Hardware spec guidance

[Aesirkin]

I'm currently running a dedicated server on a popular host.  The host says we should be good for 16 players, but we're starting to see increased lag and performance issues even with 5 or 6 connected.  I suspect our VM is on an overly crowded server and am tossing around the idea of building a server and hosting it in my home on a 300mbps business FIOS connection.

What I'm not clear on is what sort of hardware will get me what kind of performance.  My proposed build would be along these lines:

- Ryzen 5 5600G

- 32 GB (2x16GB) DDR4 3600 RAM

- WD_BLACK 1TB SN850 NVMe

- Integrated GPU (a dedicated GPU isn't required to run a 7DTD server, is it?)

I would be running Windows and would also have a number of websites running in IIS on Lucee, but they are all very low traffic.

What sort of performance could be expected of a server like this?  How many players could I reasonably expect to accommodate at one time?  How many max zombies and animals could I throw out into the world before hitting problems?

This approach will save me money, and I'm hoping improve performance.  Will it work?

 

[Jugginator]

You should get some pretty good performance out of that setup, just make sure you fine-tune the ram a bit, and I would consider putting in a strong network adapter, although usually the motherboard ones are good, some aren't though.

No, you don't need a GPU for the server, but you'd likely want some graphical output for browsing and such, and the Ryzen built in GPU's are fabulous, so good to go there (can do some light gaming on the side too).

I do suggest if you can swing it, however, to go for something like a Ryzen 7 5800x or 5900x. The 5 5600g is great and you should be able to host for a decent bit of people, but I am not sure if it can handle up to 16, tbh you need some decent hardware for that many. 

And is that 300mbps upload? You need fast upload speeds.

I haven't had a chance to test more than 8, and only 8 once, but I hosted a server on my machine and played on the same machine with 7 other people on it for a few hours and it ran fine (I also used to frequently have servers running, one test one hosted for friends) and playing on the same rig.

Ryzen 7 5800x

32GB 3200 ram

NVME

3050 8gb

(600-700 MBPS download and upload)

 

[Aesirkin]

Thanks for the feedback.  That's very helpful information.

A Ryzen 7 would be nice, but it looks like it's double the price for the cpu for a 7% increase in single threaded performance per benchmarks.  So I'm not sure if that's justifiable.

It's 300 both up and down.  I ran some monitoring locally when playing on my existing server and noticed that my bandwidth usually sat under 1mbps.  There were regular jumps to 12 - 16 mbps, but only for a moment.  So I figure a server with 300 up should be able to handle a minimum of 19 players at the same speed my current server does.  Probably many more since only the spikes went that high; average mbps was closer to 1.

I have a little wiggle room in the budget and am thinking at this point the best use may be either more RAM or faster RAM.  Or maybe a liquid cooling system to help OC the main core on the cpu.

 

[Toneyst]

Hi @Jugginator

How to fine tune CPU and RAM i run at 18GB of RAM for 20 Player it never full but it laging lol

and I see Bandwidth is about 2-6 Mbps

Internet  400/400 Mbps

OS: Windows server 2019  
 CPU: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2620 v4 @ 2.10GHz (cores: 10)
RAM: 18431 MB
GPU: Null Device (128 MB)
 Graphics API: NULL 1.0 [1.0] (shader level 5.0)

 

[SylenThunder]

Hi @Jugginator

How to fine tune CPU and RAM i run at 18GB of RAM for 20 Player it never full but it laging lol

and I see Bandwidth is about 2-6 Mbps

Internet  400/400 Mbps

OS: Windows server 2019  
 CPU: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2620 v4 @ 2.10GHz (cores: 10)
RAM: 18431 MB
GPU: Null Device (128 MB)
 Graphics API: NULL 1.0 [1.0] (shader level 5.0)

That CPU is your limiting factor. It doesn't even meet the minimum spec speed.

We are running X5675's at 3.07Ghz, and are starting to see the stain on the CPU.  You won't see your total CPU max out because the game sits on one core primarily.  As it sits now with our setup, we're seeing some significant FPS drops on horde nights and when a new player is downloading the map. Otherwise, it seems to run just fine.

Currently looking at building a new system with a R9 5950X and a X570S motherboard.

 

[Jugginator]

Hi @Jugginator

How to fine tune CPU and RAM i run at 18GB of RAM for 20 Player it never full but it laging lol

and I see Bandwidth is about 2-6 Mbps

Internet  400/400 Mbps

OS: Windows server 2019  
 CPU: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2620 v4 @ 2.10GHz (cores: 10)
RAM: 18431 MB
GPU: Null Device (128 MB)
 Graphics API: NULL 1.0 [1.0] (shader level 5.0)

Yep, what Sylen said. Besides, Intel CPUs don't really get much benefit from RAM tuning like AMD's does, Ryzen specifically.

 

[Blue mame]

Obviously, whether it is the server or the client, as long as the memory usage is below A10G, it is very smooth, and as long as the memory usage exceeds 10G, there will be a lot of delays and freezes, which should be the server or the client. Problem, it is recommended to restart the server when the running memory of the server reaches 10G+

 

[THE HOBO KING]

Given NVMe and at least 16 gigs of ram (I've never seen the gameserver go over 10), the single-core processor speed is the most essential attribute. I would expect you could fit 20-25 players without serious issues with the above config if you set the processor to 100% at all times and minimize everything else running on the box. I run an i9 4.8/5.1 GHz boost and issues arise when the playerbase breaks 30. The game can use discrete graphics for some acceleration but my feeling is this is a negligent amount of performance increase compared to the processor eventually topping out. My server does not have one installed.