Valheim and the battle for dedicated hardware

Like many others across the planet, a group of friends gather most nights to live a part of our lives virtually. For seven of us, these nights are dedicated to the smash hit Valheim. One thing that makes this group of friends different from the average is that we have all worked within the multiplayer gaming space and have been launching games like Valheim for almost 10 years.

The problem

Like many early access games, Valheim has a few minor issues. For example, one of the group got stuck within a cart, wedged between a large boat and the makeshift dock that had been constructed.

The problem we faced was that the server appeared to be running pretty badly but only when there were more than six of us in the same area. Huge lag spikes, buildings not loading correctly and carts rubber-banding all over the place. A lot of this is network related but some are also hardware related.

The solution

Firstly, to fix some of the network related issues, take a look at this post on Reddit. To sum things up the game files need to be edited in order to allow the server and clients to process larger amounts of networking data. This requires third party tools and an understanding of .dll editing if you wish to attempt this fix.

Now, the second problem is a bit more complicated. The reason for this is testing dedicated hardware in a data centre can be an expensive undertaking, especially if you are trying to test specific hardware types. You’re often looking at $100+ a month for a dedicated server. What about Cloud? Forget it, cloud is on-demand server capacity in a data centre; which is basically the same thing but with extra steps.

So what do you do in this case?

Simple. A minimum hardware specification based on our combined knowledge of multiplayer games was put together and a message put on LinkedIn followed.

The response

It is safe to say the server hosting community responded to our call to arms! 30 new followers, 1,880 views and counting and over 40 individuals reaching out to find out more and to offer their help all within 12 hours of the post going live. I have worked with a lot of server providers in the past, so of course, there was going to be some kind of response but this was honestly way more than expected.

The winner

Before I announce the winner, I want to say a massive thank you from myself and the rest of the Valheim gang. We are going to use this server for testing and hopefully contributing to the community by providing information on the best way to run these servers.

Anyway, the moment we have all been waiting for…

George of Psychz Networks, you are officially the winner! Not only did you go out of your way to message me directly on Discord, you happily discussed what the game plan was and then without any hesitation sent over an order for a new server. Quick, personal and exactly what we need. We are now going to move a copy of our game server over and begin our investigation to see if we can improve the Valheim experience.

The runners-up

Shout out to you all. The fact you responded and went out of your way to contact me to help with this problem is greatly appreciated. Some notable mentions go out to Jeroen at I3D, Wolfgang from AMPD and Guilherme from Maxihost. All 3 reached out and were keen to help. Jeroen and I have a call tomorrow. Wolfgang emailed me and we also have a call to discuss further. Guilherme was unable to help me further as Maxihost does not service Europe but is keen to help if we need servers in other regions!

The future

Hopefully, after a bit of work and some further testing, we can improve the experience we are having with Valheim. This game has so much potential and I am very keen to see how it is improved upon over the coming year. We are also going to keep a close eye on the performance of the hardware provided to us by Psychz and will adjust the specs as needed. Hopefully, with this data, we can then provide the community with an insight into what is needed to run an early access game so that the players have the best experience possible.

For this group of Vikings, we can now sail easy knowing that we are in good hands with Psychz. They took on our challenge and came out victorious!