I installed the patch today and my CPU utilization is down 15%. Although, the pings were not affected much at all. Keep up the work team. Some improvement is WAY better than no improvement!
Really? The patch hasnt helped CPU usage on my server at all. My server machine isnt exactly amazing - P400 Celeron with 380 megs of RAM, but it can handle 3, 12 player TFC / CS servers quite happily, yet the 1 NS server on its own is maxing out the CPU at 7-8 players.
I understand that NS is more complex than most mods, but you have to understand that if you need a 1.8+GHZ machine with 512 megs of ram dedicated to running just 1 server then the mod isnt going to catch on at all because servers will be <b>expensive</b>. Surely there has to be a memory leak or something somewhere? I dont see how it can be so complex it maxes out my 400 at 8 players <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='confused.gif'><!--endemo-->
I'd make some coding suggestions but I have no idea how the server is coded <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo--> I've noticed the memory usage is constantly changing - probably to do with memory saving routines. Perhaps switch to using more fixed length variables as they're much nicer on the CPU although they use more RAM... I wouldnt mind the server usign more ram if it got the CPU usage down!
CPU usage is most definitely better. Since the patched I upped my maxplayers from 17 to 19 (one so I can take a reserved spot) and even with that my cpu usage has dropped 15-20%. Keep up the good work! <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->. I also agree with the post above me that a couple dozen more megs of RAM usage for less CPU utilization would be useful. I've got 512Megs to use up here and I'm only using 13% right now. I think most other rigs that can handle large servers would also have at least that much RAM so I don't think it would be a big deal.
The patch hasnt really effected ping times at all <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='sad.gif'><!--endemo--> dont run a server but today on a nearby 1.01 server I got pings of 4000+ plus. <!--emo&:angry:--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/mad.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='mad.gif'><!--endemo-->
I have noticed significant improvement with about a 50% reduction in pings... however pings still lie in the 300-400 range at heavy load times. I imagine that the code will be more optimized as time passes so one can't expect miracles with the first releases but the future looks very bright indeed <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
-Rev. Eternal Darkness GP's Natural Selection Server 209.75.97.6:27015
Great guys. Here are som additional sure-fire ways to reduce CPU usage (especially over time), and to help keep 'lag' lower:
The network usage is actually quite a bit less than CS due to better optimization, so your connection speeds are not the issue. It's still CPU processing the resource model, 100x extra entities, and other aspects that a CS server doesn't have to track. There are some things you can do though:
1. Do not run HLTV proxy or allow HLTV connections
2. Knock your player count down by 2 slots (maybe do this after step 3, waiting on results).
3. Shorten your mp_timelimit to be 15 minutes. This will ensure that there are not too many round resets before there is a map cycle. There are some bugs which cause certain entitites to linger after a round resets which only a map change will clear. This is part of the reason a 2 hour game will cause more and more bogging on the CPU.
We're working with Valve to get some clues on some of the processing bottlenecks (some of which are HL engine issues at their core - it was never designed to do this!), so we should have yet another server patch in some time.
<!--QuoteBegin--Sintri+Nov 8 2002, 01:15 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Sintri @ Nov 8 2002, 01:15 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->how are you guys using more than 7% of your cpus?<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> For my machine anyway, it really depends on the map that is currently being played. Eclipse, Nancy, etc seem to hang around the 10% - 15% mark, while Hera gets up over 50% for the entire round.
My machine, a 10 player 1.3 GHz Athlon T-Bird, 2048 MB SD-RAM, SuSE Linux 8.0, I get about 70-80% CPU usage all the time. No HLTV. Ping's have gone down a bit (50-100 ms, depending on the map), but the patch doesn't seem to have helped CPU usage much.
I don't use my machine for anything other than the server and firewall, so high CPU doesn't concern as much as it probably should. I'm not saying I wouldn't like to see it lower, however.
Comments
I understand that NS is more complex than most mods, but you have to understand that if you need a 1.8+GHZ machine with 512 megs of ram dedicated to running just 1 server then the mod isnt going to catch on at all because servers will be <b>expensive</b>. Surely there has to be a memory leak or something somewhere? I dont see how it can be so complex it maxes out my 400 at 8 players <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='confused.gif'><!--endemo-->
I'd make some coding suggestions but I have no idea how the server is coded <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo--> I've noticed the memory usage is constantly changing - probably to do with memory saving routines. Perhaps switch to using more fixed length variables as they're much nicer on the CPU although they use more RAM... I wouldnt mind the server usign more ram if it got the CPU usage down!
PS, what FPS are people getting on their servers?
95% -> 88%
w00t
dont run a server but today on a nearby 1.01 server I got pings of 4000+ plus. <!--emo&:angry:--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/mad.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='mad.gif'><!--endemo-->
-Rev. Eternal Darkness
GP's Natural Selection Server 209.75.97.6:27015
The network usage is actually quite a bit less than CS due to better optimization, so your connection speeds are not the issue. It's still CPU processing the resource model, 100x extra entities, and other aspects that a CS server doesn't have to track. There are some things you can do though:
1. Do not run HLTV proxy or allow HLTV connections
2. Knock your player count down by 2 slots (maybe do this after step 3, waiting on results).
3. Shorten your mp_timelimit to be 15 minutes. This will ensure that there are not too many round resets before there is a map cycle. There are some bugs which cause certain entitites to linger after a round resets which only a map change will clear. This is part of the reason a 2 hour game will cause more and more bogging on the CPU.
We're working with Valve to get some clues on some of the processing bottlenecks (some of which are HL engine issues at their core - it was never designed to do this!), so we should have yet another server patch in some time.
For my machine anyway, it really depends on the map that is currently being played. Eclipse, Nancy, etc seem to hang around the 10% - 15% mark, while Hera gets up over 50% for the entire round.
I don't use my machine for anything other than the server and firewall, so high CPU doesn't concern as much as it probably should. I'm not saying I wouldn't like to see it lower, however.