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RAM usage for hosting all maps


Jyrgen

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Hello everyone!

 

I am writing to learn, if anyone has any information or experience to see, how much RAM would my server need, to host all 9 maps. Our server player base is small, but we like exploring around in crossark. Even most servers will be empty at most times I understand ARK has no automatic pause or RAM optimization mode. Could someone tell me how powerful server would I need to pull something like this off?

 

Thanks!

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My server (usually 1-6 players on at a time) runs a six-map cluster no problem with these specs:

Ryzen 3200

32GB RAM

1TB nvme (500GB would be more than sufficient)

I'm sure 9 maps would be fine as well, as my CPU usage rarely goes past 50% and the RAM usage tops out around 20GB with all 6 maps running. I also have a Minecraft server running.

Also, keep in mind that you can shut down one or more maps if you don't plan to go there for a while. If your situation is one where you're with friends/family and you all move from map to map together, it'll be rare to need them all running at once.

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If you launch your servers with the -nitradotest2 option, it will limit the tickrate to 3 when there are no players connected. This can have a noticeable impact on CPU as well as memory for large worlds since there will be less calls per second (less computation/memory allocation, etc.). But as its name clearly state; it seems to be an internal test so use at your own risks.

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7 hours ago, invincibleqc said:

If you launch your servers with the -nitradotest2 option, it will limit the tickrate to 3 when there are no players connected. This can have a noticeable impact on CPU as well as memory for large worlds since there will be less calls per second (less computation/memory allocation, etc.). But as its name clearly state; it seems to be an internal test so use at your own risks.

Hi invincible.  Do you have any contact with WildCard to request that flag as an option for unofficial servers please?

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5 hours ago, Larkfields said:

Hi invincible.  Do you have any contact with WildCard to request that flag as an option for unofficial servers please?

Seems that all you would need to do is add it to your existing startup arguments for unofficial servers.

I'll give it a test later.

 

@Jyrgen Nominally you would want to allocate 8GB per server with 2GB overhead for the OS.  Our group was running 8 maps with a few players on our server with 64GB RAM. CPU and RAM usage when idle was about 40% and 70% respectively, so we didn't have much overhead at all when things got busy. We have since reduced our number of servers to 5, and will hold off on turning the others back on until we add more RAM.

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8 hours ago, Larkfields said:

Hi invincible.  Do you have any contact with WildCard to request that flag as an option for unofficial servers please?

You can use it already. I ran a quick test on a VM running the same legacy save twice; one instance without and another with it and here was the usage without players:

htqYMQk.png

 

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This is with seven of my nine servers running with a couple of players on (very small community of players) I can comfortably run all nine plus a 7 Days to die server at the same time.

 

This is with it running Island, Ragnarok, Aberration, Extinction, Valguero, Genesis and Crystal Isles

 

image.png.dadf935cbb27644766f36d45325b9ba7.png

HP Z820 workstation, dual E5-2643 Xeon processors (total 8 cores, 16 vcores), 64GB RAM, running the Ark servers on an 8 disk RAID 6 array of Western Digital black disks.

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5 hours ago, Larkfields said:

Sylen - from the figures you posted, it looks like your RAM usage has gone up by more than 10x !

How many people were logged on when you took those screenshots? Every player has a memory and CPU footprint.

 

There were zero people logged in at those times. Each set of numbers was taken 5 minutes after the server was started, so it had time to settle into whatever. I did it at 4am, so no one was around. That's our normal maintenance window anyway.

What's interesting though is that the amount of RAM used in the second shot with the argument, is what the server looks like when it's active with a few people on. So it may just be a trade-off for lowering CPU use where it's holding more data actively in RAM.

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Each map has a unique memory pattern. I host all nine, a 7 Days server, a TS3 server, and some other stuff. I also have two 56-core Xeons and 128GiB of ECC RAM on a pair of BTRFS RAID10 setups. With that said, here is what I regularly see.

The Island - 4-6GiB
The Center - 4-6GiB
Scorched Earth - 5-8GiB
Ragnarok - 4-6GiB
Aberration - 4-8GiB
Extinction - 4-8GiB
Valguero - 4-8GiB
Genesis - 6-9GiB
Crystal Isles - 4-8GiB

Do note that per-core power is FAR more important here. More cores not so much. Memory for what these maps are seems reasonable. Oh and for clarification, I run S+, Classic Flyers, and Additional Lighting on all of these servers. Nothing else. We have maybe a dozen players per server in the evening when usage goes up.

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