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 Post subject: Server performance
PostPosted: Mon Dec 01, 2014 6:19 am 
Creampuff
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Joined: Wed Aug 13, 2014 12:16 am
Posts: 10
Location: Sacramento, CA
So being an IT guy and playing on the Gauntlet servers for about 6 monhts now, I've been thinking about server performance lately. What got me thinking about this more was the new deemer madness a001 map Wild created. The concept was sound, but it's impossible to play, even with just 1 player present.

So I started thinking about possible bottlenecks that might be impeding performance. WHY would just a single player not be able to play? Is the server CPU being maxed out? Is the upload speed from the server too low? This game is from 1999. There are people who play on this server who weren't even BORN yet when this game came out. Desktop computers are many many times more powerful than a computer from the year 2000. The same goes for internet speeds. So when a game from 1999 slows down, you have to ask "Why?".

If someone has already come to a conclusion as to why it's happening, chime in... however, below are some bottlenecks that come to mind.

1. CPU
Unless the UT99 server is running inside a virtual machine, CPU most likely isn't a constraint. CPU usage can be monitored in Windows using task manager, while the UT99 server is running

2. Bandwidth (upload) on server
If the UT99 server is running on a home internet connection, upload speeds are usually paltry compared to download speeds. Network statistics (up and down) can also be monitored within Windows' task manager

3. UT99 server
It's also possible a configuration or even a limitation in the UT99 software. With the configuration of the UT99 server, there may be a setting in the unrealtournament.ini to accommodate the increased number of objects (I mean, the game wasn't originally designed to track 1,000 monsters), or even the increased amount of data to send out to each client (MaxClientRate?) . There is also the possibility that the UT99 code was never designed to handle that large an amount of 'actors'. If that's true, there may be nothing that can be done.

I realize this may have already been addressed, and maybe the problem has already been identified. It's just such a shame that an astoundingly fun game has to ruined by 'old age'.

I leave the floor open. :D


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 Post subject: Re: Server performance
PostPosted: Mon Dec 01, 2014 10:29 pm 
Admin Wizard
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Joined: Mon Jun 20, 2011 5:40 am
Posts: 3028
What's really strange about the problem is that it only happens on the New server the maps works just like it should on the Main server. Maybe this is a question for Federalization (author of Nali Weapons 3) but I think that Nali Weapons 3 is responsible somehow. Maybe it uses some calculations that's performance fails depending on how large a distance is or how big an area is. If I knew an answer from him then perhaps I could address the problem in the Nali Weapons configuration.

Also our cheap ass hosts probably virtualize all their servers for all I know. Wouldn't surprise me one bit

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 Post subject: Re: Server performance
PostPosted: Tue Dec 02, 2014 5:27 am 
Creampuff
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Joined: Wed Aug 13, 2014 12:16 am
Posts: 10
Location: Sacramento, CA
Our server admins at work are virtualizing all of our servers right now. One of the servers which I use for desktop imaging suffered a severe performance degradation after virtualizing, and I had to re-write some of the scripts to accommodate the extra compiling time... along with some bitching and moaning. Do you have the entire server and maps zipped and able to be ran on another system? Testing the server running on a physical server vs virtual could determine where the bottleneck is coming from... and besides, I really wanna play that deemer madness map. :)


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 Post subject: Re: Server performance
PostPosted: Tue Dec 02, 2014 6:23 am 
Admin Wizard
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Joined: Mon Jun 20, 2011 5:40 am
Posts: 3028
An interesting test to conduct! I can run a clone of the server off my machine and see if the performance changes.
I feel that it won't help too much from a slight performance increase, not sure. Whatever the server is doing that's causing it to time out players that hard it's probably not very efficient.

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 Post subject: Re: Server performance
PostPosted: Fri Dec 05, 2014 6:24 am 
Creampuff
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Joined: Wed Aug 13, 2014 12:16 am
Posts: 10
Location: Sacramento, CA
Well I tried playing Thursday night, the new deemer madness, and it's MUCH better. I can now see portals and some monsters. A whole lot more than before. Still having trouble seeing alot of ground-level monsters. Probably just too much viewable on the map.

I think this proves either a network limitation on the host you're using, or CPU bottleneck in a virtual environment. I'm willing to bet the lag in some of the GCX5 maps are also from the same bottleneck.


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