all three, but wouldn't risk my default sixteen slots on Y530. I admit the machine in question is old and weathered, so it could be better, but generally, I prefer my 16 and 32 GB of RAM on Y580 and Y700, respectably, to Y530's 8.

Considering a dedi will run as long as the machine is on, you also want it to be flawless when it comes to battery and heating. You may want to use your second computer for this as if you need to work intensely, both you and the dedi may have problems.

 

[cezarica]

Since English is not my native language I tend to think in mine and then translate stuff into English and sometimes the result is a bunch of gibberish.

The PC that is running the server right now is not coping with the CPU usage and I'm planning to buy a separate PC to install linux and it's sole purpose would be to run a single DST server (above and caves) with how many slots it will be able to without sacrificing anything and make it lag like it happens now.. especially when a frog rain happens.

I got my own separate PC to play from and it's running smoothly.

When nobody is playing (sim paused) Master takes like 10-11% CPU and caves another ~8%. With one player the Master is taking ~36% CPU and Caves (nobody in) takes another 28-29%. With 3-4 people the two processes easily reach 90% CPU.

Edit: How much CPU usage do you have on Y580 when have let's say 5 players connected?

I see that Y580 and has a Intel i7-3630QM and Y700 has a Intel i7-6700HQ and they have 4 cores and 8 threads compared to my poor E8200 with just 2 cores. I suspect the number of cores and threads makes a HUGE difference since it would be able to compute stuff faster as it would split the tasks.

[Arlesienne]

It's definitely a welcome thing to have more cores. I'd need to check the CPU used when having 5 players on Y580. After the improvements through updates to the game, I admit it's 60 FPS all the time for me, so I have been woefully ignoring tests. What would you like the server to be like? I'm talking multi-sharded or not, the size of each map (small, medium, large, huge) and the amount of prefabs. Oh, and mods. Everything is connected ;).

Out of the box, @cezarica, I can tell you it's perfectly fine for me to work on either Lenovo while the game with sixteen player slots is raging. And I tend to require many tabs on Mozilla opened, then PowerPoint, Word, Norton all the time (obviously) plus other possible software.

[cezarica]

The world is set to default everything with Overground and Caves and no mods at all cos want to keep the experience as original as possible.