System Setup Guide - reduce bottle necks

[Cadamier]

Hello,

 

One of the main reasons for this type of setup is to avoid any bottle necking! I don't guarantee any increase in FPS, just that your system will be optimized to get the best FPS you can. This isn't only for this game but for any PC setup... For workstations to a degree but, servers are a different breed! Ideally you want this setup or as close to this as possible... Well, lets get started.

 

1.) Motherboard

The heart of any computer. Back when the Pentium 100 came out we started our first promotional sale... ASUS and some other brand where the only 2 choices of builds. I built like 1000 of each... I then thought about them and came to the conclusion that data transfer/throughput of the motherboard was thee most important factor... I setup one of each and set them to copy an entire drive filled with junk over and over... About the 3rd night of doing this, one of them died... The ASUS motherboard kept going on for 3 more days until my boss said he needs to sell it... That's 6 solid straight days and nights of transferring data. This and soo many more reasons since then is why I support ASUS Motherboards... There aren't any real motherboard comparison sites to show 'throughput'/'latency'/'bottlenecking' and such... But the ruggidess of ASUS motherboards even back then is a testimony as to why I support them. This is from a Technician standpoint as well as a user standpoint, their products and support are number one. Chipset: The 'higher' the letter/number the more options you have! IE: Z is better than A and 3 is better than 2; Z390 is better than a B365... But you should compare them to see what you want.

2.) CPU:

What counts are the number of cores and hyper threading especially with newer games.

3.) RAM

Thee most important specification for RAM is: (CAS) latency. The lower this number is the better/faster that ram is! Decent explanation of RAM speeds and finding the right RAM. I recommend reading it! Generally for gaming its not too important but the difference can be 'high' in terms of costs.

4.) GPU

There are way too many things to account for. If you're looking to upgrade or buy a GPU you might want to compare some... Like here to see how they stack up. There are lists of games near the bottom which give a bit of indication on how they perform!

 

So then.... Lets look at the main issue of bottle necking! At any given point in time your system is doing multiple things about as fast or faster than you think... At any given point in time your system is trying to retrieve or save commands and/or data from the game, from your operating system or to and from the Swap/Page file and send and receive data to your graphics card and/or the network port...

So the main areas are - Operating System, your Game and then the Page/Swap File. As for your graphics card and network there's little/nothing you can do about that.

On my system I have an I-7 4790K overclocked to 4.2GHz. I also have 32GB of RAM at 2333 KHz with a CAS Latency of 12 ms. I have 3 SSD's and 3 Mechanical drives and one external for backup. I have an GTX 980 TI and with the game on ultra settings I see upwards of +100 FPS and down to 70 FPS in skyscrapers/horde nights! I prefer to have the video settings "just below" the ultra settings!

 

That's 3 SSD's... When I'm talking about SSD's I'm talking about Solid State Drives, not to be confused with the PCI ones that plug into a PCI slot... That includes M.2 drives are they're fairly affordable! Here's a bit about the them.

Let me side track a minute and get into M.2 & PCi's... Please note that an M.2 or PCI SSD can take up a SATA Lane/Slot or PCI Lane/Slot, especially on 'older systems!' So you need to be a bit careful... Cause you may not have as many SATA/PCI slots as you see on the motherboard! Specifically always look at the M.2/PCI configuration. It may note something to the effect: "Auto/SATA mode/PCIE mode: 'If SATA/PCI device is detected, SATA6G_1/PCIe_1 will be disabled.'" In that instance you'll loose a SATA6 or PCIe_1 connector on the motherboard. Technically speaking generally an SSD's speed is good enough and PCI prices aren't as affordable yet...

The ultimate setup is to have a PCI drive for each of these points... IE: PCI SSD for OS, PCI SSD for Game, PCI SSD for Swap/Page file. The SSD for the Swap/Page File does have an exception... IF you have 32GB of RAM or more - then the Swap/Page SSD isn't generally 'required' because with testing I've found that you can run without the swap file!!! Yup! You can run your system without the swap file set. The few tests I've run with this game show that if you set a swap file or let Windows manage the swap file with 32GB of RAM on your system, it can slow down your system down. Not much, but still. But for those without 32GB of RAM the Swap SSD is there to add to your 'global heap'/'virtual memory.' This gives Windows another way to 'save' stuff; especially when you're actually 'multitasking' with running multiple programs at once. Lastly you always want one large mechanical HD for backups. Here's how to manage your page/swap file. OH! Another thing - turn off Hybernation... Ever sit there looking at your inventory and the screen goes blank, and it goes into hybernation mode?!? "Everything in RAM" is dumped into the hiberfil.sys file... This is how windows 'quickly boots up' from hybernation mode... Ever see how long that takes?!? lol Its fine while not gaming, but then again a lot of laptops have this enabled to save battery time...

 

If you have a system with only one SSD or one Hard Drive - it is constantly having to access it... With hyper-threading I can guarantee you that you'll be experiencing bottle necking with reading and writing to that drive especially if you're running a game or trying to edit/process a video! That bottle necking can cause serious drops in FPS especially on a system with only one drive! This is why I generally don't recommend laptops for gaming as they generally only have one or two drives.

 

Trade off's: Now if you can only get 2 SSD's then you want to have your OS on one, and your game on another. As for your swap/page file - it should definitely be the one separated from your OS! If you have a mechanical drive then maybe that's where your swap file should go. Because when most people play a game that's all they do. Since you're generally not changing from the game to some other program, it should be okay. But you may want to test to see if it works better on your OS SSD! If you have only one SSD and a mechanical drive then you may want to test things out. I would definitely put the OS on the SSD, which means your swap and games should be on the other... But testing for your setup should be done.

 

Now - as for the server... For this game at least - it can be the same PC you run 7 Days to Die on to another PC setup similar to what we have above, or it can be a full blown server or one you rent from a provider. I see a lot of people wanting their own server, which is fine of course but there is another bottle neck to think about. If your trying to run the server from the PC you're playing on... Then the major bottle neck you'll have is your internet connection speed. Even if you have another PC setup at home as a server - then again the bottle neck that's going to effect you and those whom connect is the internet connection speed you have!!! This is one of the reasons why I recommend against setting up a server on the PC you're trying to play on... Also - there is a difference between a "Server" and a "Dedicated Server" in that a server can be anything from the server program running on the same PC you're trying to play on to a server provided by a server provider... A Dedicated Server is just that - it only runs the 7 Days To Die Server program and virtually nothing else. And this can be from one you have at home to one you get from a service provider. If the server is one that you rent from a provider - then you generally don't have to worry about the connection speed as I've not seen any provider that limits the connection speed(s). Albeit - I would contend that with a large number of player slots, it can become a bottle neck! I have a system with 16GB of Ram - setup like above running windows 10. Since its only me and my wife that play on it its good enough. It is a Dedicated Server since that's the only thing it does. As for what I consider a professional server setup - that is not going to be covered since its way too complicated to cover for 'basic users.'

 

So... Minimize the bottlenecks you have on your system and maximize your enjoyment and FPS.

[SylenThunder]

For the pagefile, it's actually better to let Windows manage it. But you do want it to run on a different drive than your OS, and you want it to be on something fast like a SSD. Manually configuring a set size is not recommended. In fact, it's highly advised to avoid doing this. If you want to set it manually, follow this guide very carefully.

 

 

For Asus motherboards, I agree completely. They are also excellently built for overclocking. I even run three game servers off a Asus P9x79 with the CPU and RAM overclocked. (That system has 3 SSD's, and two platter drives.) My primary gaming system is an Asus Sabertooth X79 with two SSD's, and three platter drives. (two of the platters are in RAID 0 for speed.)

 

I have personally tested benchmarks and durability for Asus, MSI, Gigabyte, Acer, Sapphire, American Megatrends, ECS, LiteOn, Intel, PNY, and VIA. None of them performed as well, with as many options, or had the durability that Asus did. I would go with Gigabyte or Acer in a pinch, and MSI is a handy backup.

 

For RAM, you really want to enable the XMP profile if possible. This will allow it to run at the best performing speed for the chipset.