The Choke Analysis Thread...
Nemesis_Zero
Old European Join Date: 2002-01-25 Member: 75Members, Retired Developer, NS1 Playtester, Constellation
Old European Join Date: 2002-01-25 Member: 75Members, Retired Developer, NS1 Playtester, Constellation
This is the place for you to report details on server performance issues with 3.0 final. So far, the informations we've got give us this picture:
<ul><li>The problem is limited to Windows machines.</li><li>It is connected to the number of player slots, not the number of players, on the system.</li><li>Most setups experience exponentially big problems beyond 20 slots.</li><li>Combat seems to be less affected than Classic.</li></ul>
If you have additional or contradicting informations, please post below. I trust you to be able to add the necessary technical statistics yourself, but just to be sure, please include at the least:<ul><li>The specs of your system.</li><li>The CPU load you are experiencing.</li><li>All metamods and plugins you are running.</li></ul>
Go!
<ul><li>The problem is limited to Windows machines.</li><li>It is connected to the number of player slots, not the number of players, on the system.</li><li>Most setups experience exponentially big problems beyond 20 slots.</li><li>Combat seems to be less affected than Classic.</li></ul>
If you have additional or contradicting informations, please post below. I trust you to be able to add the necessary technical statistics yourself, but just to be sure, please include at the least:<ul><li>The specs of your system.</li><li>The CPU load you are experiencing.</li><li>All metamods and plugins you are running.</li></ul>
Go!
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
Although I have noticed a few oddities that have occured since adding metamod and amxx to only run reserved slots and admin commands.
These include:
Random kicking of almost every player at the end of the map.
The player going invisible when building (as noted in the CM forum)
Other than this No performace issues for me atleast.
Specs:
Windowsxp
Server target fps 250 (using flash trick)
2.8 pent w/HT
2gig ram
16 player max
Cpu usage with 16 players on an NS map towards the end of the game: 60% cpu usage with fps dipping down to 90s-140s. This is much like what beta5 did.
This could be a mod/pluggin problem.
That is not related to the thread...
Nemesis asked to post if you are having chokes/performance problems.
If you want, please make a new thread.
Server Environment:
1.1 mb SDSL (nothing else on the circuit)
2.66Ghz
512mb RAM
Windows Server 2000
18 player (19 slots, 1 hidden. Will always kick 1 to keep the server at 18 according to priority)
Combat only
Metamod & Amxmodx (extralevels, latejoin, selfweld, parasite remover and a few other plugins)
Conditions:
Server full at 18 players.
Map CO_Niveus, CO_Faceoff and CO_Daimos
I played 3.0 finaly for the first time last night and entered on co_niveus. I remember the map lagging the server a bit during the beta 6 stages but only saw a touch in the 2 rounds I played last night
CO_Faceoff was another matter entirely. We were playing along and got fairly deep into the round when the pings went up dramatically (around 350-500ms per player). They would stay there for 10-15 seconds at a time then drop back to normal.
I jumped on the server and checked the CPU but never saw it go above 25% (or so). I didnt notice any latency between me and the server itself (terminal services) which is usually an indication that all of the bandwidth is being utilized. unfortunately I didnt have my other laptop out or I could have monitored it realtime.
When CO_Daimos came up in the rotation, I did not see any lag issues like faceoff.
I can try yanking all of the plugins but as it doesn't appear to be a cpu issue (at least on my end), I don't know if that will prove anything.
I would be more than happy to set aside a server to use for testing if one is needed.
*edit: grepdashv was on the server during the time and mentioned the lag issue.
Optimised Linux Kernel 2.6.10 at 200HZ
Gentoo Distro
Intel Pentium 4 2.4C GHz with HT enabled
Intel 875P Chipset (Intel® Entry Server Board S875WP1-E)
1024MB RAM
CPU Load: 80 to 90%
24 players slot at max gives the CPU load as stated.
No mods or additional stuff installed on NS Classic map.
The Beta 5 gives about 70 to 80%, 10% lower.
Still acceptable when playing. Doesn't lag too bad, but best if it can be improved.
Here are it's specs.
Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition
Pentium 4 CPU 2.80GHZ
1 GB RAM
Classic maps only
Usually around 26-27 players.
At 27 players, CPU usage is at 95%. This is with metamod and amxx. Virtually only basic plugins for admins.
----------------------------------------
; AMX Mod X plugins
; Admin Base - Always one has to be activated
admin.amxx
amxbans.amxx ; admin base (required for any admin-related
; Basic
admincmd.amxx ; basic admin console commands
adminslots.amxx ; slot reservation
; Menus
menufront.amxx ; front-end for admin menus
cmdmenu.amxx ; command menu (speech, settings)
plmenu.amxx ; players menu (kick, ban, client cmds.)
; Chat / Messages
adminchat.amxx ; console chat commands
antiflood.amxx ; prevent clients from chat-flooding the server
scrollmsg.amxx ; displays a scrolling message
imessage.amxx ; displays information messages
; NS Specific plugins
nscommands.amxx ; extra commands for Natural-Selection
unstuck.amxx ; Free stuck players (engine & ns modules
; Custom - Add 3rd party plugins here
serverrules.amx
crabmapmanager.amxx
amxbans_menu.amxx
flash24_rti.amxx
-----------------------------------
;metamod
win32 addons\amxmodx\dlls\amxmodx_mm.dll
win32 addons/metamod/dlls/booster_mm.dll
------------------------------
when the game starts, pings are usually in the double digits. by 10 minutes, they jump to the hundreds.
WITHOUT metamod and amxx, cpu usage drops down to around 50-60% which is very high without plugins.
Linux OS (Distribution unknown)
Dual Xeons 3.06Ghz
2GB Memory
18 player max server
Metamod 1.17.4
Amxx 1.00
Initially the symptoms were as follows:
-Average server ping was 70ms with 15 players or below
-As soon as 16 players connected, average ping would jump to 230ms
-When player count dropped below 16 again, ping would average 70ms
To test the system, I completely removed AMXX and left Metamod 1.17.4 on. With this setup, the ping spikes rarely occured and average ping held at 70ms even for 18 players.
I then reloaded AMXX, but disabled all plugins but admin.amxx. The original symptoms then returned.
So, at least for my system, Metamod has no effect. AMXX is excasterbating whatever problems currently exist, even with only the base admin.amxx plugin loaded. So here the problem is either in that plugin or the AMXX module itself.
I tried running a similar test using Adminmod and, while the ping remained at a 70ms average for 18 players, it would randomly crash the server due to a null pointer error. So switching to Adminmod is not currently an option.
-Brackhar
ATI Radeon 9200, AMD 1900, 512 mb ram.
My sv_maxrate was set to 20,000 (the default I assume). I dropped it down to 8000 and will test tonight.
Win2k3 Enterprise
AMD Athlon TBird 1.33ghz
1gb PC133 RAM
..that's all that really matters, the server I'll be building Wednesday for it is:
Win2k3 Enterprise
AMD Athlon Barton 3000+ OCd to 2.5ghz
512mb PC3200 Corsair RAM
I have bots enabled (RCBots) and with 8 bots and 8 players, the CPUs usually completely maxed out, dropping frames like crazy. Hence the update from my old 5 year old system that got assigned the arduous task of "server."
My Metamod plugins:<!--c1--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>CODE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='CODE'><!--ec1-->win32 addons/amxmodx/dlls/amxmodx_mm.dll AMX Mod X
win32 ../rcbot/dlls/HPB_bot.dll RCBotDebug
win32 addons/gweb/dlls/gweb.dll Grapple Webs
win32 addons/awards/dlls/mm_award.dll Awards
win32 addons/rspores/rspore_mm.dll Res Spores
win32 addons/lerklift/dlls/lerklift.dll Lerk Lift
win32 addons/mansiege/dlls/ManualSiege_MM.dll Manual Siege
win32 addons/selfweld/dlls/selfweld.dll Self Weld
win32 addons/shealth/dlls/structurehealth.dll Structure Health
win32 addons/armrheal/dlls/armoryheal_mm.dll Armory Heal
win32 addons/fireworks/dlls/fireworks_mm.dll Fireworks
win32 addons/lasersight/lasersight_mm.dll Laser Sight
win32 addons/offthehive/dlls/offthehive_mm.dll Off The Hive!
win32 addons/jpn/dlls/jpn.dll JetPack Nerf
win32 addons/bleed/dlls/marinebleed_mm.dll Marine Bleed
win32 addons/parasite/pra_mm.dll Parasite Removal
win32 addons/cpustat/dlls/cpustat_ns_mm.dll CPU stats<!--c2--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--ec2-->
My AMXX plugins:<!--c1--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>CODE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='CODE'><!--ec1-->; AMX Mod X plugins
; Admin Base - Always one has to be activated
admin.amxx ; admin base (required for any admin-related)
; Basic
admincmd.amxx ; basic admin console commands
adminhelp.amxx ; help command for admin console commands
multilingual.amxx; Multi-Lingual management
; Menus
menufront.amxx ; front-end for admin menus
cmdmenu.amxx ; command menu (speech, settings)
plmenu.amxx ; players menu (kick, ban, client cmds.)
mapsmenu.amxx ; maps menu (vote, changelevel)
; Chat / Messages
adminchat.amxx ; console chat commands
antiflood.amxx ; prevent clients from chat-flooding the server
scrollmsg.amxx ; displays a scrolling message
imessage.amxx ; displays information messages
adminvote.amxx ; vote commands
; Map related
nextmap.amxx ; displays next map in mapcycle
timeleft.amxx ; displays time left on map
; Configuration
pausecfg.amxx ; allows to pause and unpause some plugins
; NS Specific plugins
idlekicker.amxx ; kicks idle players
nscommands.amxx ; extra commands for Natural-Selection
unstuck.amxx ; Free stuck players (engine & ns modules required!)
; Custom - Add 3rd party plugins here
lerkspike.amxx ; lerk spike enabler
rules.amxx ; display rules
latejoin.amxx ; late join xp giver
cache.amxx ; file cacher
psychosounds.amxx; user triggered sounds
god.amxx ; supreme being
comBalanceXX.amxx; combalance
ps-mysql-all.amxx; psychostats
teamres.amxx ; show team resources
spawninv.amxx ; spawn camping prevention
rate_manager.amxx; rate manager
c_limitplus.amxx; building limiter
donate.amxx ; donation manager
icons.amxx ; admin icons
waypointsfix.amxx; waypoints fixer
misc.amxx ; misc plugins<!--c2--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--ec2-->
After a 35ish minute test of just generic building on ns_metal (with no plugins on), the server went absolutely insane, pouring <!--c1--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>CODE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='CODE'><!--ec1-->L 03/07/2005 - 17:12:35: AvHVisibleBlipList::AddBlip(356.023621, 2055.849121, -1151.968750, status: 7): Can’t add blip, max limit 64 reached.<!--c2--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--ec2--> by the ton, until we figured it was too many objects in the game, and started recycling en masse, but in just over 8 minutes of horrendus lag, we got it under control, I went and looked in the logs, and <b>it spammed that error 61,233 times</b>... CPU usage actually topped out around 35% for the server itself under normal conditions with I think 6 people and quite a few structures. CPU usage was ~80 meg...
So I'd say the CPU based lag/choke is derived from some plugin, I'll go try each plugin one by one to see if theres a big massive jump in CPU usage later, I have too much stuff to do today to do it right now unfortunately.
I've been having lag problems with the new version too. As it came around the exact same time of my hdd crash, I though it had something to do with that, but I'm starting to think it's the game.
I'm on 56k, so I've never gotten a *good* ping, but, during b5 and the b6 tests, I would get 200-350, playable, if choppy. Now, after 3.0f, the second I get any action on my screen it shoots up to 800 and higher.
Intel P4 2.0 GHz
512 DDRRAM
120 GB 7200 rpm (only spec that has changed since b5/6)
GeForce 2 MX
The server I frequent has 20 slots, this lag happens no matter how many players are actually on. It is a windows box. Specs are (taken from host site, not specific to the box):
Tyan Tiger i75xx motherboards
Dual Intel Xeon processors ranging in speed from 2.0 Ghz each to 3.06 Ghz each.
2.0 to 4.0 GBs of PC-2100 and 2700 DDR
Dual Seagate Barracuda 18 GB Drives
Integrated Intel 82551 Fast Ethernet controllers
Integrated ATI Rage XL video
It is running a admin mod and AMXx, with a number of plugins, including spawn invul, self weld, lerk lift and donateres (non-functional in the new version). I don't have access to a full list.