Thanks for that nice response Kevin. I would like to pimp out (as I do on the steam forums) the advanced tickrate section on serverwiki.org for those of you that have not seen it..
http://www.serverwiki.org/index.php/Advanced_Tickrate Cheers --kennycom ----- Original Message ----- From: "Kevin Ottalini" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <hlds_linux@list.valvesoftware.com> Sent: Tuesday, July 11, 2006 12:58 PM Subject: Re: [hlds_linux] Cpu usage One thing I've found specifically about Source servers is that they do not need, and probably should not be run at anything other then their default ticrates (IE: do not use of the -ticrate launch option). The Source Server engine does not run the same way that HLDS does and does not appear to benefit from higher -ticrate (no matter what players think). Important note: SRCDS -ticrate is not the same as OS ticrate, don't get these two confused. Very specifically, in SRCDS, the game simulation, network loop, and physics simulation are all separate, so raising the SRCDS -ticrate only affects part of what is happening. I've found that raising the SRCDS -ticrate: 1. does not improve accuracy, 2. does not smooth out physics (which has a fixed ticrate all its own), 3. does not lower ping on the network, 4. does not give players smoother performance, and in fact 5. may cause the physics engine to eventually get out of sync which can cause the well known "physical mayhem" syndrome (mostly seen in HL2DM). Raising the HLDS -ticrate has a very definite set of beneficial effects for Servers where the network was serviced faster (lowering latency) and providing smoother gameplay and better accuracy for players in general. This is not true for SRCDS. That all said, for SRCDS there does appear to be a _slight_ benefit from running a high-res timer (OS ticrate) which is the "kernel ticrate" for Linux. SRCDS by default has fps_max set to 300 but without a high-res timer (high OS ticrate) will only run at 66 (or so) much like HLDS. Running the OS ticrate at 1000Hz may cause unnecessary CPU usage however, try running 300Hz to match the 300 fps_max and see if this lowers your CPU usage. The Win32 OS appears to only have an on/off setting for the high-res timer - I can change the timer settings but it has no effect on CPU usage or server FPS. For Win32 SRCDS Servers (and I suspect Linux as well) lowering the fps_max (to say 66) does not appear to affect CPU usage, but (along with the OS ticrate high-res timer on/off) does affect how the server feels to players. In blind testing I most often get complaints of the SRCDS server feeling "framey" when I lower the server FPS. Some affect of this can be seen by the client with net_graph 1 or 2 as well as with +showbudget (note that use of these will cause the client to feel more "framey"). As a last note, I've found that restarting SRCDS (specifically HL2DM) every couple of days or so really helps to keep the server running smoothly (I suspect especially because of the physics in HL2DM). I usually keep a client attached to the servers as well so I can directly monitor how things are running, and they also need to be restarted every day or two at most. In summary then, for SRCDS: 1. use of the launch option "-ticrate xxx" may cause problems 2. Different settings of fps_max xxx doesn't appear to affect CPU usage, anything above 300 (default) is unnecessary, less then 66 is undesirable. 3. The OS high-res timer (kernal ticrate) does directly affect the actual SRCDS server FPS (for game simulation portions of the server) 4. The OS high-res timer (kernal ticrate) does directly affect the CPU usage (dramatically!) I hope this helps a bit. qUiCkSiLvEr ----- Original Message ----- From: "GoD2.0" To: <hlds_linux@list.valvesoftware.com> Sent: Tuesday, July 11, 2006 7:55 AM Subject: Re: [hlds_linux] Cpu usage I oveserved the fact that windows generaly handles the kernel tickrate it's self, while in linux it is a good ideaa to set it yourself (there is an option during the kernel compilation - timer frequency that is default 250, and should be 1000 for high tickrate servers). Linux generaly works much better with 4 cores, while with 2 cores the difference is not noticeable if you set them right ----- Original Message ----- From: "Kevin Ottalini" To: <hlds_linux@list.valvesoftware.com> Sent: Tuesday, July 11, 2006 10:22 AM Subject: Re: [hlds_linux] Cpu usage Just as a baseline cross-platform comparison, I have three servers running on a new Win2003 server box at a data center. The server is an Intel 3.0GHz HT CPU with 2GB of DDR memory. There is one HLDM (512 FPS, 1KHz ticrate ), one HL2DM (300fps, default (66?) ticrate) and one DOD:S server (300fps, default (66?) ticrate) with 12 player slots each. I also normally run a high-resolution timer. With all three servers full (34 real players), CPU utilization runs ~81%. VAC is enabled for all three servers. Turning off the high-res timer dropped the CPU utilization to ~20%. I'm not posting this to say that Win32 is better or worse then Linux, all I'm reporting is how the Win32 platorm is behaving with current server code (in my mind they should both be very close to each other in performance). qUiCkSiLvEr ----- Original Message ----- From: "Evaldas ÂŽilinskas" To: <hlds_linux@list.valvesoftware.com> Sent: Monday, July 10, 2006 10:55 PM Subject: [hlds_linux] Cpu usage Ok, I don't want to discuss about the current problem with CPUs, because on every srcds site you can see that. I would preffer to see answers. So, yesterday I ran a 24slot server DODs using 66tic. And when people reached the number of 18-20, CPU was ~90%. Is this normal? I mean, that on the same CPU and Linux I can run 2 dod1.3 servers with 32 slot and get ~60-70% CPU. And dod1.3 do update players 100k/s just fine, and here? You have 66updates/s and so high CPU usage. At the momment I'm runing 3.4GHz Pentium4 (800MHz FSB etc, etc...) +2GB DDR*400 and SuSe Linux. Better MHz suggestin is only a 3.8 one, but I don't think that +400MHz will slow my problems. So I know that current SRCDS anticheat system with updates, ticrates a bit slow the aimboting and something like that, but from admin side of this, It's a pain in the ass. Because CPUs with 5GHz haven't showed yet :). What do the people on this list think? Maybe an other beta test would bring the things to the right side? _______________________________________________ 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
