I've read the recommended machine specs at the official site, and have much better than that. I7-4790, 3.6 Ghz, 16 GB, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780. This flies at most other games I play, and works lag-free in single player, but in multiplayer, framerates run maybe as high as 12, but generally somewhere 7 or below and an unplayable 1 during boss battles in the rain.

The server isn't quite as good (it was my gaming machine about 2 years ago), yet it is fine for other games like Far Cry 3. I'm playing hardwired through a 1 G switch.

On the official site, the only advice is "get a better machine", yet mine exceeds those who will actually cite some numbers. That's not absurd, I mean -- obviously it was not developed to require a Cray.

So what is an adequate multiplayer machine?

My system specifications are lower than this and I am able to play multiplayer just fine (1.3.0.5). I have heard that there are some rare issues with the latest version, so if you have an old installer around, you might try to use that. Otherwise, you can simply try to press F9 in-game to change the lighting method used.

Yeah, I thought that should have been fine. I've tried swapping out the switch with an old 100BT I had sitting around, and there was no improvement. I've tried running the server on my machine and playing on my old one. I've even tried connecting an old laptop that doesn't even meet the minimums. It makes no difference. I've toggled through the lighting, and on occasion something will perform better than Retro, but nighttime in the rain is definitely not one of them..

I have the installer from 1.2.4, and that works well. The other versions I have are GOG 2.3.0.5, 2.4.0.6, 2.5.0.7 and 2.6.0.8. The lag isn't terrible in any of them at the start, framerates often in the 20s, but after a few hours of play, I'm hoping for double digits. At that point, it doesn't matter if I restart the server. The lag is always there.

It might have something to do with gardening since that is evidently different code in multiplayer -- planting seeds works differently, anyway. Most of our games have somewhere in the neighborhood of 1000 planters/pots by that time.There's also the couple thousand blocks of glowing mushroom farm that's constantly being harvested, but don't most players have sizable mushroom farms? Neither of these things appear to affect single player, though.

Think I'll try getting rid of the pots and see if that makes a difference.