Reguarding Game Servers

McKantis_Mayhem

New member
I'm looking into building private server for online games, (primarily Minecraft atm) but I'm not sure what kind of tech I'd need.

I know a stronger CPU will definitely be needed, but will a GPU take some of the work load off the hands of the CPU, or do they only render locally?
 
Since it will be a server, you'll need something like a FX-8320E and at least 16GB of RAM, also some reliable hard drives. Now as far Minecraft goes I think that's not heavily GPU dependant so something like a 250x would be just fine.

Also what OS do you plan on basing the server?
 
TBH I've seen people online make minecraft servers from AMD Kabini 5350 CPUs, if you mod your minecraft server you will likely need more though. Perhaps a pentium K, as minecraft is barely multi-threaded.

I don't know about other games though.
 
Minecraft server doesn't need GPU, on linux it runs through command line, on windows, its a little window that you setup the server settings and run it from.

As for what will run it, it will run on almost any hardware as it only needs a beefier cpu once you get more than 8 people on it. (have setup one before for my kids and their friends to use)
 
Minecraft server doesn't need GPU, on linux it runs through command line, on windows, its a little window that you setup the server settings and run it from.

As for what will run it, it will run on almost any hardware as it only needs a beefier cpu once you get more than 8 people on it. (have setup one before for my kids and their friends to use)

Do you mind posting the specs of the minecraft server you made? Does it use mods? How many players can it have on it at once?
 
Unless its changed from when I used to do it, you need something with alright physical cores for a minecraft/general gaming server. Unless they've changed it since I last looked at it, the server only runs on one core. My 60 person minecraft server was really heavily modded and was running on a core 2 duo something or other. It used about 3gb of ram ( I think...) and needed about 30gb of storage due to me never gettting rid of backups. If you were going to make a pc for general game server-ing I'd go for something like an i5 4460s with 8gb of ram (as I guess your internet isn't OP enough to host 60 or so people connecting to it :P, no offence) a couple of Cheap Kingston ssds and a fanless psu in a itx/matx case.

My old LAN gaming server-thing had an i3 550 with 16gb of cheap corsair ram and a 500gb hdd. It also had a gts 450, but that was never used.
 
Do you mind posting the specs of the minecraft server you made? Does it use mods? How many players can it have on it at once?

I was using Craft Bukit server on mine which was heavily modded, I was running it on a 4GB dual core, but only loaded up it up with 1GB memory (running on linux server on AMD 64 x2 5400) it was used by approx 25 people and started to slow and go jumpy, so restarted it with 2GB and it ran ok then (this was before I swapped it out onto my proper server - Dual Xeon with 24GB mem), once I swapped it out onto my proper server I ran it with 4GB of mem, and never had any issues with it.
 
I was using Craft Bukit server on mine which was heavily modded, I was running it on a 4GB dual core, but only loaded up it up with 1GB memory (running on linux server on AMD 64 x2 5400) it was used by approx 25 people and started to slow and go jumpy, so restarted it with 2GB and it ran ok then (this was before I swapped it out onto my proper server - Dual Xeon with 24GB mem), once I swapped it out onto my proper server I ran it with 4GB of mem, and never had any issues with it.

so when it comes to a minecraft server would you say a AMD Kabini 5350 could run a modded minecraft server with an SSD and a decent amount of ram.
 
That should work well with it, its more the ram than anything the server app needs, the CPU doesnt seem to make that much difference. I have seen the Bukit server running on an dual core atom but it still needs 2GB of RAM to run smooth as a minimum, though I would look at 4GB as minimum.
 
Pretty sure minecraft servers are only single threaded but unless you set out to break it (aka TNT the place up) It'll be fine I'd imagine, especially for vanilla MC.
 
So now that I feel like a noob. Why do you guys recommend so low in performance hardware for a game server? Is it because it's just minecraft or does this logic should be followed for any other game too?
 
So now that I feel like a noob. Why do you guys recommend so low in performance hardware for a game server? Is it because it's just minecraft or does this logic should be followed for any other game too?

I ran a MC server for a lan-party with several mods (i.e. tekkit) with a pentium K totally fine with no hickups whatsoever, but then we tried BF3 and with only 10 players it was already at 90-100% cpu load on both cores
 
That should work well with it, its more the ram than anything the server app needs, the CPU doesnt seem to make that much difference. I have seen the Bukit server running on an dual core atom but it still needs 2GB of RAM to run smooth as a minimum, though I would look at 4GB as minimum.

Pretty sure minecraft servers are only single threaded but unless you set out to break it (aka TNT the place up) It'll be fine I'd imagine, especially for vanilla MC.

Cool, I was considering making a modded minecraft server and open it up to the people on the forums as well as my friends. Just an idea at the minute though.

what do you guys think?
 
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So now that I feel like a noob. Why do you guys recommend so low in performance hardware for a game server? Is it because it's just minecraft or does this logic should be followed for any other game too?

Its really just for minecraft and any other game servers that are only single or dual threaded. Don't feel like a noob ;)
 
So now that I feel like a noob. Why do you guys recommend so low in performance hardware for a game server? Is it because it's just minecraft or does this logic should be followed for any other game too?
Most game servers don't need to be very powerful at all. There are a few exceptions (namely Arma, Battlefield)but generally you only really ever at most need a low-ish end i5. To put it into context, I have a 32 person Red Orchestra 2 server. RO2 is a simulation-ish FPS based on the Unreal Engine. When the game was free for a weekend on steam it was full almost 90% of the time as it is one of the only UK based servers that has decent ping. The maximum memory usage was 800mb. The cpu itself is pretty much just a single thread virtual machine running on an older, low end xeon. Unreal engine games are very unintensive server side and only seem to be able to use single physical cores.

On the other hand, I used to run a DayZ server that was a rented dedicated deal. Arma's engine is notoriously poorly optimized and its the same story server side. a 32 person Dayz server, with about 100 (I guess) AI which are spawned server side then mostly controlled client side with those giving several 100 updates per second or so and all the other arma "goodness" ran on a single thread despite having acces to the full 'power' of a core 2 quad. It was at roughly 98% load when the server was full.

TLDR: servers are either amazingly intensive or poorly done and a pain to run. Often, memory+storage is more important than cpu
But bandwidth> all.
 
My son just showed me something he been playing about with trying for minecraft server, http://triangle.gs they do minecraft (vanilla, bukit custom and another spigot) and has mysql, ftp and control panel for it, it might be worth a look before you go down the route of setting up your own.

At moment it has a free service to try it out on (needs a code fed into it every 36hrs though unless subscribed)
 
Minecraft servers are really cheap performance wise. With the FX6300 in my sig and 8GB ram I was able to run a 16 person server, fully populated and still play any game I wanted on my rig at the same time. Used something like ~20% cpu and ~2gb ram. If I was building a dedicated server I would literally just scavenge around my house for an old i3 or even a core 2 duo and 2/4gb ram... good to go.
 
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