It's to mostly state that he's not using dual 2.8 Xeons to host with. At most he's using ONE virtual cpu to run a single-threaded process. The OS sees each cpu as individuals based on the architecture of the processessor itself. So the OS, most anyway, are only able to utilize 25% of a dual Xeon system in a single thread. Therefore, if this single-threaded application/process is truly single-threaded, as HLDS/SCRDS is, then that's a "virtual" limit of HT itself. Now, with that said there are exceptions to that rule. Mainly with Opterons but in small portions found in a few distros of OSs. Some OSs can better balance a load to a cpu, virtual or real. When one is being used it can move the thread to another cpu (virtual or real) that is free to continue the data stream of said thread. This still is that same one thread of the actual application. Now, in those various OSs you mention, there are balances that will allow a "virtual" cpu to expand it's actual resources into the allotment of it's other half of that same core. Keeping in mind that an HT Intel is still one core. Opteron's Hyper-Transport can balance a thread's load back and forth between real cpus and is the clear advantage over the Intel hardware. So, at most, with the special setup of an OS that you mention it is possible, however unlikely and rare, that he could run that single-threaded application up to the 2.8GHz of one real cpu as long as no other thread needs resources of the other half of that virtual cpu which would take priortity. End result, people think that they can run 64 slot servers of any game that supports it cuz they have dual Xeons forgetting that the actual game engine is single-threaded and cannot be split into two threads to utilize the full resources of a dual cpu system/server (virtual or real). So, ultimately he's running the game engine, at best, on a single Xeon 2.8, 2GB RAM in the data center of his choice only by disabling Intel's HT and insuring that no other thread needs resources of the cpu used to run the actual game engine. Disabling the HT ability in BIOS will increase the hardware's ability to utilize the resources of a full sized Xeon 2.8 and not be limited by resources wanting to use the other virtual half of a cpu. Now, if he overloads the system with 3+ processes that need resources the hardware can't handle then he's reached the limit of his hardware. My comment was mostly to be quick and painless but yet not definitive in its description but a generalized statement to give him a rough idea of what he was actually hosting that single-threaded application on.
Hope that clears things up a bit for the more technically savvy in the list and maybe schools a few intermediate users as well. </end clarification> Ray S. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ian mu Sent: Thursday, September 29, 2005 7:10 PM To: hlds_linux@list.valvesoftware.com Subject: Re: [hlds_linux] Settings suggestions for 32 player DOD:S -- [ Picked text/plain from multipart/alternative ] If he means what I think he does by 1.4, he's incorrect (unless set specifically in kernel, or a certain few dists which you don't have), so thats irrelevant (again unless I misunderstand what is being implied). HT is something people need to get their heads around better and cpu reporting etc. On 9/29/05, Andrew Forsberg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On Thu, 2005-09-29 at 18:16 -0400, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > Umm...comment. > > > > [...]End result, you > > can't run big servers with the HL2 engine no matter your hardware or > network > > settings as it's the core of the engine itself that can't handle it's > > workload in a single-threaded process.[...] > > That sounds quite likely. Seeing as the hl1 engine now has threads for > vac and steam as well as the game proper, I guess we can expect > something similar in the near future for the hl2 engine. > > Cheers > Andrew > > > > _______________________________________________ > To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, > please visit: > http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds_linux > -- _______________________________________________ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds_linux _______________________________________________ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds_linux
