What Server Specs Are Better

[du$toff]

Hello can I get your guys thoughts what specs of the list bellow would preform better as an arma2OA server running an array of missions usually pretty intensive ones tho.

Option 1:

CPU Intel Pentium D 930 3.00GHz - DualCore

RAM 2 x 2GB of ram - 4Gb

HDD 2 x 40 GB SATA - 80 GB


Option 2:

CPU Intel 2x2.8GHz Xeon

RAM 2.5GB of ram

HDD 2 x 80 GB SCSI - 160GB

Of the two above what do you think would preform better with the most Server FPS and Less Lag and any other comments would be great!

Thanks Du$toff!

:yay:

[Bee8190]

Well im not real server guy but #2 all the way! #2 needs desperately more RAM though....
IMHO;)

[Tankbuster]

This is such a strange question, I'm suspecting a comedy trolling.

Is a modern server grade CPU better than a clunky, 5 year old single core? Also, how do you get half a gig of RAM?

[du$toff]

This is such a strange question, I'm suspecting a comedy trolling.

Is a modern server grade CPU better than a clunky, 5 year old single core? Also, how do you get half a gig of RAM?

lol im not trolling?

Im not sure how old the xeon is... they have been making them since 1998 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xeon

and the Pentium D is a dual core not a single core it has 2 Cores with 2 Threads

Half a gig of ram is a 512mb stick?

1gig = 1024 mb

1/2gig = 512mb??

Thanks Du$toff

[Tankbuster]

Alright then. :)

But it's still a very strange setup. Neither machine is ideal for demanding mission serving, but the Xeon machine would be usable if you could get it up to 4 GB of RAM.

[eddieck]

Yep, there was no Xeon model specified.

With regards to ArmA, faster cores are better. The best CPU for ArmA 2 servers, at this time, is a Sandy Bridge (i5-2500(K), i7-2600(K), Xeon E3-12xx).

The ArmA server only uses two cores in my experience, if a mission is loaded. The AI only uses one thread, and generally there is so much AI that it is able to load that core to 100%, even on a very fast CPU like a SB. When the core is loaded to 100%, the server FPS is under 50.

You can monitor the server FPS with the #monitor command while logged in to in-game admin. 50 FPS is the maximum possible. I'd also recommend tweaking your arma2oa.cfg (check out Kelly's Heroes for a guide to that), particularly if you have a hosted server with a 100Mbps or faster connection. (ArmA doesn't use all the bandwidth it could by default, but you can adjust the config files so it will. And that can help your server FPS as well.) 15 or less on the server FPS is considered an overloaded server.

[[HUD]Dorph]

The ArmA server only uses two cores in my experience, if a mission is loaded. The AI only uses one thread, and generally there is so much AI that it is able to load that core to 100%, even on a very fast CPU like a SB. When the core is loaded to 100%, the server FPS is under 50.

On my server it clearly uses all 4 cores, 1 core slightly used more than the other 3, bet its the core used for AI.

[eddieck]

Dorph;2003305']On my server it clearly uses all 4 cores, 1 core slightly used more than the other 3, bet its the core used for AI.

With only one server running? And on Windows or Linux?

For me, on Linux, it uses one core at 100% for AI and another core at about 25-50%. If it splits the second core's load between the 3 other cores, that probably isn't going to change the performance.

[[HUD]Dorph]

Its on win7-64 running only 1 arma2 server. As im writing Doomi running with 11 players its using 2cores aprx 10% and the other 2cores aprx 20% (hyper threading are turned off in bios).

[du$toff]

Yep, there was no Xeon model specified.

With regards to ArmA, faster cores are better. The best CPU for ArmA 2 servers, at this time, is a Sandy Bridge (i5-2500(K), i7-2600(K), Xeon E3-12xx).

The ArmA server only uses two cores in my experience, if a mission is loaded. The AI only uses one thread, and generally there is so much AI that it is able to load that core to 100%, even on a very fast CPU like a SB. When the core is loaded to 100%, the server FPS is under 50.

You can monitor the server FPS with the #monitor command while logged in to in-game admin. 50 FPS is the maximum possible. I'd also recommend tweaking your arma2oa.cfg (check out Kelly's Heroes for a guide to that), particularly if you have a hosted server with a 100Mbps or faster connection. (ArmA doesn't use all the bandwidth it could by default, but you can adjust the config files so it will. And that can help your server FPS as well.) 15 or less on the server FPS is considered an overloaded server.

Ah ok so if I can find out the model of the xeon then we will be able to compare it better? at the moment we have the first option as our server and we get 43 FPS on it with a few clients the more players the more the fps drops would you say its worth an upgrade to get the other set up?

[eddieck]

Ah ok so if I can find out the model of the xeon then we will be able to compare it better? at the moment we have the first option as our server and we get 43 FPS on it with a few clients the more players the more the fps drops would you say its worth an upgrade to get the other set up?

Yes, if you can obtain the model of the Xeon, we'll be able to compare it better. There are 2.8 GHz Xeons from the Pentium 4 (NetBurst) line, as well as the more recent Core 2 and Nehalem lines.

43 FPS isn't bad at all. What does it drop to when you have a more significant amount of players on (15-20)? And what mission is this? I'd say if it's still in the 20s-30s, it's not worth it. Just keep in mind that some missions will be more resource-intensive than others (Zargabad Life in particular, even without the actual AI, can easily drop to 10 FPS on an X3430 after only a few hours of gameplay with a full server).

[Bee8190]

http://ark.intel.com/products/27202 Xeon 2.8Ghz ....

I cant provide any hard data at the moment but i as eddie said the i5 / i7 are great chips and imo would outperfom the Xeon as its quite outdated.
How many players you expect to host for?

[GossamerSolid]

What the rule of thumb is for servers (as far as I know) goes as follows:

-2+ Cores
-Highest clock speed possible
-Lots of bandwidth
-Fast upload on connection