He could run a hefty StarMade server with his hardware. It is not about how much GHz a processor or graphicscard has. Two quad core Xeon processors are more than enough "overkill" for a single player game. I run StarMade on a AMD Athlon II X2 240E 45w processor with the 750Ti and get 60 fps "Vsync on". I even downgraded from an unlocked AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition to save on the energy bill. StarMade will run on onboard graphics if the instruction set is up to date.
There's a lot of misconceptions about server grade hardware, particularly with processors. The difference between Xeons and desktop grade CPUs are that they are built to run 24/7, under stress without failure. They run at lower voltages and temperatures. Performance wise, they are almost always identical (where it matters for a desktop). Xeons are incredibly reliable, which is a necessity in servers. All StarMade sites run on server grade hardware, for example, caching services, search engines, web servers, content delivery networks and databases. All of these services are integral to StarMade online interaction; we need them available 24/7, and we don't want them to suddenly fail. This is why we use server grade hardware (as well as a number of other reasons, which are not relevant to this post). Similarly, if you were to run a StarMade server (not the client), you would generally opt for server grade hardware, as it's running 24/7. However, this isn't that important; I'd suggest desktop grade hardware if you're on a budget, as it will be cheaper and provide better performance for a lower price.
That being said, server grade hardware is practically a waste of money for desktop usage particularly video games (there are instances where it makes sense, although that's not within the scope of this post). Desktops don't need to be running 24/7 (and being constantly used), they don't need (or use) the benefits this hardware provides. The price difference between server grade CPUs and the motherboards required to run them, compared to their desktop equivalents are quite large. The extra money spent on these components would be better spent on a better GPU, desktop grade CPU, motherboard, RAM, SSD and so on.
Thank you for bringing up GHz, because
this is another misconception. Additionally, while StarMade tries to utilise threads where it can, there is still major load on the main thread. What this means is you'll want a CPU with a high single thread performance, instead of
just focusing on overall performance. StarMade singleplayer is just launching a local server and connecting to it, so this is also relevant for solo players. When selecting a CPU for StarMade, I suggest using this benchmark list
PassMark CPU Benchmarks - Single Thread Performance
Azereiah said:
tbh most of schine doesn't know how the game works...See: DukeOfRealms telling me that my DUAL XEONS are below minimum recommended specs
The recommended requirements CPU wise for StarMade is an Intel Core i7-2600 @ 3.4 GHz | AMD FX-8320 Eight-Core @ 3.5 GHz or equivalent. Yes, they are Xeons, which are simply a brand of microprocessors targeted for the server, workstation and embedded system market in production from 1998 to today. The title "Xeon" is no indication of the performance of the hardware.
You can use the benchmark site I linked above to compare your specifications with the recommended requirements (higher rating, the better). How this value is calculated is described here:
PassMark CPU Benchmarks - CPU Test Information
Recommended requirements (CPU released in 2011)
Your CPU (CPU released in 2008)
Yes, you can run the game on lower specifications, you'll notice our minimum requirements are quite vague. However, the recommended requirements allow the player to experience StarMade as it was meant to be played. There are ways to get better performance out of lower-end hardware, for example, you can decrease a lot of CPU load by playing multiplayer instead of singleplayer.
MINIMUM:
- OS: Windows 7 - 64 bit
- Processor: Intel Core i3 (2nd Generation and above) | AMD FX 6xxx or equivalent
- Memory: 4 GB RAM
- Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GTX 260, 275, 280, 460 SE, 550 Ti | AMD Radeon HD 4870, 5770, 4890, 5830, 6770, 6790 or equivalent with OpenGL 2.1
- Network: Broadband Internet connection
- Storage: 3 GB available space
- Additional Notes: 2GB of memory must be available for StarMade. Lower specs may work by modifying graphics and other performance options. Try out our demo to get an indication for your system. System components such as Integrated Graphics cards may not be supported. Requirements may change in further updates.
RECOMMENDED:
- OS: Windows 7/8/10 - 64 bit
- Processor: Intel Core i7-2600 @ 3.4 GHz | AMD FX-8320 Eight-Core @ 3.5 GHz or equivalent
- Memory: 8 GB RAM
- Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GTX 560, 650 Ti, 750 | AMD Radeon HD 5850, 6870, 7790 (or equivalent)
- Network: Broadband Internet connection
- Storage: 3 GB available space
Now, for desktop, I'm not entirely sure how this works, but I'm fairly certain most applications (games) won't utilise more than one CPU, so your second Xeon provides no real benefit in that department. Even if a second CPU was being utilized, it would just be considered additional cores. As I mentioned above, StarMade's main thread deals with most of the load, so this also provides no (noticeable) benefit. If you're running web/backend services or a video editing workstation, the benefits server grade hardware and mutliple CPUs provide becomes apparent. Games aren't developed to provide these benefits.
NB: If you’re running multiple processes, such as two StarMade servers, you’ll want to look at more cores and better mutli-core performance. However, that’s neither here nor there.
For GPU benchmarking, PassMark also have this site:
PassMark Software - Video Card (GPU) Benchmark Charts
You can read how they calculate their video card benchmarks here:
PassMark Software - Video Card Benchmarks - Video Card Test Information
