ARM Build

[milo christiansen]

Look, you can't run Factorio on ARM. ARM chips simply aren't powerful enough. Nothing you can do will change this.

[AceScottie]

Look, you can't run Factorio on ARM. ARM chips simply aren't powerful enough. Nothing you can do will change this.

it can run a full instance of Minecraft... pretty sure it can handle a small factorio server.

Considering their required specs (taken from a quick google search) 1.5GHz Dual core and from post (viewtopic.php?f=133&t=6585&start=50) 1GB RAM

Isnt this a little weird, they require 1.5 dual core CPU but only use 1 core. or are they taking the full core and the other is for system ?

[milo christiansen]

It can run a full instance of Minecraft, very poorly with view distance turned way down. And ARM GHz is not directly comparable to amd64 GHz for a bunch of reasons.

[AceScottie]

It can run a full instance of Minecraft, very poorly with view distance turned way down. And ARM GHz is not directly comparable to amd64 GHz for a bunch of reasons.

my point with no dedicated GPU it can still run it, even as poor as it may be there is still enough humph behind it to run. And im not expecting a factorio sever to run a graphical version either, just the headless version.
with the profomance of ARM im guesstimating i can at least hit 30 UPS and maybe a little lower without active cooling. but adding a fan and sticking it in the attic or somewhere out of the way wouldnt be a problem due to its size.

and im fairly familiar with the differences, i own at least 10 ARM SBC and work as a developer on multiple others.

Anyone who is expecting a perfect product on ARM is foolhardy and thats why i said even if it barely works it will be fine, even if there is no support. Just call it a community edition. If it fails to take off or is too horrendous to run then fine, scrap it. but at least give it a try. and hey if it works you might get fun posts about idiots like me trying to run it on a $5 raspberry pi zero (Maybe a pool of arduinos XD )

[ChoMar]

what hardware draws 350W running a headless server? 60 would already be a lot. My secondary system idles at 35 Watts and has no fans spinning then. If the system runs the server, one core at full load, 60 seems about right. And i dont use any power optimized components there. Also, any type of ARM conversion would mean a lot of work for no good reason - it would only allow a minibase.

[Loewchen]

Isnt this a little weird, they require 1.5 dual core CPU but only use 1 core. or are they taking the full core and the other is for system ?

The application is not limited to one core, the update loop is.

[hoho]

Factorio is mostly limited by memory latency and bandwidth, both of what are abysmally bad in ARMs. It's not only that ARMs have lower CPU frequency and lower instructions-per-cycle, their memory system is also designed for vastly different usecase compared to "proper" CPUs.

In other words, even if we ignore the desync issues caused by completely different CPU architecture, ARM will not be able to pull off even a small factory at any decent speed.

Also, PCs do not take anywhere near 400W. I'd be surprised if you get one that consumes >150W and more than likely it'll be <100W when not using GPU. Unless, of course, you decide to go with 10y old Pentium 4's.

[AceScottie]

Factorio is mostly limited by memory latency and bandwidth, both of what are abysmally bad in ARMs. It's not only that ARMs have lower CPU frequency and lower instructions-per-cycle, their memory system is also designed for vastly different usecase compared to "proper" CPUs.

In other words, even if we ignore the desync issues caused by completely different CPU architecture, ARM will not be able to pull off even a small factory at any decent speed.

Also, PCs do not take anywhere near 400W. I'd be surprised if you get one that consumes >150W and more than likely it'll be <100W when not using GPU. Unless, of course, you decide to go with 10y old Pentium 4's.

Perhaps i was a little over the top with 400w, was basing it of a low spec PC running at 80%. Would have to do some further substantial testing, however even at 100w its still 10 times the price.
Im currently looking into x64 Intel based SBCs as even with a low end PC, its space and noise are still a factor. one of my main arguments for using ARM is they are on most SBCs which are tiny and with can run with both active and passive cooling, something that small i can easily screw into a beam in the attic but a full pc (even using micro-atx/itx form factors) is still too large to put in my attic while also requiring active cooling, which would drive me crazy when trying to sleep (i cant even have a ticking clock or watch anywhere in my house as it will stop me sleeping)

I just think ARM is a good place for a company to start implementing technology, especially with so many companies jumping on board the IoT and IoE device train. I think game servers are a great way to start as despite the challenges of the architecture, it would open up users to run full 24/7 servers without forking out for paid server hosting services.

[HurkWurk]

option D, purchase an old refurb business class pc to use as a server. should not cost more than $100.

$100 might not be much but then add the noise (it is in my bedroom where i have to sleep) and the power usage which is like what 400w.

To give a quick and dirty calculation, a 400w pc running at about 350w (optimal) meaning 0.35kwh running 24 hours a day so 8.4kwh per day.
I pay 13.21p per kwh (in UK pence) so thats 13.21*8.4= 110.964p per day, so basically £1.11 per day ... That amounts to £31 a month if i left it running 24/7...

however lets calculate a SBC as a server.
so they use 5v @ 1.2amp (my own) but to make it a more applicable to everyone, i will calculate to a 2 amp plug. so using Ohms law 5v*2a=10w, so thats 0.010kwh which is simply 0.24kwh per day. again using 13.21p/kwh so 0.24*13.21 3.1704 pence per day. a monthly cost of 89 pence per month

So quite simply the difference between running a full PC as a server vs SBC is about 35.6 times the running cost.

Your math is obscenely wrong. I work at an all HP shop. Even running bonic at 50% 24 hours a day, my system never draws more than 110w from my ups. Factorio is not going to load 4 cores and a video card at 50%, your power draw on an older desktop is likely going to be around 80w or less. My home gaming pc running to end 3D titles only draws 210w. And that's with a core i7 6700 and a 1070 video card.

[TruePikachu]

option D, purchase an old refurb business class pc to use as a server. should not cost more than $100.

$100 might not be much but then add the noise (it is in my bedroom where i have to sleep) and the power usage which is like what 400w.

To give a quick and dirty calculation, a 400w pc running at about 350w (optimal) meaning 0.35kwh running 24 hours a day so 8.4kwh per day.
I pay 13.21p per kwh (in UK pence) so thats 13.21*8.4= 110.964p per day, so basically £1.11 per day ... That amounts to £31 a month if i left it running 24/7...

however lets calculate a SBC as a server.
so they use 5v @ 1.2amp (my own) but to make it a more applicable to everyone, i will calculate to a 2 amp plug. so using Ohms law 5v*2a=10w, so thats 0.010kwh which is simply 0.24kwh per day. again using 13.21p/kwh so 0.24*13.21 3.1704 pence per day. a monthly cost of 89 pence per month

So quite simply the difference between running a full PC as a server vs SBC is about 35.6 times the running cost.

Your math is obscenely wrong. I work at an all HP shop. Even running bonic at 50% 24 hours a day, my system never draws more than 110w from my ups. Factorio is not going to load 4 cores and a video card at 50%, your power draw on an older desktop is likely going to be around 80w or less. My home gaming pc running to end 3D titles only draws 210w. And that's with a core i7 6700 and a 1070 video card.

And now I'm wondering what my Dell Optiplex GX150 (which came with Windows 98 SE) draws, especially since I have it running 24/7 as a server (not for Factorio).

[HurkWurk]

Assuming you gx150 is on a Prescott Cpu (worst case} about 100w idle, up to 180w under load without accessories.

[ChoMar]

Prescott is P-IV, Optiplex gx150 is P-III I think.
Still running these old Hardware is... not very economic, even if its not a Netburst.

[userasd]

Use virtualization.

Just install some kind of virtual machine and run an AMD64 with linux on it.

I would use a virtual machine anyway if I would run a server. ou will loose performance but it is a lot safer.

Also... I don't know if there is a good solution to virtualization in ARM. A quick search got me QEMU and XEN Project.

[torne]

Virtualization (as opposed to emulation) means making a single computer pretend to be multiple separate computers of the same type as the original computer. Running virtualization on an ARM machine gets you multiple virtual ARM machines. To run an x86 VM you need an actual emulator, which has *much* more performance overhead than virtualization and will definitely not be usable for something as demanding as Factorio.

[userasd]

The OP said he doesn't care too much about performance so QEMU (which does emulation) may solve this issue.

[TruePikachu]

Prescott is P-IV, Optiplex gx150 is P-III I think.

Yup, 797MHz PIII Coppermine.

[Daid]

The OP said he doesn't care too much about performance so QEMU (which does emulation) may solve this issue.

Fast ARM boards are still 4/5 times slower then most average machines in raw performance. Add the 10x performance overhead of emulation (if you are lucky, most likely more). And you are left with something that won't even support a small map at full speed.

But, if you want to try "qemu-x86_64-static" is the thing you will need from the "qemu-user-static" debian package. Then you don't need to emulate a full x86 linux install, you run the x86 binary on your ARM linux install.

[John_Dong]

I was wondering if this was possible considering I've read it's done mostly in C(++). I have a Raspberry Pi 3 and Asus Tinkerboard that I would like to run a factorio server on.

[Koub]

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=48343&hilit=raspberry
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=47762&hilit=raspberry
viewtopic.php?f=49&t=38582&hilit=raspberry
viewtopic.php?f=49&t=38176&hilit=raspberry
viewtopic.php?f=133&t=35186&hilit=raspberry
viewtopic.php?f=53&t=31755&hilit=raspberry
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=24925&hilit=raspberry
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=27977&hilit=raspberry
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=24867&hilit=raspberry
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=17605&hilit=raspberry
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=23093&hilit=raspberry

I'd say There is little chance.

[John_Dong]

What about maybe an open-source server? If I knew how the protocol worked I could make one using Python/C(++) easily, I used to work on the Terraria TShock team for networking.