Be aware that the power settings have very different effects based on what
power options are configured in the machines bios settings, so also make sure
you have the right options configured there too.
I case people where wondering setting affinity your RO2 server process won't
give it exclusive access to that core that unless all other processes have
their affinity also set and exclude this core. Its also not a good idea to
change the affinity of OS processes unless you know exactly what your doing as
this can produce strange issues.
Regards
Steve
----- Original Message -----
From: John Gibson
To: Half-Life dedicated Win32 server mailing list ; TWI Server Admins
Sent: Saturday, September 17, 2011 2:44 AM
Subject: [TWI Serveradmins] Red Orchestra 2 Server Performance Tips and Notes
Everyone,
I've put together some tips and notes for server performance with Red
Orchestra 2. Please read this if you are hosting a server for the game, as
there is some very important information here.
Windows 2008 R2 Only
- This is a big one. In the power settings there are two options "Balanced"
and "High Performance". I believe 2008 defaults to "Balanced", but the server
will run poorly like this. You must set this to "High Performance". A server
admin reported changing this decreased his CPU usage 50% on one core (the main
game core). In other words, his server was performing terrible before, and
setting this gave him great performance.
- Windows Firewall: We've seen on some machines that for some reason Windows
Firewall will throttle the bandwidth (and sometimes even stop the net traffic
for a few seconds). If you experiencing strange times where the server stops
sending network traffic altogether for a few seconds, this is probably the
culprit. Try turning it off, and see if the problem goes away. It did on our
servers. Other server admins have reported they never saw this issue.
Processor Affinity
- I don't know how many server admins I've seen complaining about server
performance, and one of the first things they mention is "well I didn't set the
affinity". Unless you are running virtualization (which I don't suggest) and
the virtualization or some other software that is setting the affinity for you,
you MUST set the affinity to get the best performance out of the game. The game
thread needs exclusive access to a single core. Otherwise the OS will have it
thrashing between cores which will cause the CPU load to go up, as well as
pings and lag. I'm really serious on this one, it is a huge benefit to the way
the server runs when it is near or at peak load.
- Don't set the affinity for more than one server to the same core: this one
should go without saying, but if you do set your affinity, don't set multiple
64 player servers to the same core :) Havoc ensues. Give each server process
it's own exclusive core for the game thread.
- Give the server its own physical core. If a server has hyperthreading on,
then you should use all even or all odd cores for your affinity. You want to do
0,2,4,6 or 1,3,5,7, as that will be separate physical cores. If you do 0 and 1
with hyperthreading on, that will be the same physical core and will overload
the CPU
Here is the commandline switch:
-PREFERPROCESSOR=x (where x=0,1,2, ...)
So for example:
-PREFERPROCESSOR=0
Would set the game thread's affinity to the first core.
Virtualization
- Most poeple have not had good results with virtualization and the RO2 game
server. I would suggest at this point to avoid running with virtualization. I
have had reports of servers that would peak thier CPU at 20 players when using
virtualization, when the same machine would run 64 player easily without
virtualization. With that said, I have also heard some server hosts/admins have
had good results with virtualization, and I would be very interested to hear
what software and configuration you are using.
Running Over Recommended Specs
- Please try and keep reasonably close to the Recommended Specs. We've seen a
lot of poeple pushing thier machines WAY past the recommended specs. Doing so
will only result in a laggy experience for your players, who will in turn leave
your server, or our game. And more often than not, they will blame Tripwire and
not the server admin. Here are the recommended specs we determined during the
beta. Note: we actually got some decent optimization between beta and retail
which gained us 10-15% better performance over the beta on the server. Still, I
wouldn't suggest going TOO far over these:
32 Players: CPU usage - 1 Core of a 2.6 GHZ Core I7 or equivalent (i.e. the
server process will take most of 1 core, with a few smaller threads on other
cores). We also tested on an Intel Core2 Quad Q8400 @ 2.66GHz and that could
handle 32 players but I wouldn't try and do 32 players with a machine much
slower than that.
64 Players: Goal CPU usage - 1 Core of a Intel Xeon E3-1270 3.4 GHZ (3.8 GHZ
actually with Turbo enabled) or equivalent (i.e. the server process will take
most of 1 core, with a few smaller threads on other cores).
Strange Lag/Ping Anomalies
- There have been reports of strange ping/lag anomalies not related to CPU
usage (i.e. servers running fine, then pings climb really high for everyone for
an extended period of time, then go back to normal). I've finally been able to
reproduce this on our test servers (by reproduce I mean see it happen first
hand). It is very rare on my test servers (in 5 days of the servers running 64
players 24/7 this is the first time I've seen it). I'm probably going to need
to build in some logging into the next update to give me more data on why/when
this is happening so that I can track down the cause. I'll be looking for
volunteers to turn on this logging and give me thier data. I've got some ideas
what it might be, but I need to know for sure.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
_______________________________________________
Serveradmins mailing list
[email protected]
http://list.tripwireinteractive.com/mailman/listinfo/serveradmins_list.tripwireinteractive.com
================================================
This e.mail is private and confidential between Multiplay (UK) Ltd. and the
person or entity to whom it is addressed. In the event of misdirection, the
recipient is prohibited from using, copying, printing or otherwise
disseminating it or any information contained in it.
In the event of misdirection, illegible or incomplete transmission please
telephone +44 845 868 1337
or return the E.mail to [email protected]._______________________________________________
To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please
visit:
http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds
