Server Performance
Side1Bu2Rnz9
Join Date: 2012-10-16 Member: 162510Members, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow
I've noticed that recently many of the servers I tend to use have been having crappy server performance (studdering, rubberbanding, lag outs, red plugs, ect). Now I'm not naming any servers and those who post on this thread should not either. I just have a question as to why this is happening. The reason I frequented those servers were because normally I had no issue with the performance (server tick rate of 30 and bla bla). Recently in the last couple patches the servers have been struggling to maintain that 30 tick rate and my gaming experience has suffered. Has the req's for servers gone up since the most recent patches or is it an issue with the game? Is there a work around such as lowering player count on servers or is it just something that devs need to attempt to help with? I have no server experience so I have not idea about anything with servers, but I know what the cause for my rubberbanding is and it's not my ping or my fps (mostly sub 100ms and around 100fps average). Thanks for answering any of my questions.
Comments
From what I've gleaned from these forums, the decrease in performance may be related to the new badge and/or ranking system, since gathering the info about who has what badge, and sending stats back to the Hive(?) ranking system put extra strain on the Server.
I truly hope that whatever the cause, it is found and fixed (and that server performance improves even more! )
Regardless of bumpby requirements, serverperofrmance needs improvements, most importantly massive multi-core support.
I always thought that too, but did you know that server operators dont want that? They want ns2 to run on exactly one core, so that they can run multiple servers without them affecting each other. So for server performance, multicore is not the solution.
Uhm, what? Of course they want multi core support! I get your point, but multithreadingis s till the solution.
I need to be nicer to others
The server and client code is mostly the same. For clients the solution is multicore anyway, so any multicore stuff added there ends up on the server anyway. So dont worry about your so called stupid operators.
No, they don't. You can use client cpus in server systems and counterwise. And minus the grafics card you will always pay less for a server (assuming you buy it), then a gaming pc if you compare HW directly; unless of course you're going for different hardware. Now if you're talking about rented servers, it is quite obvious that better servers cost more to rent, but the ISPs also have to pay for the hardware. Basic math skills will help here to see which is most cost-efficent solution (purchased server + housing vs rented server) .
You didn't provide a single valid reason why it isn't the solution. It IS one of the main solutions, along side with general server speed improvements. There is no "probably".
The multicore trend is coming from the server sector, not otherwise around. We have 12-core Intel (with HT: 24 virtual) and 16-core AMD Server cpus as well as multi-socket mainboards that can hold up to 4 CPUs. Now you are trying to tell that multicore is not viable on servers.
Now in fact if you are looking at those 12 or 16 core cpus, you'll see they'll run at a lower clockspeed then their lower-core high end counterparts. And NS2 can't really be run on machines with low per-core performance, as such, you need multicore support to spread the load over the available cores.
General performance "improvements" are desireable, but not the single solution. It will only lower the point when looking at per-core required performance for a given amount of players.
Decent MC support impact said requirement much more, if we were to see a good ratio of threaded code, you might be able to run a 18-slot server on a 2.4 ghz AMD CPU. Right now you need a recent-gen 3.6+ Ghz Intel CPU for the same task to get a stable 30-tickrate @ 18 players
As for client vs server code. Yes it is, and no, client multicore will not necessarily impact server multicore. Client has better MC support then the server does, as it offloads quite a bit of rendering to another thread; this, however, does not affect the server.
What will impact both if portions of the lua code would run [multi-] threaded.
I dont think MC support would change anything on playercount, tickrate (stable 30 isnt a really problem anymore) or something else.
Maybe you can save around 20€ per month cause you can rent a cheaper server.
But that would be the only result.
Copy@paste from the german-slaughterhouse.de forum:
September 23, 2013, 01:13:00 by [#OMEGA] - K2
Views: 59 | Comments: 0
Switched to a new root server, for improved performance! (at a lower price =P)
So, whats your problem?
My server is one of them.
Would be interisting to know why some servers are "different".
Hilarious. I stopped playing after esl quals because server performance was so terrible, and when i tried again after the free time it felt the same (if not worse because every server is 20p+ now). As far as I can tell the only servers that stay even decent for even 20min are the overclocked ones that people are paying over twice as much per month for compared to any other shooter. And for whatever reason on NAE people keep joining servers like IBIS that drop down to 10% perf within 5min...
Maybe rebalancing another 6 times will fix it, who knows!