Question

Lag on my basic multiplayer server

Posted on January 2, 2024
Ubuntu
Asked by mrjacobtaiwan

I am using an ubuntuu droplet on the 6 dollar a month plan. I have a basic rust (language) server, simple server (github.com), that I am running on the server. I can connect clients to it and when they move it is registered and they get updated when other players move. when the server is running locally it works fine. Hosted, there is second long lag and stuttering. I am curious if this has anything to do with the plan I selected not being suitable for this. I am averaging 22ms when I ping, so that seems fast enough. Im out of my depth here and am trying to cross off the hosting as a culprit. Thank you.

Submit an answer

This textbox defaults to using Markdown to format your answer.

You can type !ref in this text area to quickly search our full set of tutorials, documentation & marketplace offerings and insert the link!

These answers are provided by our Community. If you find them useful, show some love by clicking the heart. If you run into issues leave a comment, or add your own answer to help others.

Bobby Iliev

Site Moderator

• January 2, 2024

Hi there,

In addition to what has already been mentioned, it sounds like the lag and stuttering issues on your multiplayer server could be closely related to the resources available on your current DigitalOcean droplet. Given that you’re using the $6/month plan, the resources (particularly CPU and RAM) are relatively limited, which might not suffice for a multiplayer game server, especially when handling multiple connections.

What I could suggest is:

Upgrade to a CPU-Optimized Droplet:
- Why CPU-Optimized: Multiplayer servers, particularly those running games or applications written in Rust, can be CPU-intensive. A CPU-optimized droplet provides dedicated CPU resources, which are crucial for compute-intensive applications. This would ensure that your server has enough processing power to handle game logic, player movements, and real-time updates efficiently.
- Selecting the Right Plan: DigitalOcean offers various CPU-optimized plans. Based on your current needs and the scale of your multiplayer server, you should evaluate which plan would be the most suitable. Even a small CPU-optimized Droplet could offer a significant performance improvement over a basic plan.
Monitor Performance:
- After upgrading, closely monitor the server’s performance. Pay attention to CPU usage, memory utilization, and network throughput. This will give you a clear picture of whether the new plan is handling the load effectively. You can use the htop command to keep an eye on your server resources utilization:
https://www.digitalocean.com/community/questions/how-to-find-the-processes-that-are-consuming-the-most-server-resources

Keep in mind future scaling. As your user base grows, you might need to further scale up your resources.

Let me know how it goes!

Best,

Bobby

KFSys

Site Moderator

• January 2, 2024

Heya @mrjacobtaiwancoral,

It’s possible your Droplet can’t handle the actions. If not mistaken the Droplet has 1GB of RAM and 1vCPU. That might be enough to host the application but any more actions could be putting a strain to your Droplet.

It’s easy to check though. Enter your Droplet via SSH and monitor it. You can do that with w htop top. Alertnatively, you can use DigitalOcean’s Monitoring :

https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/monitoring/

DigitalOcean Monitoring is a free, opt-in service that gathers metrics about Droplet-level resource utilization. It provides additional Droplet graphs and supports configurable metrics alert policies with integrated email Slack notifications to help you track the operational health of your infrastructure.