UWE Servers

Dghelneshi

UWE please consider this:

All official servers drop down to tickrates around 10-20 in longer games, which is definitely not acceptable. Evidence can be found on <a href="http://ns2servers.devicenull.org/" target="_blank">http://ns2servers.devicenull.org/</a> .

It has been established in <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=121513" target="_blank">this thread</a> that turning off C1E (and maybe other power saving options) can improve tickrates from sub-10 to a stable 30. This can be done with tools such as <a href="http://www.tweakers.fr/cputweaker.html" target="_blank">this one</a> without BIOS access.

If you have the ability to do this, PLEASE consider it. I don't want all the new players to play on underperforming servers. :(

oldassgamers

I never play on the uwe once because they are very laggy.

But belive me mate, more private server will appear on the list soon :D Once there is enough I'm sure that the uwe server will be going offline. :)

Lucian

Could you link specific servers? I've looked at many graphs for UWE servers and haven't seen any fps spikes.

Silent262

Hopefully seeing their own servers tank will spur some more optimizations :fingerscrossed:. Keep it coming guys ! So far so good!

male_fatalities

Completely agree, I tell everyone I know to avoid the game.on.net and UWE Official servers. They are VERY overloaded

Hugh

I can't see any evidence of tick-rate drops in any of those graphs. My experience with playing in the official servers has been very positive, even better than my own privately owned 4.4Ghz NS2HD servers.

If you can provide specific evidence, rather than a 1,000+ line webpage for me to sort through, then I will take up the issue with the provider and find the cause.

Also, we don't need to see official servers to be 'spurred' to further optimise the server process. That is an ongoing process.

male_fatalities

<!--quoteo(post=2005697:date=Nov 2 2012, 12:38 PM:name=Strayan (NS2HD))--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Strayan (NS2HD) @ Nov 2 2012, 12:38 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2005697"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I can't see any evidence of tick-rate drops in any of those graphs. My experience with playing in the official servers has been very positive, even better than my own privately owned 4.4Ghz NS2HD servers.

If you can provide specific evidence, rather than a 1,000+ line webpage for me to sort through, then I will take up the issue with the provider and find the cause.

Also, we don't need to see official servers to be 'spurred' to further optimise the server process. That is an ongoing process.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

I don't have this data on me right now, but the 3rd party server browser shows the tick rate of all servers.

In Australia, every official UWE server was full last night. Some were at 4-10 tick rate, others were chugging along at 30. Seems to be no pattern to it..

Hugh

<!--quoteo(post=2005703:date=Nov 2 2012, 12:40 PM:name=male_fatalities)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (male_fatalities @ Nov 2 2012, 12:40 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2005703"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I don't have this data on me right now, but the 3rd party server browser shows the tick rate of all servers.

In Australia, every official UWE server was full last night. Some were at 4-10 tick rate, others were chugging along at 30. Seems to be no pattern to it..<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Thanks, this helps. The standard browser also shows tickrate as a % of 30 ticks (perf column). Could you try screenshotting the browser while this is happening? So I can see the specific servers tanking?

Also, I'm not doubting you guys have seen this. My response above is simply one born of an increasing requirement to see hard evidence before taking action. As the community size has exploded in the past few days, it is very hard to sift anecdote from actual evidence of issues.

Arkanti

<!--quoteo(post=2005703:date=Nov 2 2012, 01:40 PM:name=male_fatalities)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (male_fatalities @ Nov 2 2012, 01:40 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2005703"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I don't have this data on me right now, but the 3rd party server browser shows the tick rate of all servers.

In Australia, every official UWE server was full last night. Some were at 4-10 tick rate, others were chugging along at 30. Seems to be no pattern to it..<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Late game.

Whosat

Yes sir, any late game brings the server performance down. Played last night on UWE Official Singapore (one of the servers, forgot the name)

My first game (joined around the 20+ minute mark) had lots of rubber banding.

This is my lastConnectedServer key: 216.185.114.85:27315

Dusteh

I've also noticed this and it's a shame that the new guys probably aren't to know its a server issue, definitely needs looking into!

The newbies need a good first impression!

-Dusteh (Still on the HBZ servers \o/)

endar

<img src="http://i.imgur.com/OSeVE.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
Heres a screenshot i took at just past midnight. I filtered out all the internode servers, as currently they are extremely overextended at 24 slots.

A[L]C

Out of interest, what spec are the UWE servers?

Whosat

I heard from somewhere that they are 3.5ghz sandy bridge servers.

Dghelneshi

Another example screenshot with even a 9 player server starting to struggle: <a href="https://pickhost.eu/images/0005/5580/2012-11-02_00001.jpg" target="_blank">https://pickhost.eu/images/0005/5580/2012-11-02_00001.jpg</a>

By the way, we need a cyst limit per area. Even with all settings on minimum I can drop from 90 to 30 fps with a room spammed full of cysts and I can imagine the server isn't too happy about it either.

Vitdom

I must say I am very confused right now. I decided to put up a 16p server just to test out if the rumors about the high clock frequency requirement was true. And I am very surprised!

I have had my 16p server <b>running full</b> now for almost 8 hours and I have occasionally played on it FROM THE SAME COMPUTER and sometimes just asked the players through the server interface if the server runs smooth. And EVER SINGLE TIME, it has run very smooth. No lag or any crashes or other weird issues. Some didn't even believe me when I told them the server was running on a 2.2 GHz CPU...

Specs:
16 slots
HP Laptop
Intel Core i7-2670QM 2.2 GHz (4 cores + HT)
6 GB DDR3 RAM
30/30 Mbps low latency fibre optical connection

I sometimes play on other servers and sometimes also UWE official server and they are DEFINITELY More laggy!

And no, I AM NOT KIDDING! (maybe HP/Intel are about my specs but hey why the hell would they do that?)

Dghelneshi

I would really like to believe you Vitdom, but asking pub players whether they experience lag is not the best metric. I have seen players playing on servers below 10 tickrate and not complain at all.

Btw, the CPU goes up to 3.1GHz when stressed. Playing on the same PC usually doesn't matter unless you would somehow encounter a RAM or cache bottleneck since one server and one client do not fully utilize 4 cores anyways.

Vitdom

<!--quoteo(post=2006713:date=Nov 2 2012, 05:31 PM:name=Dghelneshi)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Dghelneshi @ Nov 2 2012, 05:31 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2006713"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I would really like to believe you Vitdom, but asking pub players whether they experience lag is not the best metric. I have seen players playing on servers below 10 tickrate and not complain at all.

Btw, the CPU goes up to 3.1GHz when stressed. Playing on the same PC usually doesn't matter unless you would somehow encounter a RAM or cache bottleneck since one server and one client do not fully utilize 4 cores anyways.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yeah I guess you're right but since I played on the server myself and I found it to be very lag-free and I've played in the beta since at least 198 so I've seen many laggy servers. It goes up to 3.1? Nice, I didn't know that! But I also thought TurboBoost couldn't be active for prolonged periods...

Dghelneshi

<!--quoteo(post=2006750:date=Nov 2 2012, 05:48 PM:name=Vitdom)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Vitdom @ Nov 2 2012, 05:48 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2006750"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->But I also thought TurboBoost couldn't be active for prolonged periods...<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
If it couldn't be active forever it would be a very bad feature. It has different thresholds for different amounts of core stress though, e.g. if all four cores are fully loaded it will probably only reach something like 2.9GHz or so.

On-topic:
Another screenshot: <a href="https://pickhost.eu/images/0005/5585/2012-11-02_00002.jpg" target="_blank">https://pickhost.eu/images/0005/5585/2012-11-02_00002.jpg</a>
And a tickrate graph for one of the NA servers: <a href="https://pickhost.eu/images/0005/5586/NS2_UWE_Server_Tickrate.png" target="_blank">https://pickhost.eu/images/0005/5586/NS2_UW...er_Tickrate.png</a>

It does not seem to affect all servers equally.

Vitdom

<!--quoteo(post=2006765:date=Nov 2 2012, 05:55 PM:name=Dghelneshi)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Dghelneshi @ Nov 2 2012, 05:55 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2006765"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->If it couldn't be active forever it would be a very bad feature. It has different thresholds for different amounts of core stress though, e.g. if all four cores are fully loaded it will probably only reach something like 2.9GHz or so.


Another screenshot: <a href="https://pickhost.eu/images/0005/5585/2012-11-02_00002.jpg" target="_blank">https://pickhost.eu/images/0005/5585/2012-11-02_00002.jpg</a>

It seems to mostly affect EU servers, but that's not conclusive yet.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Thank you for your answer!

By the way, I am receiving several reports about people getting loads of timeouts(within 3 minutes) on all servers in the offical NS2 group chat, but when I try tell them to connect to my server they don't get timeouts???? Two out of two people so far had their timeout issues fixed... I also see in the server console that SOME people do timeout?

Whosat

Vitdom, you wouldn't experience that much lag because you're running it from the same box so your latency is virtually 5-ish ms?

You should take a look at your performance graph using the webinterface for a better metric.

Performance also tends to dip only later in the game

ZEROibis

I think this will give a good idea of the CPU usage of NS2. This is from a Dual Quad 2.66Ghz Xeon box:
<img src="http://ibisgaming.com/media/cpu%20usage.png" border="0" class="linked-image" />

Crap I meant 18 players not 16, sorry about that.

Astrona

current status for EU

time taken arround 15 oclock on sunday
<a href="http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/596985541520606257/6221A729AF7323BFEC3EC46BE6933BE5F36EF142/" target="_blank">http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/596985...933BE5F36EF142/</a>

i like the on with 15/16 playing and 0% Perf <.<

it is sorted by perfomance, filtered out rookies and modded, as you can see uwe server are the worst in comparison.
change sorting to best will mostly display community servers

CLARK_KENT

I'm working with Multiplay (the company that hosts the UWE servers) to improve my gaming community's performance on a server at a Seattle, Washington (North America) location.

Earlier today, they had me on a box within 3 hours. A little bit delayed, but after a couple of follow-ups with their 24/7 support, we got the box working.

Unfortunately, as mentioned earlier in this thread, server rates were extremely variable, ranging from 30 down to 10. For about 2-3 hours we tested with a full server. I wrote them back asking if this was going to be the norm. They said they agreed that the server was performing poorly.

So they switched me to another box with an E3-1270, which I believe is at 3.5 Ghz. Now the box holds server rates fairly steady at around 30 with 16 player slots!!

I'm quite happy with the performance. We just finished an hour long game and the server was really responsive!

I can now honestly highly recommend Multiplay! :)

SERVER INFO:

Multiplay [OldF] Seattle West - oldf.net
<a href="http://ns2servers.devicenull.org/detail.php?id=16114" target="_blank">http://ns2servers.devicenull.org/detail.php?id=16114</a>

Guspaz

Ooh, OldF has an NS2 server? If memory serves, OldF used to be one of my go-to servers whenever Lunixmonster was down or full or whatnot. Since Lunixmonster is still trying to figure out what to do about a server (high requirements and all), I should make Old Fogies the first server I favourite for NS2 :)