32 Player Server Settings

[Shat]

What should the optimal server settings for a 32 player server? I put up 4 servers yesterday, all 32 player. I had 2 of those servers full about 2 hours ago, except there is quite a bit of lag. I have the maxclient set to 8000, but that dosnt seem to help from its original 20000. I have play'd with quite a few settings, but nothing changes.

These servers are on a dual 3.06 Xeon machine with 2GB ECC DDR 400 Ram, 10000RPM SCSI, the works. The connection is an uncapped 100Mbps uplink. My bandwidth goes as far as my wallet.

These servers ping very well, even when all my servers are full.

Any ideas?

Shat

[buttpirate]

Depends on what kind of game you want to run. Onslaught is a real killer.

[Shat]

I would like it to be onslaught just because of the fact that its most popular.

[Limited]

Unless you have a AMD 64bit processor to use, don't bother.

[Shat]

pfft. thats totally not true. It MAY BE worth it to have DUAL AMD 64's however I will stick with intel till the day I die. Intel, for me anyways, is a problem free chipset. You get what you pay for, remember that. So anyways, is anyone going to answer my question? What so I need my Ticks and Internetspeed at?

[judgedredd]

i would leave maxrate at 20000 its defalt as i have 2 server running to i had same problem i set max players at 28 there is no lag when patch come out it should fix most of it i hope as there is a memory leak problem
here is what patch will fix http://www.deadlycombat.com/modules....=0&thold=0

as for intel your right you get what you pay for ill never use AMD

[Limited]

Originally Posted by Shat

pfft. thats totally not true. It MAY BE worth it to have DUAL AMD 64's however I will stick with intel till the day I die. Intel, for me anyways, is a problem free chipset. You get what you pay for, remember that. So anyways, is anyone going to answer my question? What so I need my Ticks and Internetspeed at?

Look, I can only tell you what I know, we had a dual xeon 2.8ghz with 2gb of ram at the last LAN I help run. We attempted to put a 32 player server up of ONS and it was warping and lagging like anything. We went and used a single cpu AMD 64bit on friggen windows 32bit and it was ultra smooth. No lagging, no packetloss.

[Cain]

Hi Shat,

I have a server almost identical to yours, but my server is running Dual 3.33 Xeons (overclocked), same RAM, DS-3 bandwidth, SCSI drives.

I can tell you from personal experience and a month of exhaustive testing that you do not have enough CPU to run a smooth 32 player ONS server, unless you severly restrict MaxInternetClientRate, to less than 6,000, and then you will get odd visual glitches like tank turrets disappearing, etc.

The only CPUs right now powerful enough to run ONS with 32 players and a RATE above 9,000 are the AMD Opteron/FX-5x Series. These CPUs are simply amazing. I am running an AMD FX-53 CPU and my 32 player ONS Server is one of only two I am aware of that can run a 32 player server, smooth as butter, on any map, and with a RATE above 9,000, and my tickrate is 22.

With the CPUs you have with a 9500 Rate you will be pushing it to run 22-24 players, so that will be about your max. All maps will start smooth, BTW but about 60% into the game the players will start to warp, and the server will get very jerky with more than 22-24.

I have been an Intel man since I started my firat public Server over 5 years ago, but these new AMD 64 Bit chips crush anything Intel has for running a game server. I'll replace my Dual Intel with aDual Opteron in the furure.

I am running Win2K3, BTW, and look forward to the 64 bit Win2K3, and the 64 Bit UT2004 Server, which will work even better.

-- Cain
"Cain's Lair {ONS}"
63.113.48.61:8000

[T5KNihilist]

Hey Cain . Its unfortunate to say but CAIN is right. I had all sorts of issues even tring to get 16 or 18 player ons to run smooth.

Since the beginning ive been on about 6 different servers, and ultimately now am on a dedicated dual xeon 2.8ghz.

Right now i think i have been successful with a 18 man (18 man is all i want to run) , but nothing more, it stresses the cpu use on a dual xeon 2.8ghz. Keep in mind ut does not natively use dual cpus, so having a dually for one server process is pointelss.

[Shat]

How does that work? A 16 Player server only uses 10% CPU average. A 24 player server only uses 18% CPU average. You trying to tell me that when just 1 of my servers has 32 players, it spikes to 100%? I have no process on this machine running other than these UT2004 process, other than whats required of Win2K3 to run. I have a hard time beleiving that to run a 32 player, I have to have a Dual Optron machine. Can you tell that I am pro intel? I would rather wait for intel to come out with 64-bit processors before I buy an AMD

[T5KNihilist]

Originally Posted by Shat

How does that work? A 16 Player server only uses 10% CPU average. A 24 player server only uses 18% CPU average.

I never said that ...right now my dual xeon has windows 2003 server and i have one of the cpus dedicated to the onslaught serve only it has 18 players right now and it is ranging 50-70% of that one single processor, and its on a map that has few vehicles.

if yoru on a dual xeon keep in mind your cpu usage is based on your total cpu power, well UT2K4 can only utilize one of those cpus at a time. To my knowledge at least

Have you tried monitoring the cpu usage on each individual CPU ..if your lagging in game i would almost certianly expect one of those cpus to be peaking past 90%

[Shat]

Alright, I completely understand what your saying. However, I do have information to prove otherwise. The server MAY be utilizing only 1 CPU but the usage statistics your claiming are wrong.



What your seeing there is a FULL 16 Player Server, using only 6-8% of the "total" CPU, sometimes spiking to 10%. The majority of the first CPU of course is being used, now you see 4 scopes because these are HT enabled processors. The first CPU using 15-18%. I gather I will continue testing to get more accurate information, but I do appreciate your input.

I do wonder however, if there is some way to direct, or spread the CPU usage evenly throughout the CPU's rather than only using one...

[T5KNihilist]

yeah thats the same thing i am doing , on a dual xeon with HT
instead of running your servers as a batch file you should look into firedaemon,

the picture above what gametype is that , cause my ons 18 man uses 60-90% constantly except for map changes then it takes 100% during map change

here is a pic of mine on a 18 player onslaught nothing else assigned to that cpu

client rate of 9000 and tickrate of 24

[Shat]

I just looked, and my client switched his server to DM How nice, guess I shoulda looked before I took that screenie. Anyhow, you are correct in the fact that during map changes AND server restarts, it spikes ALL the processors, only CPU0 takes the hit as you can see in the screenie below.



As far as FireDaemon goes, I own it, just havnt play'd with it much because when I found serverdoc, it gives me and the client web access to reboot the servers. I know there is a way to do that with PHP, but my knowledge of PHP is limited.

[Shat]

I would hate to think that I wasted 5000$ on these each of my machines There MUST be a better way to be able to utilize both CPU's...

Shat

[T5KNihilist]

yeah i used serverdoc... i prefer firedaemon since i have root access.

I know there is a way to have a web interface communicate with firedaemon but no clue on how to implement it. and the person i know who has won't tell me how ..something about copyrighted program or some crap.

[Shat]

Well, if its copywrited, that means you can buy it somewhere Ask him where you can buy it?

[Shat]

Okay, after doing a little bit of homework, there could be a solution. It still may not allow for a full 32 player server, however on a machine running multiple servers, you can do the following....

Step 1: Open up your taskmgr, right click your process. If your running multiple servers, its best to do what I did and rename the process according to the customers account.



Step 2: Click Set Affinity. If your running Hyper-Threading Technology, you will see 4CPU's. Select the CPU that you wish to use for that spacific process. Leave others unchecked. In my case, I run 4 servers/machine depending on the gametype and player count. In this case I am running 4 servers, so I easily set CPU_0 to UCC_1, CPU_1 to UCC_2, etc...



Results: As you can see, instead of 4 servers ideling on 1 CPU using 20% CPU, you have 4 servers ideling on their own CPU's using only 3% CPU.



I will update you on how it runs with more than 24 players in Onslaught mode...

Can you do me a favor, and find out if there is some way to do this with FireDaemon, so you dont have to set this every time you restart your server?

Shat

[T5KNihilist]

nice ill have to try that,

as far as firedaemon there is an option as to what cpu you want to assign it to, but it doesnt seem to actually work...i have the onslaught server assigned to 2 cpus and it only seems to use one

im interested in hearing the results on your 24 man

[Shat]

Where us that option? I would like to play with it...

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