Low Server FPS

[Sofabear]

Hi, not sure if this is the correct place to post this but here it goes.

I just have a few questions regarding server fps. On our server when it reaches 20+ players the server fps varies from 3-2 fps, which in my head seems REAL low. It's a 30 slot server, so when we reach 25 or so, then people start having issues logging in and so forth.

Some information about the server.

Script wise this is what we have

 

Mission file scripts:

- Auto refuel by Seven i think it was.

- Custom loadouts (loadout.sqf file)

- Self-bb by krixes

- a MAP folder in mission file with 11 player made areas. With the biggest file being 559kb.

- Choose spawn location by Ebay.

- Deployable bike and Deployable mozzie for donators.

- Snapping script by Otternas3 and Maca

- Emerald Interior Design by Raymix.

- Custom Donation Traders.

 

Serverside scripts:

- 2 custom A.I areas with about 25 A.I on each.

- Infistar AH

- Custom Treasurehunt script

- WAI

 

Now i have tried removing most of these scripts that i thought would be costing alot of server resources, but to no avail. So then my question is could it be the amount of objects in DB? I do cleanups regularly, but since we have a NO PVP server and people are free to build how much they want, it still stacks up pretty quickly, current objects in db is 16K, i know, ALOT. But like i said i do clean up unused stuff everyday and so forth, and at least try to keep it under 20k.

I am renting a server so i do not have the best when it comes to running a good and stable server. My basic.cfg is optimized for the servers use. So any tips on how to improve it would be greatly appreciated.

[Achmed]

Try and disable all ai and see how much better it is.

[Sofabear]

Like i stated above, i have tried removing those scripts i thought would be the worst, this including A.I, but to no avail. My last concern is basically that the hosts i'm renting at don't really have that good specs, but can't find their specs posted anywhere so i've submitted a ticket to ask them that. But thanks for the answer :)

[Carp!]

If you remove the AI and you don't get better performance, its the hardware. AI lock down 1 complete cpu core so if you free that up and still have issues...yeah :(

 

We can look at other things like the RPT file just in case something is spamming you into performance issues :)

[cen]

Not true Carp.

 

I removed all AI from my servers as a test and didn't see any increase in server FPS through an entire restart cycle.

 

Epoch is poorly coded, so you won't get good server FPS no matter what you do.

[Carp!]

I suppose its a matter of interpretation. On my server, disabling the ai keeps server above 30fps (server fps). Enabling them and having them spawn on the map i dont get it back above 30.

Client side i dont fall below 50fps.

RPT would still help us see whats going on Sofa.

[Sofabear]

Alright Carp, here's my rpt from these last few days. Like i said, i tried removing A.I and also cleaning up the database, to removing scripts. Will try with a complete vanillla version av Epoch tomorrow. And see if that makes it better.

Thanks for helping me out here.

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/rvkeor9v93q2yxv/arma2oaserver.RPT

[Carp!]

Only major thing i see in this so far is your network messages which could cause Client lag and fps issues. I would make sure your network settings in your basic.cfg are correct. I know you mentioned it was optimized, but some players are not receiving messages. THis could be also that their connection is bad or have a high ping.

 

Another way we could definitely help is if you enable:

 

DZE_DiagFpsSlow = true; // reports every 5 Min

 

in your init.cfg

 

This would help us confirm if it was network or server side. Put this in for a full restart cycle and repost the rpt.

 

How many objects on your server?

Are you hosting or dedicated?

[Sofabear]

Thanks Carp! Will try it out. I'll post a fresh one tomorrow :)

 

About the basic.cfg file, this is what i've gotten from my hosts now, the specs, any ideas on what type of settings i should go with?

 

Specs:

Internet: Minimum of 100Mbps per second with at least 100Mbps Internet bandwidth. 

              Most links are 1Gbps wth 200Mbps+ Internet bandwith.

 

Serverspecs:

              3.5GHz Quad Core Intel CPU's with SATA HDD's in RAID 1.

[Carp!]

Are those numbers dedicated to you? Most hosts list the specs of the box they use for multiple clients.

Or is this your dedicated machine where you can utilize all of that hardware?

[Sofabear]

Well tbh mate i don't know. Maybe i should subimtt a ticket asking that also? But i suspect it's for each client.

[Carp!]

Oh ok so you have a host. That might make things a little bit difficult because the host usually sets the basic.cfg. Can you link whats in there?

[Sofabear]

I can set the basic.cfg myself so no issues, i have access to most files.

 

Here is what i have in there now.

 

MinBandwidth=1097152;

MaxBandwidth=524288000;

MaxMsgSend=1024;

MaxSizeGuaranteed=512;

MaxSizeNonguaranteed=128;

MinErrorToSend=0.0049999999;

MinErrorToSendNear=0.025;

MaxCustomFileSize=600000;

Windowed=0;

adapter=-1;

3D_Performance=1;

Resolution_Bpp=32;

class sockets

{

maxPacketSize=1400;

};

serverLongitude=2;

serverLatitude=49;

serverLongitudeAuto=2;

serverLatitudeAuto=49;

[Geryon]

Here's what I see in the start up logs:

 

20:02:04 "HIVE: trying to get objects"

20:02:05 "HIVE: found 16391 objects"

20:02:05 "HIVE: Commence Object Streaming..."

20:02:06 "HIVE: got 7288 Epoch Objects and 9103 Vehicles"

 

You might have a server object problem in the object_data table.  If you do have that many objects that's probably the primary reason for your poor server FPS.  That's a lot of objects.   :)

[Sofabear]

Yeah well like i said, we have about 17k objects in the DB, so i suspect that is the issue ofc :) But 9103 vehicles can't be right, i don't think we have more then 300 of them, unless custom maps count as vehicles?

[Geryon]

I'm not entirely sure but certain building objects are considered vehicles.  I believe metal floors as an example.  This is probably skewing the vehicle count.

[Sandbird]

Yeah well like i said, we have about 17k objects in the DB, so i suspect that is the issue ofc :) But 9103 vehicles can't be right, i don't think we have more then 300 of them, unless custom maps count as vehicles?

 

Like i said many times...for epoch, vehicles and buildings are the same thing..you need to run custom SQL queries to retrieve ONLY vehicles..

This is the most reliable, and easy way to retrieve vehicles from the database using queries....period.

[Flosstradamus]

 

I can set the basic.cfg myself so no issues, i have access to most files.

 

Here is what i have in there now.

 

MinBandwidth=1097152;

MaxBandwidth=524288000;

MaxMsgSend=1024;

MaxSizeGuaranteed=512;

MaxSizeNonguaranteed=128;

MinErrorToSend=0.0049999999;

MinErrorToSendNear=0.025;

MaxCustomFileSize=600000;

Windowed=0;

adapter=-1;

3D_Performance=1;

Resolution_Bpp=32;

class sockets

{

maxPacketSize=1400;

};

serverLongitude=2;

serverLatitude=49;

serverLongitudeAuto=2;

serverLatitudeAuto=49;

 

I would tone your maxmsgsend to something lower and the sizeguaranteed as well. Put maxmsgsend to 128 and the sizeguaranteed to 256 and see how that runs

[Sofabear]

Flosstradamus. Thanks for the tip, i did that but the loading times got terrible :( So i've adjusted them a bit, gonna see how it runs now.

Carp! heres an Rpt file after one restart cycle with DZE_DiagFpsSlow = true; // reports every 5 Min enabled.

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/rvkeor9v93q2yxv/arma2oaserver.RPT

 

After a quick scan i couldn't see anything new when i had enabled that, what's it supposed to do? :)

 

Funny part is most servers admins i've spoken to have decent-good server fps even with heavily modded epoch servers. both dedicated and hosted.

I mean it can't be normal to get 3-4 fps when 20+ players get on, even when i tried vanilla epoch it was the same.. Maybe time to switch hosts :(

[Carp!]

Flosstradamus. Thanks for the tip, i did that but the loading times got terrible :( So i've adjusted them a bit, gonna see how it runs now.

Carp! heres an Rpt file after one restart cycle with DZE_DiagFpsSlow = true; // reports every 5 Min enabled.

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/rvkeor9v93q2yxv/arma2oaserver.RPT

 

After a quick scan i couldn't see anything new when i had enabled that, what's it supposed to do? :)

 

Funny part is most servers admins i've spoken to have decent-good server fps even with heavily modded epoch servers. both dedicated and hosted.

I mean it can't be normal to get 3-4 fps when 20+ players get on, even when i tried vanilla epoch it was the same.. Maybe time to switch hosts :(

 

Wow man yeah i dont see fps like that with 30 ppl on farming the raids. It could be the fact you are on a host. I would investigate your object thing too. Even if you have 7k objects, not including the cars though, you will be laggy. I pay $76/mo for a dedicated host. Affordable because i have donator perks so that helps.

 

Might be time to do some sql maintenance to clean out some of the old entries.

[Sofabear]

Yeah. One thing is tho that we don't experience any lag, at least 90% of our players don't, so thats also very weird.

 

Really, where do you "rent" that dedicated server? :) 

[Carp!]

You are probably looking at either a host or objects issue or a combo of both. A dedicated server could handle 7k objects much better than a host that shares the resources can.

 

I use a company called Cloud South, under my signature :)

[Sofabear]

Oh cool. How's their support team? and which one of those packages should i choose? a noob when it comes to hosting dedicated.

[Carp!]

Well I chose the lowest plan, but realized a 2.5ghz cpu was not fast enough so i had them upgrade me to x5660's for a bit more.

 

Since its an actual datacenter, you get much better response than a gaming host. Most tickets answered in a few hours.

[Uro]

Optimize your custom map areas and load them server side.

 

No point making clients load map objects if the sever loads them anyway (objects whem optimised, otherwise they are vehicles). Causes extra client-client/client-server updates, will drop your fps.

 

- a MAP folder in mission file with 11 player made areas. With the biggest file being 559kb.

 

Thats quite a lot of extra vehicles if your extra map areas aren't optimised and loaded server side.

 

See this thread:

 

 

Also this post within that thread:

 

page-4#entry34780

 

Those should help you on your custom map areas. :)

[Sofabear]

Thanks Uro1, already removed the custom maps and made my own custom areas, and still working on some. Did optimize them and i saw the vehicle count go lower. Saw some improvement on the server fps side, but only with 1-2 fps, so not that much, but any little bit helps. The client fps is good, with most players averaging 30-40 fps, even when full server. The weird thing is that even with vanilla epoch, the server fps was low, so i am thinking it's the amount of objects in database basically, can't be anything else then?