So I’ve been playing Icarus with the wife and the optimization is hot garbage. Wife is hosting and pulling 10 fps with a Nvidia 3070TI
We enjoy the game so I start doing research. Turns out once you’ve played enough the database on the host just gets too big and chokes out the CPU threads since it can’t use more than 2 cores.
Answer is to migrate your world to a sepf hosted dedicated server. Say no more.
So now I got an excuse (wife approved) to setup a computer as a server and keep it running. I have an old HP SFF i5 16GB RAM with an SSD I’ve reimagined a few times for a home server.
Flashed it with Debian and setup the Icarus server in docker. Runs like a champ.
Bonus points. I hooked up a wattage meter and it idles at 1~2 watts!
I used to run an old gaming computer as a home server and it felt like $30 a month in electricity.
Edit: System idles at 19 watts. I had the meter plugged into the wrong device…
Now I can start throwing more stuff on there once I figure out backup for the game world incase I bork it.


Yes the game is utter garbage for optimization.
Even the game dev recommends a dedicated server for multiplayer.
Its so bad that if you put a few hundred hours into single player you’ll end up with performance issues. It has to do with tracking all the changes to the open world. Trees cut, rocks mined and buildings. Link
My electricity costs are among the highest in the USA due to my location. Also surge pricing in the summer due to everyone running air conditioning. This was on a second gen i7 which was a 125w cpu and 1070TI I think. Running nonstop as a seedbox, network share, Plex server and more.