Server Question

[NotchItUp]

Hi, I just wanted to hear from the PK community, how many gigabytes are recommended to be used in a server with about 70 people, and would you guys think 3 gigs would be up to the task?



thanks

 

[FearlessFrost]

This post I wrote was to address a lag complaint, but I'm quoting it here because I wrote a bit about CPU vs RAM and plugins:

This is a bit helpful in beginning to address lag and fix it: http://www.spigotmc.org/wiki/lag-types-and-how-to-fix-them/
Also this: http://www.sk89q.com/2013/03/improving-your-minecraft-servers-performance/

12 GB of ram is good, but equally important is your CPU. A common misconception is that RAM is everything, when really a good CPU is more important (Hosts will always try to sell you on RAM more than anything) There is lots of info on CPU out there, I highly suggest searching the Spigot forums (Rather than Bukkit or Minecraft forums).

Bending is also a very resource-intensive plugin. There is no real limit to the number of plugins you can have, it's really about how intensive those plugins are. It's best to try and minimize your # of plugins, i.e: Rather than have 3 different plugins to handle vanishing, fake leaving/joining, and other vanish-related tasks, try using VanishNoPacket, which has everything in one. It is also important to make sure that the plugins you use are optimized, which you can check by reading reviews (I highly suggest Spigot's resource page rather than the dying bukkit dev) and running Timings Tests (I believe timings works on Craftbukkit, but better on Spigot). For best results with timings, /timings on during a peak hour (When the most players are bending/joining/etc.) and let it run for the duration of that hour, at the end /timings paste and look at your results. If you don't know how to read timings, this will help: http://www.spigotmc.org/threads/timings-guide-how-to-read-timings.2441/ . The test can help you see what plugins are using the most (Typically PK comes out on top, which make sense), as well as what world events are consuming too much memory, such as MobSpawn (Laggy spawner farms) and other Tick events (Some are indicative of redstone clocks and etcs.).

Also helpful is ClearLagg, which can run /lagg unloadchunks and /lagg gc. Unloading chunks and Garbage Collecting when things get laggy helps reduce the strain on the server w/o the need for a restart.

For addressing latency, it's best to try and see where your players are connecting from (Mainly the ones who complain the most about lag). There are GeoIP plugins for this, or whois searches, but if you don't want to do that you can always ask what county they're connecting from. The farther away they are from the host, the more likely they will get latency lag.

Hopefully this helps a bit, I remember struggling with the lag monster before lol. If you need more help, paste a timings here and I can take a look. Good luck!

Like I mentioned there, CPU is just as important (if not a little bit more) than RAM

A quote from a very popular plugin dev, sk89q: "Contrary to a popular belief, the number of players on a server does not correlate that strongly with “lag.” Players themselves do not use that much CPU, and players in the same area share the same loaded chunks."
Building on that, make sure to pay attention to your plugins (Again, mentioned in my quote). For 3 GB, unless you've got one hell of a CPU + SSDs (Or MySQL databases for storage), I'd recommend keeping that list short.

Server hosts (shared hosting mainly) try to sell you on RAM, but thats why it's good to be educated and do some background checking on the specs of the boxes the host is using or reselling to you.

If the box has a good CPU, and isn't being oversold (Make sure to google some non-affiliate reviews on your host), 3 GB could suffice with a minimal plugin list (No more than 5-7 I would guess, depending on how intensive they are). You'll also want to use Spigot rather than Craftbukkit (Spigot offers better chunk management, which is very very important with 70+ loading chunks, plus access to Timings Tests), Worldborder your world(s), and avoid plugins like Dynmap. With all that, you'll still want to have frequent restarts to clear up Java garbage, and closely monitor your memory usage.

My personal recommendation would be to push for 5 or 6 GB, because then you can have a few more 'fun' plugins, less restarts, and less worry over out of memory crashes. To reiterate, CPU should come first, above RAM.

The second link in my quote is a great read to understand more about Minecraft game logic and memory usage, it's a bit lengthy but worth it.

Hopefully my long post helps lol. Good luck with your decision!

 

[DanStryder]

I fully agree with this, I run a 3gb ram server and 12gb ram server, I put minimal plugins on the smal server and a stupid amount on the big one, the big one runs like garbage. I did this as a test to see how bad it can get, make sure to keep plugins to a minimum to the essential ones and try to limit the mob counts and map that may also help. Also just to mention, the CPU on the servers are good spec as well shared hosting is also a problem I must admit, I have a dedicated server block and it runs so much better than shared hosting

 

[paliate]

I run about 5120MB and have close to no lag, whenever i do have lag (which is usually due to chunks) i just unload the chunks and the server begins running smoothly as usual.
And things are back to normal, I personally buy more ram then i need just to keep things lag free and still have the fun plugins i enjoy.

 

[NotchItUp]

Thanks so much for the feedback guys!

 

[NotchItUp]

hey, guys, what do you think about these server specs
• Intel Xeon E5-1650v2
• Solid State Drives on RAID 1
• 1Gbps Uplink
8gb of ram

Do you think that's good enough to hold ~60 players in a server using the bending plugin?

 

[DanStryder]

Without the bending plugin, it would run a dream, with it, well I'd test it out and slowly stress test it, make sure all your plugins are fine and regularly restart the server. By saying "make sure all your plugins are fine" that mean data leaks, that will lower the efficiency of the server if unchecked. Restarts are always good so then you keep the server running smoothly and as said before keep plugins to the smallest amount you can keep it at.

This could be me being over cautious so try it out for yourself and kinda ween the server into more plugins if you deem it fit to, it's all getting it into a fine mix of performance and pleasure xD