Eric,
Get a copy of pingplotter (www.pingplotter.com) and run it on your
server to a clean destination (perhaps your client machine) and let it run
for a few days or a few weeks.
See if there is any network outage that is in sync with your lag spikes -
you may have to use a 10 second or faster rate to get enough samples but
start with 10.
Put pingplotter on your client machine as well and ping your game server so
you can see if there is a related in-coming outage.
Pingplotter is low overhead and should run on both client and server boxes
with no visible impact to you or to players.
The client side behavior after a lag spike that you describe is "typical"
for a client with a bad update and requires a reconnect for the client or
I've seen starting a demo and stopping it to also fix this sort of problem -
alt tabbing to the desktop and back might also fix this (I didn't find this
as reliable a fix as starting a demo).
If you do see a network outage, let pingplotter run long enough to see if
there is some internal or external event that is related.
For example, I've occasionally see lag spikes in servers on the same server
box being caused by my CSS server changing maps, especially with some
high-demand maps like militia with a lot of bots.
One thing you did not mention in your email was if you are running a
high-res timer or not (I'm assuming this is a Win32 server since you are
posting on the Win32 server email list).
It would help to know what cpu you're using, your network connection and how
many servers you have on that box, also if you are running IIS or any other
web apps on that server box.
qUiCkSiLvEr
----- Original Message -----
From: "Eric van Beesten"
To: "'Half-Life dedicated Win32 server mailing list'"
<hlds@list.valvesoftware.com>
Sent: Monday, April 21, 2008 2:37 AM
Subject: [hlds] lag + screwing things up
> Recently i have posted a message about a big lag spike. No reaction to my
> post means I'm the only one having this problem (or nobody want to reply
> :)
> ). But it occurs me that after a lag spike things aren't in place in the
> map. For example, the closed gates (at the warmup time) at dustbowl are
> turned 90 degrees. You cant actually shoot through it.. but it looks likes
> the doors are open.
>
> Another strange thing I see is that some models (the players) are
> invisible
> after that. They get visible after killing them once (most of the time
> they
> got killed lucky by a pyro or something).
>
> Personally I think the lag is server sided, but the textures that are out
> of
> place are client side.. because not all players have problems with it.
>
> I really hope valve can fix the lag problem. My server can easily handle
> the
> tf2 server, so that isn't the problem.
>
>
>
> ... original email ...
>
> Just a question,
>
> During the day i have a few lagg spikes on my tf2 servers. Those
> laggspikes
> causes to freeze my server for approximus 2 a 3 sec's completely. The
> problem is that I can't monitor the laggspikes, because they only a few
> times a day. I am positive that the laggspike is becoming from my tf2
> server, because if the server is down other server on the same machine
> (warserver css) don't have any freezes anymore. Besides that, my second
> server (also tf2) has the same problem and my third and fourth (no tf2,
> but
> only css) don't have this problem. All those servers have the same
> configuration and almost the same hardware. So I don't think the
> laggspikes
> are coming from the hardware itself. On the server with the laggspike my
> average cpu/mem uses is really low (cpu constantly 12 % and memusage 1 gb
> of
> 4 gb and the harddisk can handle easly the write/read speed). The server
> is
> running, beside some crashes and a few laggspike, really fine!
>
> Hope someone else can confirm this problem/bug!
> Greetz,
> Eric
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