Server running advice?

[Drbretto]

I've set up servers before, but they were for like 2-3 people. I post regularly on a different unrelated forum and the site owner graciously offered to let me host an FTB server off his system for free, but it means instead of 3 people, we're probably talking up to 6-8 down the line as people jump in.

Anyone with experience have any advice? View distance is a big question mark for me. I like to record cinematics and I need a decent view distance. If I set the server to 32 chunks, how quickly is that going to cripple the thing?

[insert questions I didn't think to ask here]

Any advice is appreciated!

Edit: Will be FTB Beyond, if that matters.

 

[Drbretto]

Another more specific question:

Previously, I've used a minecraft hosting service, and once set it up to host the server from my own PC. What I'm doing this time is remote connecting to somewhere else and installing remotely. It looks like there are a few different apps that will let me manage everything remotely. The ones that have caught my eye are multicraft and McMyAdmin. Any recommendations on what I should use?

 

[Henry Link]

I really can't help with the view distance question I've never changed that settings on my servers. As for advised on running the server it really depends on your skills and what you are willing to learn. In my case I've taken the time to learn a lot about remote management of an Ubuntu server that I use to host 3 modded minecraft servers. There is now virtualization on this servers it is a pure dedicated box. I only run the modded minecraft servers on it.

So that said. My management is done only through SFTP and SSH. To be exact I use putty and WinSCP to manage my server. I don't use any graphical wiz-bang like MCMyAdmin. Never saw a need for it and I've been running my servers like this for over 4 years now. The process of backing up and restarting the servers each day is completely automated and I know exactly how everything works.

But your skills may be different. But, look forward to the learning process. I get almost as much enjoyment out of running the server as I do playing on it.

 

[Inaeo]

But your skills may be different. But, look forward to the learning process. I get almost as much enjoyment out of running the server as I do playing on it.

In my limited experience with running a server for a small group of close friends, I found I spent more time tweaking our custom pack and trying to optimize the server performance than I did building anything on the server. Since you're running Beyond, rather than a custom pack, much of that tinkering has been done for you, but it's worth noting.

Running a server is often a thankless job, but the knowledge and confidence gained was worth it. Now that I have applied that knowledge to my personal potato system, I've actually had better performance running SSP than I had for all of 1.7.

 

[Drbretto]

Yeah, I'm definitely trying to avoid the tinkering. That's the main reason I'm doing beyond. I found when I was running small private servers with just the three of us, I spent more time tweaking and configuring and adding this and that that I feel like I spent most of my time administering than I did playing. This time, I'm trying to avoid having to send everyone zip files every time I have a whim.

Unfortunately, the guy only gave me 300mb of ram to test with and I can't even start it up yet, so I'm not sure it can happen now. When I ran a close to infinity server, 3 of us tapped out 2.5 gigs.

 

[Henry Link]

Hey, if you are interested join my group. We just recently moved to Discord so we can take advantage of the Discord Chat mod and be able to chat between players and different servers. If you are interested use this link to join.

https://discord.gg/MMTg4xR

 

[OneMerryMile]

Depending on your server's specifications, I wouldn't recommend changing the server's view distance to anything higher than 10 to 16 chunks. I have and am using a dedicated host for a small 2GB-ram server which is enough to handle around 4-8 people with the server's view distance set to '10' on modded packs which can be set higher when playing on vanilla.
Unfortunately, you probably won't get anywhere close to a view distance of '32' on a 300mb server that's loaded with FTB Beyond. My server is currently set on a view distance of '10' and ~65% of RAM is being used on the same modpack.

If you lower the view distance to something between 5 and 10 chunks, you may be able to run it correctly. Possibly.

You could attempt to contact the server owner. They might raise the RAM allocations?

 

[Drbretto]

No, it won't run at all on 300mb. Won't even start. Im trying to get him to give me 4 gigs. They absolutely have to raise the ram or we get no where.

And I have no desire to run at 10 view distance. 16 would be a bare minimum. And at this point, I'm strongly considering sticking with single player because I have spent way too much time and effort trying to get the multiplayer to work the way I've always wanted. It does get ridiculous after a while.

 

[Henry Link]

I find that the MP experience is a must for me. It is a place I can show off my work, I can ask questions when needed, and it turns it into a social event for me as well. So I'm not stuck behind a screen talking to no one. But to each his own. And if you are losing interest in setting up a server of your own at least consider joining my group. It might give you a better feel for the MP experience.

 

[Drbretto]

I like having other to play with as well. It really does add to the experience. The problem is, I have to make a ton of sacrifices for it.

And it's not just for me. There's a friend of mine that absolutely loves playing with me, and I feel like if I don't include her, I'm a jerk. I'd actually be ok with just posting my videos in the showcase forum if it wasn't for that albatross around my neck, lol. But, it's always been one thing after another. First the ps4 version, which only works if I leave my playstation on and can never use it for anything else. Then, we did the Win10 version which also requires my PC to be on, which wouldn't have been a big deal, except it can't even run in the background and stay up. Hell, at least on the PS4 I could still use netflix. So, tried a realms server. Not terribly expensive, but it's super buggy and you can't go into the files to fix it, so we had to move on to a real hosting site. This actually worked great, but by the time you get a decent modpack going, it was costing something like $30 a month, which is just nuts.

I appreciate the offer, but I'm not really a joiner of things. I have to have the server work exactly how I want it. I'm going to try hosting it myself on my own PC. I can dedicate a core to the server and I have RAM out the wazoo. And at least this way, I can tweak the modpack at will and just send her an occasional zip file.

And maybe the other dude will get more ram for that server, but the more I think about it, the more I reach the inevitable conclusion that the only way to run a public server like that is to kill the draw distance and I really don't want to do that. I build to live in the world, those chunks aren't just superfluous. They're the whole point for me. That's why I spend sometimes days finding good seeds.

Edit: Sorry, don't mean to whine. I'm just finding this whole thing frustrating. I sound like "If only I didn't have friends that want to spend time playing my favorite game with me! Why me??" lol. But, it can be frustrating!

 

[Inaeo]

I understand your plight. Our little group has gone through similar challenges and come to similar conclusions. We've taken turns hosting packs, even though some of us have precious little system resources to start with. Sometimes it's just unplayable, and we call it a wash. Sometimes it's alright to start, then play degrades as we all build our bases and automation. A few times we've had stable experiences for nearly a complete playthrough, but I can count those on one hand (likely never needing my thumb). At this point, I play for the joy of building, even if the server gets chuggy, and the fun of playing with friends.

If you opt for the hosting company, it gets easy to justify the cost for some. $30 per month sounds crazy, but if you and your friend were to play most other online (MMO style) games, you'd rather have be spending $15 per month, which adds up to the same thing. A different view, go see three movies in the theater per month (by yourself) and you've spent more than $30 for roughly six hours of entertainment. How many hours do you log on Minecraft in a month? If you log an hour per day, you're still on my spending $1/hour on your server. Name me another form of entertainment that costs less than a dollar per hour.

Seriously though, if you're not going to be happy with a limited experience, consider saving up for a small standalone server. Price out a case, processor, RAM, and storage (I recommend SSD, but if price is an issue...). Then do the math to see how much you can save and compare it to the price of renting a server. Sometimes renting ends up being a decent option. Other times, you (and possibly your friend(s)) can pony up enough to get a decent dedicated box running from your own home in no time flat.

If it's just one person joining you, you could consider using a service like Hamachi to play with your game open to LAN. I'm not sure if this is easier on the host than running the server and client on the same machine (although technically, you're doing that anyway with the way SSP runs), but it's worth testing if other options aren't working for you.

Best of.luck. I know these frustrations a too well.

 

[Henry Link]

I wish I could host out of my home. But the ISPs in this area just can't support the upload bandwidth requirements. So I've opted to use dedicated server (not VPS) out of ovh.com. I pay a little more for that server but I think it pays for itself in that I currently run 3 different packs on the server at the same time and none of them have resource issues. The server is completely customized by me the only thing ovh did for me was install the OS and give me the keys. So it runs real lean. No additional services other than what I absolutely must have to run the forge servers on it. I've run as many as 4 packs on it as well.

 

[Drbretto]

Inaeo, you get me better than anyone here, lol. I like how you framed it like an MMO. I did think of it on that angle. Ultimately, you're right, it's not that bad. If it gets split. But, my friends are cheapskates that know I care about the game more than they do, lol. I believe I have collected a grand total of 20 dollars lifetime. I honestly don't mind doing the paying because it's my best friend's wife and he's bailed me out more than enough times. I just can't swing that much. Plus, we might play for like a month straight, then move onto another game for a while, then a bill comes on and I'm stick somewhere on between feeling pressured to play, or feeling like I'm throwing money away.

As for hosting from home, we actually tried hamachi. It works, but it was pretty laggy. However, I did once successfully set up a forge server from scratch for my own customizations modpack, so I'm preeetty damn sure I can set one up with an FTB base. I think it would have worked alright, too. There were just some mod conflicts that made it buggy, so I gave up on it almost immediately.

I work for my cable company, so I get their highest tier free. I think it's 150 by 20, which I can't imagine would be a problem. Just wish they'd let me have a static IP.

 

[Inaeo]

Always happy to help. If you host the server from your own machine, make sure you allocate and dedicate a core for the server (and a separate core for your client if you have one to spare). If you don't, the other programs will crowd the CPU hungry beast that is Minecraft from it's rightful meal. My potato of a computer actually runs Minecraft better if I run it as a server/client, but each system handles it differently.

 

[Daihok]

Hmm i didnt know you could dedicate the cores like that. Learn something new everyday. So just a question then. Would it be possible then for me to see improvments with my pack If i set up a SSP on my rig now? Running a 750ti, have 24 gigs of ram, and use an amd FX 6300.

 

[Drbretto]

Some people are reporting performance increases in certain occasions. The theory being that the server drives the chunks, so you can separate that task to the server core, freeing up the rest. I've been meaning to try it out myself. I don't know what to expect, tbh.

But this is it, lol. If this doesn't work, I give up for-ev-er, lol.

 

[Daihok]

LOL yea my problem is dont even know where to begin Im gonna have do some research cause i have never setup a server, but i am definately going to look into that now.

 

[Daihok]

Watching some vids now about setting up a forge server, but how do you know which mods go server-side which are client-side?

 

[Henry Link]

If you are playing packs off of Curse/Twitch or FTB's launcher then you can download the matching server zip that has the mods setup for a server. If you are doing a custom client/server setup then it is a little more research and trial an error. Most mods will need to be in both. But certain mods or obviously client only like custom main menu. But some other are mouse tweak, a lot of the JEI add-ons that display more info about things (like JEI Bees and JEI block drops). JEI itself needs to be in both sides so that it can move items when you click the crafting button or use the cheat modes. But most of the JEI add-ons are client side only because all they do is provide info.

 

[Drbretto]

Watching some vids now about setting up a forge server, but how do you know which mods go server-side which are client-side?

As a general rule of thumb, anything that adds a block needs to be both server and client. If it only affects graphics and performance, ts client side, and if it generates the world but doesn't add new blocks, it's server side.

It's ok to have server side only mods on the client. They won't do anything, but they can be there. You can't have client side mods in the server pack, though. It won't start.