Minecraft server issues

[kmmatney]

Not sure if this should go in the OS forum or here...

I'm having some problems with a Minecraft server I'm hosting at home. The problem seems to be with the OS I am using - Windows Home Server 2011. I have the latest 64-bit java installed. The problem is with lag - it's most noticeable if you get on a minecart - the ride is jerky. My server had a 3.2 Ghz quad-core Phenom II, but I also tried a Pentium G3258 overclocked to 4.4 Ghz, and it had the same problem. I have 1-2 GB of RAM assigned, and the minecraft server running on an SSD.

If I copy the server files over to another computer running a G3258 overclocked to 4.2 Ghz, and Windows 7 64-bit, it runs smooth. All the hardware is essentially the same - the only difference is the OS.

It also runs smooth on my machine with an i5 3570K and Windows 8.1 (64-bit).

So all things equal - when I run Minecraft on Windows Home Server 2011, I get lag. When I run it in Windows 7 or Windows 8, it runs fine. I'm using the same 64-bit java and the same amount of memory. So it seems to be the problem is that Java is not optimized for WHS 2011 (which is based off of WIndows Server 2008).

So does anyone know of any performance issues with WHS 2011 and java? I haven't tried running a server from a virtual machine within the server, but I might try that next...

 

[kmmatney]

Well - it turns out my WHS server started a client backup cleanup after I changed out the cpu, and that has been going on for 24 hours so far. Hopefully that was the source of the lag, but I'll have to wait for it to finish before I can find out....

 

[kmmatney]

I figured out the issue with Minecraft server and WHS 2011, and am just writing this in teh event that someone else pulls this up from a Google search. After the 24 hour client backup cleanup job finished, I was still getting bad stuttering in Minecraft - espeically when using amine cart or riding a horse. I upgraded the cpu in my server to a Core i5 4690K, and overclocked it to 4.4 Ghz, and was still getting the annoying stutter.

There were a few things that finally fixed the issue. One was adding the nogui option to the command line when launching teh server (jar version). The other fixes were some changes to the command line in regards to the Java garbage collection.

So I started the server with a batch file with this content:

"C:\Program Files\Java\jre1.8.0_25\bin\java" -server -XX:+UseConcMarkSweepGC -XX:+UseParNewGC -XX:+CMSIncrementalPacing -XXarallelGCThreads=2 -XX:+AggressiveOpts -Xms2048M -Xmx2048M -jar minecraft_server.jar nogui

and it's now working great. I'm still not exactly sure what all the new garbage collection parameters do, and there are other parameters I didn't try, but this works OK for now (Using Java 8.25 which is the latest as of now).