First off, I'm not sure if this is the right SE site for this question, but...
I want to get a tekkit server but I don't want to spend the money renting it. I have this RPi sitting around not doing anything so I thought setting a server up on it might be a good idea. I was wondering, though, how many players could I have on this server given the specs of the RPi Model B? Could Tekkit main run with 12 players on it? I have Verizon Fios 80Mbps download and 80Mbps upload speed. Should that connection be able to sustain a 12 player Tekkit main server?
22 Answers
The internet speed is pretty much irrelevant in this case, because the Raspberry Pi is not a powerful computer, it's made for low energy consumption. I have tried to run a regular Vanilla 1.12.2 server on it (Raspberry Pi 3) a while ago and only played on it alone on another PC. I had a lot of block lag, to the point where I would break five blocks before the first one disappeared. I'm not sure what I set the render distance to, probably 2, but even if not (I was in the spawn chunks anyway), there is just not enough power on a Raspberry Pi to properly host a Minecraft server, let alone highly modded.
So the answer to "how many players" is 0. It barely runs without anyone online, not even with 20 tps.
3I can't find any specific values online for the requirents of Tekkit, so I'll base this off Vanilla, as Fabian has done.
the base spec of a Raspberry Pi is 700MHz CPU, 256MB Ram. It was later upgraded to 512Mb, and I'll use this version here. Your internet is not a factor here, as it is fine for 12 users.
According to this site :- Can I host a Minecraft Server?, allowing for a RAM Split on the PI of 16MB for video ram, you can host a maximum of 6 users, including yourself. That only allows for Vanilla server. Tekkit will require at least 3 or 4 times the available RAM per player. Calculating that out you'll only have JUST enough ram for a single player.
You also have an issue with CPU. The base CPU is 700Mhz, which may not be enough to complete caluations on each tick before its due for the next one, at 20TPS (minecraft default). You can safely overclock the Pi CPU to around 900Mhz/1000Mhz within the Raspi-config program, but this will require a high speed Storage card, and good heat management to support this.
The overclock may give you enough power to keep the server ticking, but as soon as you start doing any chunk creation you will likely get serious lag.
In short, a Raspberry Pi Model B does not have the specifications on paper to run a tekkit server, as it would struggle with a vanilla server
If you don't have a spare PC lying around (4GB RAM, 2Ghz CPU minimum), I'd suggest a hosted solution.
However... if you have a Model B handy, attempting to set one up could be a worth while use of time... give it a try, it may even work!
