Hosting a server for me and 1 friend?

[DruggedBunny]

Whats a good and chrap alternative for a small server for me and my friend as we can play together?

[Orange Reaper]

I use an old PC (built in 2012) as follows:

OS: Ubuntu 22.04.2 LTS x86_64
CPU: Intel i7-3820 (8) @ 3.800GHz
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650
Memory: 15935MiB

It works great for my daughter and I. I don't know if this is OP or barely coping but the server uses about 25% CPU. Your internet speed may be a factor my speed is fairly slow by today's standards at 8MBPS up and 30MBPS down.

There are similar (refurbished) PCS on eBay for less than £200.

(I had to laugh at your typo ... did you mean 'cheap' or was the 'h' extra?)

Hope this helps.

[Uhzu]

Depends on which server provider you use. The cheap ones are crap.

[DruggedBunny]

Originally posted by Orange Reaper:

I use an old PC (built in 2012) as follows:

OS: Ubuntu 22.04.2 LTS x86_64
CPU: Intel i7-3820 (8) @ 3.800GHz
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650
Memory: 15935MiB

It works great for my daughter and I. I don't know if this is OP or barely coping but the server uses about 25% CPU. Your internet speed may be a factor my speed is fairly slow by today's standards at 8MBPS up and 30MBPS down.

There are similar (refurbished) PCS on eBay for less than £200.

(I had to laugh at your typo ... did you mean 'cheap' or was the 'h' extra?)

Hope this helps.

Did mean cheap, sorry about that.
Is it possible to host from the computer and have the ability to be far away from one another?
My own pc and internet is rather decent but the other player is sort of accross the continent

[Uhzu]

Originally posted by DruggedBunny:

Originally posted by Orange Reaper:

I use an old PC (built in 2012) as follows:

OS: Ubuntu 22.04.2 LTS x86_64
CPU: Intel i7-3820 (8) @ 3.800GHz
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650
Memory: 15935MiB

It works great for my daughter and I. I don't know if this is OP or barely coping but the server uses about 25% CPU. Your internet speed may be a factor my speed is fairly slow by today's standards at 8MBPS up and 30MBPS down.

There are similar (refurbished) PCS on eBay for less than £200.

(I had to laugh at your typo ... did you mean 'cheap' or was the 'h' extra?)

Hope this helps.

Did mean cheap, sorry about that.
Is it possible to host from the computer and have the ability to be far away from one another?
My own pc and internet is rather decent but the other player is sort of accross the continent

Yes you can host it yourself but your friend can’t run too far away from you. They have stay around you or it will pull them towards.

[Orange Reaper]

Originally posted by DruggedBunny:

Originally posted by Orange Reaper:

I use an old PC (built in 2012) as follows:

OS: Ubuntu 22.04.2 LTS x86_64
CPU: Intel i7-3820 (8) @ 3.800GHz
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650
Memory: 15935MiB

It works great for my daughter and I. I don't know if this is OP or barely coping but the server uses about 25% CPU. Your internet speed may be a factor my speed is fairly slow by today's standards at 8MBPS up and 30MBPS down.

There are similar (refurbished) PCS on eBay for less than £200.

(I had to laugh at your typo ... did you mean 'cheap' or was the 'h' extra?)

Hope this helps.

Did mean cheap, sorry about that.
Is it possible to host from the computer and have the ability to be far away from one another?
My own pc and internet is rather decent but the other player is sort of accross the continent

I'm not sure of the bandwidth needs. But yes. You need to know the IP address of the server (i use whatismyip.com). PS My CPU Use @ around 65% while I'm playing)

[Nick]

What kind of rates you looking for? A few friends and myself just rented a server to play on. We gotta few slots open also. Cheers

[🦊 Hermit]

If your computer is decent, you can run a dedicated server on the same machine as your client. I do that myself for my single player games, because dedicated servers are more stable than the single player game mode and less prone to bugs.

You can run the dedicated from the option in the game's UI, but from what I have heard that is buggy and not recommended. You could download the server tool from Steam and run it with a .bat file, which is what I do. Or you could look into Ark Server Manager (ASM), a third party tool which helps set up the server - I hear that's the easiest and most simple option, however I don't have experience with it myself so can't advise there.

This setup would cost nothing, but the downsides are you would have to leave your machine on constantly, or alternatively only have the server up when you are online and ready to play, and unavailable at other times.

Second option - as mentioned above, you could host it on another machine. This would allow the server to be up constantly without having to leave your own computer online, but if you don't already have a second machine to host it then there may be a bit of an overhead.

Or third option, you could pay a hosting company to host one for you. This would probably be the most expensive, but it would also ensure the server is there whenever you want, and you would have assistance from their support for setting it up and if any problems arose. Most companies offer a minimum deal for 10 players though, so if there will only be a couple of you on there this may be overkill.

[DruggedBunny]

Originally posted by 🦊 Hermit:

If your computer is decent, you can run a dedicated server on the same machine as your client. I do that myself for my single player games, because dedicated servers are more stable than the single player game mode and less prone to bugs.

You can run the dedicated from the option in the game's UI, but from what I have heard that is buggy and not recommended. You could download the server tool from Steam and run it with a .bat file, which is what I do. Or you could look into Ark Server Manager (ASM), a third party tool which helps set up the server - I hear that's the easiest and most simple option, however I don't have experience with it myself so can't advise there.

This setup would cost nothing, but the downsides are you would have to leave your machine on constantly, or alternatively only have the server up when you are online and ready to play, and unavailable at other times.

Second option - as mentioned above, you could host it on another machine. This would allow the server to be up constantly without having to leave your own computer online, but if you don't already have a second machine to host it then there may be a bit of an overhead.

Or third option, you could pay a hosting company to host one for you. This would probably be the most expensive, but it would also ensure the server is there whenever you want, and you would have assistance from their support for setting it up and if any problems arose. Most companies offer a minimum deal for 10 players though, so if there will only be a couple of you on there this may be overkill.

Gonna assume that .bat file workaround is somewhat similar to the minecraft one? Only need to have the server on when I'm playing as we're supposed to play together
Is there anyone who has an easy to follow video on how to set that up?

[🦊 Hermit]

I don't have a vid I'm afraid, but I can give you a step-by-step of what I did, if you like. Should warn you that I'm no computer expert so my methods may be inefficient, but they seem to work for me.

1) In your Steam library, look for the drop down menu top left, and select to show tools as well as games. In the list of tools, look for the Ark Survival Evolved Dedicated Server Tool and install it.

2) That should create a second file structure in your Steam directory, below your Ark one:

\Steam\steamapps\common\ARK Survival Evolved Dedicated Server

From there, follow through the folders - ShooterGame > Binaries > Win64. In there you should see a file named ShooterGameServer.exe

3) Make a .txt file in that folder called 'ServerStart', open it, and paste this basic command line:

start ShooterGameServer.exe TheIsland?listen?SessionName=<server_name>?ServerPassword=<join_password>?ServerAdminPassword=<admin_password>?Port=<port>?QueryPort=<query_port>?MaxPlayers=<max_players>

Edit the bits in brackets to whatever settings you want (remove the brackets while doing so). Then save the file and close it. Set your file browser to show file extensions, and change the extension of the ServerStart file from .txt to .bat.

4) Now double-click the .bat file. A command prompt window should appear loading up the server. Give it some time, and eventually it will say 'server successfully started'. As it starts up like that, it will auto-generate any extra files it needs such as configuration directories etc.

So once it's done that, you can close the server down, go into the configs and make whatever changes you wish in order to make the game play as you like. Also, you can edit the .bat file to add in any extra command line settings you may wish to use. All the configs can be found on the official wiki:

https://ark.wiki.gg/wiki/Server_configuration

5) If you want to use mods on the server, you will have to install them to your client, and then copy those mod files across into the server mod folder too. You can also set up a whitelist to only allow specific players to join if you wish, so you won't have to input a password every time you try to log in.

Hope that helps.