Thinking about purchasing a server for a dedicated and private server.

[youeatp00]

I'm not completely new to hosting servers and what not, but I have noticed a few things that I could improve on which is why I'm posting this here. I've hosted a few servers before for my friends and myself to play on but the limiting factor always tends to be the cpu or the memory and in some cases both when nukes are used lol. Anyways I'm currently thinking about purchasing a server that will have x2 xeon l5420 with 16gb of ddr2 ram or x2 xeon 5320 with 24gb of ddr2 ram. My question is, is it possible to make it so that tekkit( the newest updated version) use all 8 cores without any parallel problems due to multi-core use? If so could someone guide me in the right direction as to how to set this up? If not, is it still worth getting one of those two servers? I found them for only around 200-260.

Edit: After hours of googling I think I may have found an answer to my own question but I as of right now I don't have time to actually test it yet but according to something I found I can just edit the launch.bat adding in

-XX:+UseConcMarkSweepGC -XX:+UseParNewGC -XX:+CMSIncrementalPacing -XX:ParallelGCThreads=7 -XX:+AggressiveOpts -Xms1G -Xmx8G

can someone confirm this for me if they have time? Otherwise I'll try and confirm it later on tonight myself and i'll post back here if it does work.

[Magister]

the issue you will run into is that minecraft server itself puts alot of crap into the main thread and that will only run on a single core, very little is generally handed off, most if it be GC threads. there is a server mod called tickthreading that will split things and help but can cause some issue with some mods.

[youeatp00]

on the thread that I found that coded part, it states that if running the server on JDK, the code will automatically be optimized and split processes into thread where it can. I found this hard to believe cause I've done some basic programming in Java and C++ and never heard of such thing. Main reason why I asked.

As for the tickthreading mod, do you know if it is working on the current tekkit and the mods that comes with it? If you don't I'll give this a go later on tonight and report back.

[pixlepix]

Tick Threading should really not be used with other mods. Programs that are designed to be ran in multiple threads generally have some built-in protections to assure that, for example, the same variable isn't being accessed by two concurrent threads. Most/All mods do not have these checks built in, as they are unnessacary in normal minecraft.

[Magister]

tick threading splits the various things into their own thread, rather than almost everything running in a single thread, if you have a linux based server you can view all the things running in the one thread, you can have it list all the classes and the mod names running inside the main thread. generally the minecraft server will create multilple tasks that will see very low cpu time except for one or two, and when you quarry them you will see a massive list in the one using the most time. now i have used tick threading before and have found some incompatibilities but not a lot as it has a server script that makes modifications to a variety of mods before the server starts.

[McBorg]

Hi after going through this with our tekkit servers I can definitively say that this is the easiest thing you can possibly do and it works.

What you should do is get an outsourced worker to set up xen www.xen.org/‎ with solusvm www.solusvm.com/‎ then you can create high performance vps's using your browser allocate dedicated ram and hd space to each server and each server runs in it's own container if one server has a melt down and has a stack overflow it won't affect other servers running in memory as xen virtual machine isolates each virtual server into it own dedicated memory

Do not be tempted use openvz as it runs it's vps's without isolating each instance in memory ( I found this out the hard way )

Don't think this is hard it is stupid simple once in operation I can create a server to host or test on in 5 minutes start it stop it reboot it (boots linux in 3 seconds ) host multi player shooter on one if I want all without affecting the Tekkit or feed the beast servers

We are winding down operations and no longer run large player base now we are just in it for the fun with a few loyal members

If you want more info just let me know

[Magister]

even with the hosted linux vps you still run into processing limitations, generally they are good for lite server loads with a few mods, but as you add more and more you run into issues with the performance, i just recently left working on the backend of a linux vps for server hosting due to complicated reasons, but what it all comes down to is the more mods the more processing power you need, same for the player count, the ram is more dependant upon the amount of class files being loaded

[youeatp00]

Mcborg, I don't fully understand what ur trying to say... however I'm assuming ur talking about splitting up the processors and ram into their own vm and having each host different parts of the chunks? I know of servers doing this between several server but I don't think that will be a very effective way to solve my case as the server I'm making is for me and my friends and we don't build out too far from each other so that would leave the other vms idleing. Its just once we do start building we tend to build a lot in the same area which taxes the single chunk which is why I need more of a real multi threaded solution rather than one with vms.

[Magister]

if you are doing multiple servers you are getting into the realm of clustering which minecraft does terribly on due to threading limitations, but for what the you are asking if you have just a small group of people around five, it should be good with a more simple server, 4 -8 cores, but the overall processing power per core is more important than how many, and a few gigs of ram to run the server, you most likley wont need more than 4 for the server opperation, and if you want to ramdisk for faster world chunk loading you will need more ram, another thing if you plan to host it from home is you will need a good strong internet connection and a router to match, one that can do either bonding or jumbo frame or you will bottle neck with a few people

[D3matt]

Buy the server with the L5320s, you can easily buy a pair of L5420s later for dirt cheap, and you'll appreciate the extra RAM. Set up ESXi, don't just run directly on the hardware, there's no way one linux install needs 24GB of RAM. Believe it or not, the biggest source of lag with that setup will be hard drive throughput. ESXi makes it easy to track this, and I frequently see spikes in hard drive queue time, which means lag for minecraft. Having 24GB of RAM you can easily use ramdisk for minecraft.

This server... Is it a supermicro by chance? I own the exact same one. You can fit a 2nd drive in it if you're creative.