Dedicated servers have better performance than in game server

[URMarty]

If you are playing with few of your friends and have enough memory and a beefy cpu , it's better to host AND play on the same machine.

Tested with R9 5900x, it's a lot smoother for the host and clients and we never get stutters, also the server will no longer stutter for clients if host get a lag spike in game.

Worth the trouble.

[Shurenai]

Not terribly surprised. With a dedicated server and the game separate, the two processes are likely going to be assigned to different CPU cores so it breaks up the load into two smaller chunks.

Hosting straight up from the client though puts all the eggs in one basket as it were.

[MoistGamer]

Originally posted by Shurenai:

Not terribly surprised. With a dedicated server and the game separate, the two processes are likely going to be assigned to different CPU cores so it breaks up the load into two smaller chunks.

Hosting straight up from the client though puts all the eggs in one basket as it were.

The base game as it sits doesnt support multicore? A lot of games don't so I'm not unpleasantly surprised or anything, I guess I just never knew. I guess it'd be obvious but I'm not one of those people who sits with their DXDIAG or task manager open all the time to nerd out

[FT]

Originally posted by MoistGamer:

The base game as it sits doesnt support multicore? A lot of games don't so I'm not unpleasantly surprised or anything, I guess I just never knew.

It does use several cores, but some things apparently HAVE to run on the "main" thread. The game also seems to care a lot about latency+cache (single CCX CPUs with a lot of cache perform noticeably better for some parts).
I'm guessing there might be things the devs haven't or can't take off the "main" thread right now that still get separated from Dedi and client.?

I've noticed the same thing as OP though, it seems to give a 5-15fps boost to low-fps (non-gpu-bound) situations.

There IS another thing that helps dedicated though, the server ViewDistance can by locked down and I think the default is lower than average, and ViewDistance is one of the few settings that helps improve the game's low-FPS situations by a noticeable amount.
Similarly, the in-world max zombie count can easily be set lower and I'm not sure if the default is similar or lower.
But I think I've seen dedi improve performance 5-15fps even without these benefits.

[URMarty]

After some more testing i'm almost FULL stutter free in big hospital, still need to try twin toweres, small POIs is stutter free on my cpu

(Besides opening chests ) Can still stutter sometimes, also i run the game from my m2

[Basho]

performance aside, it is also worth mentioning another benefit of running a dedicated server in any game:
the host can drop out at will without taking down the server in the process.
that way the host can go AFK without starving in-game and so on.

[_I_]

downside of dedicated, no pause

[URMarty]

Originally posted by Basho:

performance aside, it is also worth mentioning another benefit of running a dedicated server in any game:
the host can drop out at will without taking down the server in the process.
that way the host can go AFK without starving in-game and so on.

Yep, but you need at least 32gb memory and a beefy cpu to run it well on the same machine as you play on.

[FT]

Originally posted by URMarty:

Yep, but you need at least 32gb memory and a beefy cpu to run it well on the same machine as you play on.

I had dedi+client running well at the same time on an old Ryzen 1600 (usually with Hyperthreading/SMT OFF and sometimes with only 4cores) and 16gb RAM. This is how I first noticed the significant performance increase for myself.

The dedicated server only uses around 1.5-2gb extra RAM and runs fine on 2-3 mediocre threads with a handful of players....a little less than that if you're the only player using it for a performance boost.

Loosely related, I've recently run a dedicated server on a 3000-series laptop Celeron locked down at 3watts/700mhz and 4gb RAM for Win10+Steam+dedi. All the players who spoke up said performance was fine/responsive though that was only with 5-6players on at once....though it was through a hordenight as well.

[URMarty]

Originally posted by FT:

Originally posted by URMarty:

Yep, but you need at least 32gb memory and a beefy cpu to run it well on the same machine as you play on.

I had dedi+client running well at the same time on an old Ryzen 1600 (usually with Hyperthreading/SMT OFF and sometimes with only 4cores) and 16gb RAM. This is how I first noticed the significant performance increase for myself.

The dedicated server only uses around 1.5-2gb extra RAM and runs fine on 2-3 mediocre threads with a handful of players....a little less than that if you're the only player using it for a performance boost.

Loosely related, I've recently run a dedicated server on a 3000-series laptop Celeron locked down at 3watts/700mhz and 4gb RAM for Win10+Steam+dedi. All the players who spoke up said performance was fine/responsive though that was only with 5-6players on at once....though it was through a hordenight as well.

It uses 5 gb +/- for me for 2 players.

My third rig is on R1600, it literally gets CPU bottlenecked in big cities client only without server, what update were you playing on ?
I mean it makes sence because i get 25-30 % usage for server and game on my R9 5900x

[FT]

Originally posted by URMarty:

It uses 5 gb +/- for me for 2 players.

My third rig is on R1600, it literally gets CPU bottlenecked in big cities client only without server, what update were you playing on ?
I mean it makes sence because i get 25-30 % usage for server and game on my R9 5900x

It's all been on A20 for me (I think this has been the first alpha where I've even tried dedi) though only the Celeron/4gbRAM has been on the most recent/b9 version of A20. My experience running dedi+client on a Ryzen1600/16gbRAM was several months ago on an earlier build of A20.


I'm assuming that when your R1600 got CPU bottlenecked, client-only in the city that it wasn't using 100% of the CPU (aka, it's hitting the main thread hard enough to bottleneck there instead of bottlenecking by running out of total-threads)...which means there are still some unfilled threads that can handle the dedicated server.
This was what happened to me, anyway. I'm pretty sure I never saw all 12threads hit 100% usage in 7Days client-only or dedi+client.

When you see 5gb RAM-usage, is that the dedi or is it Windows+Steam+Dedi+whatever background stuff, etc. altogether?

[URMarty]

Originally posted by FT:

Originally posted by URMarty:

It uses 5 gb +/- for me for 2 players.

My third rig is on R1600, it literally gets CPU bottlenecked in big cities client only without server, what update were you playing on ?
I mean it makes sence because i get 25-30 % usage for server and game on my R9 5900x

It's all been on A20 for me (I think this has been the first alpha where I've even tried dedi) though only the Celeron/4gbRAM has been on the most recent/b9 version of A20. My experience running dedi+client on a Ryzen1600/16gbRAM was several months ago on an earlier build of A20.


I'm assuming that when your R1600 got CPU bottlenecked, client-only in the city that it wasn't using 100% of the CPU (aka, it's hitting the main thread hard enough to bottleneck there instead of bottlenecking by running out of total-threads)...which means there are still some unfilled threads that can handle the dedicated server.
This was what happened to me, anyway. I'm pretty sure I never saw all 12threads hit 100% usage in 7Days client-only or dedi+client.

When you see 5gb RAM-usage, is that the dedi or is it Windows+Steam+Dedi+whatever background stuff, etc. altogether?

No i mean 5gb ram usage dedi server only, i've hosted dedicated servers for many games on my PC so i have some idea on how to check stuff like this.

R1600 was getting CPU bottlenecked not only on one core, that it used to do almost always besides in my base or places without POI's, it's just a not strong enough CPU to play this game on tbh.

I tested with I7 3770 too and it didn't even bottleneck ( at least it didn't show because cache is a joke on that CPU.
Also what i noticed that helps is running both dedicated and client on a m2 with a good controller, like samsung 980 Pro.

There is still the rare long ass stutter when opening a container or a stash but i guess that's just some ♥♥♥♥♥♥ optimisation problem on the games side since i had that on all my machines.

Check:
https://i.imgur.com/7Q1A5EP.png