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What are the minimum specs needed for a dedicated server?


Utlagi

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31 minutes ago, Utlagi said:

I would like to host my own server for about 6 players. 

What would I need. 

Please don't suggest hosting services. That is out of the question. 

I am going to ask a silly question anyway, why is a hosting service not an option?

Also, beside CPU/Memory/Disk, you will need bandwidth, unless you are planning to host it locally.

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I would expect 5Mbps upload speed to be able to manage about 8-10 players without issue (assuming you are not using the bandwidth for other things at the same time). More than that and people are likely to start experiencing lag and disconnects. Also, Ark is not very resilient to packet loss (will cause disconnects), so make sure you have a good connection quality. (To test, you can run a long-running ping to some public site and see if it gets any timeouts, or use a service like pingtest.com in a Java-enabled browser.)

As far as computer specs, I recommend the following:

  • A stable OS that doesn't need a lot of maintenance or rebooting and doesn't run a lot of background stuff (which often interferes with CPU availability). I would either run Windows Server or a Linux distro. This is not a requirement, but running it on an end-user version of Windows is generally not going to be a great experience for you as the operator. I am running Windows Server 2012 R2 which I can leaving running for 6 months to a year without a reboot and have no problems. I can't run my Windows 10 Pro machine for more than a week or two before it is having issues, and the whole time it is constantly nagging me about things like updates.
  • The computer must have at minimum 2 (virtual) CPU cores available to the server, although there have been some issues with machines that only have 2 cores in total. CPU single-thread performance is the most important hardware decision when building a server for Ark. In Ark, the more spread out around the map people are, the more active NPCs there will be, and more active NPCs means more CPU power is needed to keep the server FPS stable. Also, player built structures (especially when people are actively placing them) contribute a lot to CPU demand. Most of this happens on a single thread, so the server will exhaust one core of the CPU while only using the others very little. There is no clear minimum requirement here, as it really depends on what is going on on your server. For your stated use case of 6 players, you should be fine with any decent mid to high range quad-core CPU, so long as it has good single-thread performance.
  • The server should have at least 6GB of RAM available to it (probably at least 8 total in the system). This again depends on how spread out people are and how many NPCs and structures are around them. If there are 10 people all in different parts of the map, RAM usage might spike above 6GB. I would recommend 16GB RAM or more in the system just to not have to worry about it, but you should be fine with 8GB if the system itself is very lean. Some people have run servers with only 4GB (the absolute minimum), but it is not a great experience for the players.
  • Make sure the server machine is plugged into a UPS (uninterruptible power supply). Power loss will cause your server to lose everything since the last save, and sometimes even corrupt the save so it is unusable. For better uptime, you can also plug your network equipment into a UPS to keep the connection alive during a short power outage.
  • Edit: As other people mentioned, run the server from an SSD. It did not occur to me to mention this originally because I never tried to run from a mechanical HDD, but definitely use an SSD.

Also, don't play the game from the same computer that is hosting the server. You can if you have enough CPU power and RAM, but there are things like the game starting up that will basically freeze up your PC for several seconds at a time. That is not a great experience for people playing on the server when it stops responding for several seconds. Also, running the game is likely to cause you to have to restart the machine more often, meaning more server uptime interruptions.

As a side note, if you have enough RAM and available CPU cores (1 per server plus at least 1 extra), you can run multiple servers from one machine without issue. I run a three server cluster on a machine with an AMD FX-5950 (4/8 core) and 32GB RAM. I can only support about 40 players max across all of them though due to my connection upload speed (25Mbps).

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Id wait till their optimization patch at the end of this month before you get a server. The requirements could be less then they are now, at least in theory.

Right now ark uses a version of ue4 as its game engine. You will get better performance on a computer with a higher clock speed on single cores.

You can see the right hand reply in this post about what they use on officials. 3rd reply post down.
http://steamcommunity.com/app/346110/discussions/0/133258092238706042/

Basically what they are saying is faster "single" core speed on ark runs servers better, the ones they use for dedicated servers he mentions in that post are 3.8ghz+

Now for a server for yourself and maybe 1-2 others I'd recommend checking the specs the online providers offer for the lower value offers.

This is what i think you could get away with and still have a smooth server. But do your own research. And don't play the game and host too!, this isn't good enough for that

3.4ghz quad core (for 10 or less people)
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16gb ram
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Windows 7 or 10 or a windows server os (The linux software they have, along with the different mod managers make running on linux servers a small pain for the light/unexperienced users)
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SSD drive of 250-500gb. I'm not joking on this, it could take a half hour+ to load dozens of mods on a normal drive and alot of mods/maps can add up to hundreds of gb worth of data on a single server.
-
A internet connection of at least 7mb for two people.

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On 5/9/2017 at 7:57 AM, Utlagi said:

i dont want the added cost of a hosting service. I want to host it at home. 

My service is 100/5 which is fast enough for a few people to play. Most times it will only be 1 or two on at a time because of work hours. 

 

Just checking.

If you have a machine with enough power, as @Crystal, explained, I could see not wanting the extra cost.  Though, if you are going to run your machine more than you are now, you will be paying a higher electric bill.

On the flip side, if all 6 people chipped in, you could rent a server for 1 year, for $12.57US each, if you paid up front.  The advantage there would be major patches are automatically updated, and minor patches also, depending on the content and timing; the downside is that you do have to wait on the hosting company to push you the patch.

Plus, anyone that has admin rights could restart the server if there is an issue, or if you use mods and they are updated; some of the host providers have pretty good web interfaces.

Just to be clear, I am not trying to convince you either way, but I did want to point out some of the the possible ups and downs for each solution.

 

In addition to what Cyrstal posted, you will want to run from an SSD.   When I moved Ark from a standard HHD to an SSD, it made a big difference.  If you do a lot of taming and building on your map, your saves will creep up in size to 50MB, 60MB, 70MB, or more.  It may not seem like a lot, but it will get to a point where you will see a small lag spike on world saves, even on SSD.  On our servers, we only save every 30 minutes, so that you only get a spike twice an hour; even though the lag is only for a couple of seconds (but at the wrong time, those couple of seconds could be a disaster).

 

Anyway, good luck with the server; the can be a challenge at times, but also very rewarding, especially since you have control of the system.

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ok now we're getting somewhere

 

they mentioned the 4770k which is what I have in my main rig and would likely go with the same.

I never put anything less than 16 gig ram in anything

and I was already thinking of ubuntu on an ssd

as for the players there would only be 2 at most times because of our work schedules. at rare times we would all be on but likely in the same place

 

we should have enough hardware collectively to build this. (we are all upgrade junkies and have boxes upon boxes of old parts)

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You'd probably want more details, but for reference, I have tried playing on my 4790k (16gb at the time) hosting my own dedicated with 4 others on.

Then it ran really really smooth, but got to keep in mind that it's not like we had tamed 200 dinos each and build giant bases yet, so later on it might be a different deal.
I was one of the 4 playing on it at the time.
Would have ended quick if I started running into memory issues as well I guess, but was very smooth while we tested it out.

Have been pondering on buying a dedicated server as well, just need the fiber connection to arrive and the spare cash to be spare :P
Not that I've had any issues with the once we've been renting from and just for ARK, but sounds like a decent hobby project tbh.

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I have a "server" in the loft at home with the following spec, all a bit old now but does the job lovely.

Windows server 2008 R2

Asus P6T6 WS Revolution motherboard

i7 965 processor

16GB RAM

Dual WD Black hdd for the operating system and 16 drive RAID 6 (all WD blacks again) for things to run off.

Currently I run "up to" four Ark servers on this set up, although very rarely at the same time (it pretty much maxes out the RAM when I do as the server also runs a media server and a couple of small VMs). They are however not used by anyone external, my wife and I and my two kids use them on our internal network. We have two servers running The Center, one running The Island and one running Scorched Earth, usually we have one of the center maps and the island map servers running at all times.

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I was able to start ark server on AMD Dual-Core E-450 (1.65 GHz) 4 GB RAM. Wasn't tested too much, but it works. So if you have anything with 4 GB RAM - you can try to start. On desktop I have 16 GB RAM - server and client use less than 12 GB. So 8 GB recommended (6 should be enough for single server). i5 recommended, but I think i3 or pentium with 2.5+ GHz will be usable as well.

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On 9.5.2017 at 0:52 PM, Utlagi said:

I would like to host my own server for about 6 players. 

What would I need. 

Please don't suggest hosting services. That is out of the question. 

Depends on what your serversettings are and if your using mods.

For vanilla ARK without mods and only max 6 players... an i5 XXXX with about 6GB Ram is enough. (If you do not build very very crazy big things or tame many dinos)

For the bandwith: ARK has a limitation of 60KB/s per player.  So for 6 players this is 360KB/s max.  

Your internet line (Upload 5Mbit) can deliver 625KB/s, so it should be absolutely enough for your requirements.

 

 

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On 5/11/2017 at 9:13 AM, Utlagi said:

ok now we're getting somewhere

 

they mentioned the 4770k which is what I have in my main rig and would likely go with the same.

I never put anything less than 16 gig ram in anything

and I was already thinking of ubuntu on an ssd

as for the players there would only be 2 at most times because of our work schedules. at rare times we would all be on but likely in the same place

 

we should have enough hardware collectively to build this. (we are all upgrade junkies and have boxes upon boxes of old parts)

I ran a server for 8 months last year, ubuntu os, 256gb ssd, 16gb ram, i3-6100 cpu.  Would start to get laggy at about 30 online players but less than that and you wouldn't notice and up to 40 was still very playable.  NEver had much more than 40 on at a time, mostly was like 20ish online as an average.  Ran about 25 mods on it.  Set it up and managed it with https://github.com/FezVrasta/ark-server-tools so backups, updates for server adn mods are all automatic via some simple cron scripts.  

Pulled the plug at end of December for a new years reset/wipe/reboot and then started to make a mod for the server and haven't re-launched yet. my bad.  Will finish mod soon I hope 

But it handled the ark server fine while also doing email and a small web server for the site.   Had 10mbs upload speed on fibre then, not sure wha tarks bandwidth requrements are to be honest.

 

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On 5/11/2017 at 3:53 AM, Jerryn said:

 On our servers, we only save every 30 minutes, so that you only get a spike twice an hour; even though the lag is only for a couple of seconds (but at the wrong time, those couple of seconds could be a disaster).

 

 

Have you or anyone else experimented with ram drives for the save game to reduce lag spikes?

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On 19.5.2017 at 3:10 AM, ONEadmin said:

 

Have you or anyone else experimented with ram drives for the save game to reduce lag spikes?

I haven't, but i know that this won't help anything.

When the server does the autosave, then the following happens:

1. Stopping game calculations serverside and prepare the data (While the server does this, it stops all its calculations... and this is causing the server lagg)

2. Savefile is written by the server (Does not affect the servers performance in any way. No difference if you have a HDD, SSD, or even a RAM drive). This process is asynchronous.

 

So the Problem is 1.   and therefore it doesn't help anything to upgrade the hardware for 2.

 

There is only ONE solution to get that fixed. Wildcard needs to rewrite the save system. No more full saves... they need to do incremental saves.

Have a look how its done in Conan Exiles... Same Engine (Unreal) but absolutely no such laggs while saving.  Conan saves all 3 Minutes incremental.

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  • 4 weeks later...

My home server does not have the Lag Spike when it saves. 

Dual Xeon E5-2430's   (6 physical cores each with Hyper Threading for a total of 24 cores)

32Gb of ECC Ram

The Dedicated runs from a 500GB SSD drive running on Windows Server 2012 on a 1GB down 200MB up internet connection. 

I have the Dedicated server set to use all cores and World saves every 15 minutes. I never notice any lag spikes. Even when the server is backing up the entire Disk images.

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  • 4 months later...

I had the same questions about ark so far I’m looking at a dell power edge server, but will 2 processors = to 3.5 or above work. I’m trying my server to work with a Arma and all the sandbox style games my problem arma co. Recommended 3.5 e5 Xeon 32gb of memory I figured the same would be for ark survival... let me know I’m ready to purchase this dual processor seems to be the way for me.

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  • 1 month later...
3 minutes ago, xthemikx said:

Thank you to take the time to answer. Yes i know the only way to be sure it to try it. But i need to wait the crossplay before .. suppose to be tomorrow... i hope. :)

Let me know how it goes, I am still looking at option to buy some HW myself for home hosting so always good with info on what others experience.

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