Do these 3 things before closing this tab:
1Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches2Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems3Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteChoose vanilla for a small private world, the simplest administration, and the safest compatibility baseline. Choose Stratum for a busy public server, recurring events, intensive modding, PvP, or an administrator who needs deeper performance and moderation visibility. Stratum keeps normal Vintage Story clients, but it changes server internals enough that you should test your exact mods and workload before moving a live world.
Prefer not to run the server on your own PC? Godlike.Host offers hosted Vintage Story servers with free DDoS protection and up to three free backups a day.
Quick decision: which runtime fits your server?
Vanilla is the official, unpatched Vintage Story dedicated-server runtime. It is the reference implementation against which mods, guides, and troubleshooting advice are usually written. Stratum is a server-side replacement: players still connect with the ordinary Vintage Story client, while the server runs Stratum’s patched runtime.
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| Situation | Better starting choice | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| Small private server with few moving parts | Vanilla | The official runtime offers the simplest operational and compatibility baseline. |
| Busy public server or recurring events | Stratum | Its documented focus includes queueing, entity work, hardening, and operational reports. |
| Large mod list with deep hooks | Either, after testing | Vanilla is the safer reference; Stratum may improve pressure handling but changes deeper internals. |
| Moderation and server diagnostics are priorities | Stratum | It adds commands, reports, and server-side abuse-checking features. |
| You need 24/7 uptime without managing a machine | Managed hosting running a supported runtime | Renting a server reduces systems administration, but current Stratum support must be verified with the host. |
What vanilla and Stratum actually are
Vanilla dedicated server
Vanilla is the official dedicated-server program distributed for Vintage Story. It is unmodified, so its behavior is the compatibility target for the game’s documentation and for many server-side and universal mods. That makes it the sensible first deployment when reliability and predictable mod behavior matter more than squeezing additional headroom from a crowded machine.
Stratum server runtime
Stratum replaces the stock dedicated server with a high-performance, server-side fork. On its first launch, the launcher obtains and verifies the official server archive for the selected Vintage Story version, then applies Stratum’s patched files. The process therefore depends on using a matching game version and on allowing the initial download and unpacking to complete.
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Stratum is not a client mod. Players normally join with the standard Vintage Story client and do not install Stratum. The change is on the server, where Stratum modifies lower-level behavior rather than adding only a conventional game mod.
What Stratum adds beyond vanilla
Stratum’s project documentation describes work across several pressure points that become important as player counts, entities, or mod activity increase:
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- Networking: packet back-pressure, batching, and queue management intended to prevent bursts from overwhelming the server.
- World work: chunk loading and ticking, world generation, and save operations.
- Simulation: entity processing, artificial intelligence, and pathfinding.
- Hardening: server-side anti-cheat and abuse checks.
- Visibility: timing, packet, queue, player, entity, violation, and preflight reports for diagnosing behavior.
- Administration: additional in-game commands and presentation options.
These are documented capabilities and development targets, not a guaranteed percentage improvement. A server dominated by disk latency, a particular mod, a single overloaded CPU thread, or an unusually dense entity population may see a different result from a lightly populated survival world. Treat Stratum as a way to change the server’s behavior and observability, not as an automatic capacity multiplier.
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Mod compatibility and player requirements
What players install
Players generally continue to use the normal Vintage Story client. A server can offer server-side and universal mods to joining players through the game’s dedicated-server workflow. Client-side mods remain the player’s responsibility and must be installed locally.
Why deep-hook mods need testing
Stratum changes internals more deeply than an ordinary mod. Mods that rely on exact tick timing, packet details, private server methods, or other implementation-specific behavior can therefore require adjustments or fail even when they work on vanilla. The risk is highest with heavily scripted automation, custom networking, anti-cheat integrations, and mods that interact closely with entity scheduling or world saves.
Do not infer compatibility from the fact that a mod is labeled server-side. Test the complete mod set, configuration files, world seed, and typical player actions together. A successful boot is not enough: exercise chunk travel, farms, pathfinding, combat, scheduled events, backups, and any commands your moderators use.
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Hardware: a conservative starting point
The current Vintage Story dedicated-server guide gives these baseline estimates for a normal, spread-out survival world:
| Resource | Published starting estimate | How to interpret it |
|---|---|---|
| Memory | 1 GB base RAM + 300 MB per player | A sizing guide, not a promise of a player limit or a Stratum-specific requirement. |
| CPU | 4 threads recommended | Use as a conservative starting point; concentrated activity and mods can require more. |
| CPU frequency | 1 GHz base + 100 MHz per player | An estimate from the guide, not a controlled benchmark between runtimes. |
World size, view distance, player concentration, entity counts, mod behavior, save frequency, and storage performance can move the real requirement substantially. Two servers with the same number of players may have very different loads if one has a dense settlement, automated farms, or many active chunks.
There is no universally valid Stratum player-capacity number in the published material, and no controlled, apples-to-apples Stratum-versus-vanilla benchmark to turn these estimates into a percentage gain. Measure your own workload instead of advertising a capacity based on a generic formula.
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How to evaluate Stratum safely
- Record the exact Vintage Story version. Select a Stratum build made for that same server version; do not assume a nearby version is compatible.
- Install the required runtime. The Stratum launcher requires the .NET 10 runtime. Install it on the server account that will run the process.
- Back up the live world. Make a restorable copy of the data folder, configuration, mod files, and any server-specific scripts before changing the runtime.
- Clone rather than experiment on production. Move or copy the existing data folders into a test installation so the live world remains available if a mod or save operation behaves unexpectedly.
- Launch Stratum once. Allow it to download and verify the matching official server archive, unpack it, and apply the patched files. A blocked download or interrupted extraction must be resolved before judging compatibility.
- Install the same mod and configuration set. Keep versions, load order, permissions, world settings, and scheduled tasks identical to production.
- Run representative tests. Have several players travel between regions, load new chunks, trigger machines and farms, fight mobs, use pathfinding-heavy areas, and perform normal moderator actions.
- Review reports and logs. Examine timing, packet, queue, player, entity, violation, and preflight information for bottlenecks or unexpected checks. Compare the observations with your vanilla baseline.
- Choose based on measured risk and benefit. If a critical mod fails or behavior changes in a way you cannot support, stay on vanilla. If Stratum improves the workload without unacceptable incompatibilities, schedule a migration window.
Migration and rollback considerations
Changing the executable does not eliminate the need for normal server operations. Stop the live server cleanly, preserve a dated backup, and document the runtime version and mod set used for each test. Keep the vanilla installation available until the Stratum world has completed several save cycles and a restoration drill.
If the new runtime will not start, first check the .NET 10 installation, file permissions, the selected Vintage Story version, and whether the first-run archive download completed. If it starts but players disconnect, inspect packet and queue reports and test without recently added mods. If entities or automation behave differently, isolate mods that hook timing, pathfinding, or private internals. Roll back by stopping the server, restoring the pre-migration data backup, and launching the known-good vanilla installation; never overwrite the only copy of the world while troubleshooting.
Self-hosting versus managed hosting
Self-hosting
Running the server on your own computer or a rented virtual machine gives you control over the operating system, files, launch options, backups, and runtime choice. It also leaves you responsible for port forwarding, firewall rules, updates, monitoring, storage, power, and recovery. Ad hoc hosting is adequate for occasional play; a dedicated machine is more suitable when the server must remain online independently of a player’s desktop.
Managed monthly hosting
Monthly hosting is useful when continuous uptime, automated backups, a web control panel, and reduced systems administration matter more than full machine control. Vintage Story’s multiplayer guidance names providers such as PingPerfect, Citadel Server, Creeperhost, Akliz, and GPortal, but availability, region, pricing, mod support, hardware allocation, and Stratum support change over time. Confirm all of those details with the provider before purchasing, and ask specifically whether you can upload and maintain a Stratum runtime rather than only the stock server.
Whichever model you choose, check the actual CPU allocation and storage performance instead of comparing plans by RAM alone. A host that advertises enough memory can still struggle if CPU time is shared heavily or saves are written to slow storage.
Operational checks before opening the server
- Confirm the server and Stratum build target the same Vintage Story version.
- Verify that the .NET 10 runtime is installed and that the launch account can read and write the server directories.
- Keep at least one tested, dated world backup outside the server’s data directory.
- Set a process monitor or restart policy, but ensure repeated crashes do not overwrite logs or backups.
- Check that every required server-side or universal mod is present and that players receive clear instructions for client-side mods.
- Test moderator permissions, reporting commands, scheduled saves, and a restore procedure before inviting the public.
- Watch memory, CPU, storage latency, queue behavior, entity counts, and tick timing during a real peak session.
Bottom line for common server types
Private friends-and-family world
Start with vanilla unless you already have a measured problem that Stratum addresses. Fewer moving parts make updates, troubleshooting, and mod selection easier.
Public community or event server
Evaluate Stratum first. Its networking, entity, hardening, command, and reporting work is aimed at the operational pressures that public servers face, but complete compatibility testing remains mandatory.
Heavily modded technical world
Run both runtimes against a copy of the real world and the full mod list. Pick the one that preserves required mechanics while meeting your measured performance and administration needs; neither the RAM formula nor Stratum’s feature list can decide that without workload data.
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Deploy vanilla as the reference, collect baseline timings during normal peak activity, then test Stratum on a clone. That gives you a known-good fallback and evidence for whether the change is worth its compatibility and maintenance cost.
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