Server requirements for a large server

[CapitalTwo]

I am curious as to how much hardware horsepower is required for 2 servers (i like the idea of internal map transfer) and a total of 50+ players. I have gigabit internet so internet bandwidth will not be an issue, I would just like to know how much 2 ark servers with 50-75 people combined will need.

[retsam1]

The chance that you would have 50+ players on a server is pretty small. Google Ark Server list and see how many 50+ playing on a single server you see concurrently(that arent in a region that has very limited options for servers due to language or otherwise.).

Besides, a 50+ player server would be an unsustainable nightmare of server lag, urban sprawl of bases and people complaining about lack of resources and dinos. That's the flaw of Ark: the more on a sserver, the less viable/sustainable it becomes in terms of resources.

That said, research what server hosting sites are using and you can see how to consider things accordingly.

[CapitalTwo]

Originally posted by retsam1:

The chance that you would have 50+ players on a server is pretty small. Google Ark Server list and see how many 50+ playing on a single server you see concurrently(that arent in a region that has very limited options for servers due to language or otherwise.).

Besides, a 50+ player server would be an unsustainable nightmare of server lag, urban sprawl of bases and people complaining about lack of resources and dinos. That's the flaw of Ark: the more on a sserver, the less viable/sustainable it becomes in terms of resources.

That said, research what server hosting sites are using and you can see how to consider things accordingly.

I did not ask about your opinion on my potential server, I just asked what would the hardware required be. Now I assume server lag is due to something on the host side that isn't optimized hardware wise, most likely not enough cpu power, but could be storage too.

As for checking out hosting sites and seeing what they use, why would I replicate their setup if it gives such bad lag?

[=Sarsante=]

What an attitude bro

[[☥] - CJ -]

The better the hardware the better the outcome

You dont want to run a server with an old core 2 duo or a core 2 quad for example.

an i7 or a Xeon at the least, though an i5 or similar should be doable.
with 16GB RAM at the least (depends on how much RAM the server is able to use though)

SSD's in my opinion have no impact on how the server performs, only for doing updates and the like, so a Performance 7200RPM HDD or SSHD should do the trick.


And seeing what server hosts use is to give you an IDEA of what should be used, thats why.
Hosts can have good hardware and still run into issues if the load becomes an issue or theres a problem with the ARK server itself.

[gichuck9]

Im hosting couple instances on an old DL360 G5 with 2 Xeon E5345s and 24GB ram. Takes about 6GB to start instance (3-4GB running it as a service). Two maps with 10 clients avg 3% cpu 5% max (dino wipe 10%). Uses 12-18Kbps bandwidth per client . I can manage 4 host with about 25 clients (w/ tuned gather rates). I think your typical ISP isnt tuned for small band packets w high quantity of addresses as opposed to streaming a movie or big file downloads. My latency is 32-65ms for clients in SE USA.

[76561198369005507]

Originally posted by ☥ - CJ -:

SSD's in my opinion have no impact on how the server performs, only for doing updates and the like, so a Performance 7200RPM HDD or SSHD should do the trick.

This is absolutely false. One of the biggest causes of server lag is the write out to disk at the save interval. SSD becomes a necesity at the concurrent player base suggested by the OP. Every tame, every building, every platform is going to bloat up the base world save file. WC isn't kidding about the massive amount of data regarding legacy server save files.



If your intention is to host 50+ concurrent multiple Ark cluster, then you're going to want to budget a minimum 8gb RAM per Ark - the more the better to grow. 4GB for the base server footprint and then 200-300 MB RAM per player per Ark. More memory required to run MODs, but added memory typically goes into the base footprint and not per player.

[gruffmeister]

I run a server of 8 people on an old AMD 6400+ dual core, 6 GB Ram and a 2.0 MB/s upload connection. For more people you mostly need to scale the processor and upload bandwidth. Server usually needs more "now" horsepower to run more people so Ram doesn't scale as much as you might think. 50 people should run on a 8 core i7 with 16 gigs no problem (assuming upload bandwidth is ~ 5.0 MB/s)

[CapitalTwo]

Originally posted by Field Marshal Montgomery:

Originally posted by ☥ - CJ -:

SSD's in my opinion have no impact on how the server performs, only for doing updates and the like, so a Performance 7200RPM HDD or SSHD should do the trick.

This is absolutely false. One of the biggest causes of server lag is the write out to disk at the save interval. SSD becomes a necesity at the concurrent player base suggested by the OP. Every tame, every building, every platform is going to bloat up the base world save file. WC isn't kidding about the massive amount of data regarding legacy server save files.



If your intention is to host 50+ concurrent multiple Ark cluster, then you're going to want to budget a minimum 8gb RAM per Ark - the more the better to grow. 4GB for the base server footprint and then 200-300 MB RAM per player per Ark. More memory required to run MODs, but added memory typically goes into the base footprint and not per player.

Originally posted by gichuck9:

Im hosting couple instances on an old DL360 G5 with 2 Xeon E5345s and 24GB ram. Takes about 6GB to start instance (3-4GB running it as a service). Two maps with 10 clients avg 3% cpu 5% max (dino wipe 10%). Uses 12-18Kbps bandwidth per client . I can manage 4 host with about 25 clients (w/ tuned gather rates). I think your typical ISP isnt tuned for small band packets w high quantity of addresses as opposed to streaming a movie or big file downloads. My latency is 32-65ms for clients in SE USA.

Thank you guys for ansering my question. So cpu doesn't need to be over the top, just have fat ram and some nice ssd's (probably something mlc based for extra write endurance). If memory speeds are that much of an issue, I wonder if like 128gb of ram and using a ramdisk to load the server client from would be a good idea, and just save the ramdisk to an ssd every few hours or so.

Either way I have 16gb of ram in my server, im gonna need to at least double that lol.

[LLapafigues]

I have a dedicated i7 7700k overclocked to 4700mhz + 32gb ram 3200mhz + 250ssd
No virtualized, Win10 + ark server manager + two servers, 4 cores assigned for each server.
And when a server have 50+- people playing, you can experiment some lags.
The problem it's not the CPU, or the ssd, or the gigabit conection, it's the bad optimization for this game.

[CapitalTwo]

Originally posted by Doc:

I have a dedicated i7 7700k overclocked to 4700mhz + 32gb ram 3200mhz + 250ssd
No virtualized, Win10 + ark server manager + two servers, 4 cores assigned for each server.
And when a server have 50+- people playing, you can experiment some lags.
The problem it's not the CPU, or the ssd, or the gigabit conection, it's the bad optimization for this game.

Not suprised to hear something ark related is unoptomized. Also not to sound like an ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, but its 4 threads, not cores. Still that is probably the best config you can get.

[gichuck9]

Not sure I'd overclock a machine doing server duty, or how a pc would fair hosting for long haul. Thing runs 24x7. Wonder how one assigns cores/threads to server instance (without virtualization anyway). Think Ramdisk wouldnt be neccesary. I do get a 3 sec lag when world saves. Running 4 hdd in raid 5. Launch takes 5 minutes.

[Al Bundy]

I run 4 servers using Ark Server Manager. It's using my old media pc, a old first gen (6 1/2 year old) i7 quad core running at 3200mhz. 24 gig of ram. The servers runs on a WD 1TB 7200rpm Gold Drive. Very few issues and less lag then I was getting on official. I never have more than 10 ppl or so on each server though.

[Nighty (SAGA)]

I myself run an old Ryzen7 1700 64GB ram and 2 m.2 drives... Four maps no problem population jumps between 10 and 27 at a time.

My only issue that I experience is that the servers go into an initialization state or stops. Not crashing as crashing I understand.

It's a bit of work but if someone can add a solution to my problem, I would be very happy.

Thanks
SAGA
Nighty