Server Hardware Question

[Benjamin.G]

Planning on building a server by mashing old hardware together and was wondering whether anybody knew if an intel i5 4670 (around AMD Ryzen 1500x or Intel i5 6500 performance)  paired with around 8GB of ram running Linux would cut it. Server details would include 3-4 players, 16 zombie bloodmoon count (PER PLAYER) and default 12 view distance. The only thing I am really concerned about would be the 7 day horde with up to 64 zombies when 4 players are on, no too sure if that CPU would cut it. FYI I would be planning on using this for other purposes other than 7DTD (unlikely at the same time), but it is the primary reason I wouldn't want to pay monthly to hire a single use server. Thanks in advanced for any advice.

[Ti2xGr]

The proc will be fine. I run 16 people on my server with a similar proc (hosted in Windows). The memory...might be a bit shy. Otherwise, if you can throw an SSD drive at it, it wouldn't hurt.  We have a 64 zombie max count, but also crank up wasteland and burnt biome zombie counts, as well as larger wandering hordes, etc. and still don't have a problem. Recently, I've started rebooting the server daily. That helps the performance also.

[Benjamin.G]

Cheers, yeah tested earlier today on my work laptop to gauge CPU usage and whatnot. It has a little Intel i3 10110U and only 4GB of ram lol with an SSD, but surprisingly handled me messing around with up to 100 zombies (didn't bother testing the limit) while still maintaining around 30FPS on the server. Quite surprised it handled it so well considering the lack of RAM, but the SSD almost definitely came in clutch with the pagefile, but the CPU seemed more than capable. Have not tested with multiple players, but I imagine that would add more stress to things like the RAM so 4GB is certainly too little. For anyone interested, use https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/ if you want a reference to the performance of the CPU I used.

[Sarakatunga]

On 9/14/2020 at 2:18 AM, Ti2xGr said:

The proc will be fine. I run 16 people on my server with a similar proc (hosted in Windows). The memory...might be a bit shy. Otherwise, if you can throw an SSD drive at it, it wouldn't hurt.  We have a 64 zombie max count, but also crank up wasteland and burnt biome zombie counts, as well as larger wandering hordes, etc. and still don't have a problem. Recently, I've started rebooting the server daily. That helps the performance also.

I have a similar server with an old pc, I also constantly restart that helps a lot, I put it every 4 hours an auto-restart. In this version of alpha19 the players when they enter they leave continuously in a long period of time the server is overloaded which in alpha 18 did not happen to me. But hey, auto-restart solves it. Did you notice when a player leaves the game there is a mini lag?

[Liesel Weppen]

On 9/14/2020 at 4:35 AM, Benjamin.G said:

and was wondering whether anybody knew if an intel i5 4670 (around AMD Ryzen 1500x or Intel i5 6500 performance)  paired with around 8GB of ram running Linux would cut it. Server details would include 3-4 players, 16 zombie bloodmoon count (PER PLAYER) and default 12 view distance.

I'm running on a Xeon E3-1225v3 which afaik is the exact xeon variant of your i5 . Runs fine with 4 players even from a virtualized Windows inside a KVM Host.

But 8GB (total) may become a problem if you plan to play on a 8K map (or even higher). The dedicated iirc required ~6GB with an 8K map just for himself.

[Ti2xGr]

On 11/4/2020 at 6:53 AM, Sarakatunga said:

I have a similar server with an old pc, I also constantly restart that helps a lot, I put it every 4 hours an auto-restart. In this version of alpha19 the players when they enter they leave continuously in a long period of time the server is overloaded which in alpha 18 did not happen to me. But hey, auto-restart solves it. Did you notice when a player leaves the game there is a mini lag?

I have not seen a mini-lag. I'll keep an eye out for it. A 4 hour auto-restart seems a bit extreme. Have you tried longer restart intervals? I find daily to be plenty enough and have gone several days on occasion since the last stable A19 (b4).

[Benjamin.G]

Yeah ended up testing the system a while ago and it seemed to handle at least 75 zombies pretty fine with 1 player. Haven't tested with more as my friends and I are currently focused on other games atm and exams rip. I can't imagine having any server lag issues, but I am almost certain the CPU will not be what bottlenecks the system if it does due to the slow HDD. Cheers for the responses.

[Liesel Weppen]

2 hours ago, Benjamin.G said:

but I am almost certain the CPU will not be what bottlenecks the system if it does due to the slow HDD.

What do you some guys here always have issues with an HDD??? Have you ever rellay checked if the HDD IS an issue, or are you just assuming that the HDD must be the issue, because today nobody wants to use HDDs anymore anyway?

 

I'm running the server from an HDD, and yes, it takes longer to start, but it runs fine. I can't compare map generation, because it's @%$#ing slow anyway, probably an HDD makes also map generation a litte slower (use nitrogen anyway). The server holds the whole map in memory anyway, otherwise please explain me, why the memory usage of the server depends on the map size and scales 1:1 with the map's size.

So besids to persist map changes and minor settings, it doesn't need to access the hdd and it for sure does not need massive high bandwiths.

 

Only issue with an HDD i can imagine, is power saving mechanism. As i said, the server doesn't need access to the disk permanently. Not tested, but maybe it does only save every 10 minutes, but you have configured your HDD to power off after 5mins (or similar). If the server want's to save while the hdd is in sleep and need to wake up first, i can really imagine that causes a stutter.