I know this isn't really a list for NS, but there's nothing really I can tweak in Natural Selection, so I figure the more technically minded folks here can help out better.
Is it possible at all to run NS with a decent number of slots under Linux? My machine is a Dual 2.4ghz Xeon, with 1024megs of RAM, running Debian Testing (Sarge). Hyperthreading is enabled. The kernel is 2.6.8.1, and is compiled for both SMP and HT awareness. The server has a fairly heavy load, running one 20 slot UT2K4 Onslaught server, two 20 slot CSS Beta servers with sportatic use, one heavily used 16 slot CS 1.6 server, and a fairly heavily used Natural Selection 3.0 Beta 5 server.. Which originally had 16 slots.. then 14.. and as of last night, 12. NS is a very heavy game with entities and such. It has two play modes, CO (Combat) and NS (The original gameplay mode). The CO maps don't have as many entities, and USUALLY use about as much CPU as CS 1.6 does. The NS maps though are full of entities, tons of objects, and very quickly the server claims towards 99% CPU usage. Then, of course, it begins to lag out, and shoot the pings well above 500, 700, 900, etc. Is there really anything I can do to tweak NS for performance without affecting everything else? I've tried one of the normal tweaks, that is changing the HZ setting in param.h .. I used 500, down from 2.6's normal 1000, which helped some but still not enough to eliminate the lag under really heavy use. The NS server is very popular with the community. So are the CS 1.6 and UT2K4 servers (CSS gets some activity, but until the full release its a non-concern right now). UT2K4 regularly uses 99% of one virtual CPU, but doesn't lag as a result. I believe they have a badly coded wrapper that's eating up wasted cycles. CS 1.6 usually uses 30% to 40% of one virtual CPU. Killing either server off wouldn't help NS performance wise since it still can only use one CPU at a time, and that's regularly 85%+.. It has always been understood that 25% of the machine more or less belonged to UT2K4, but with NS using the same amount of resources, we have half the server locked down by just two games. I've also tried lowering NS's systicrate.. I'm not concerned with above average pings, as long as their STABLE and don't spike wildly. Is there anything at all that can be done to curb NS's CPU usage? _______________________________________________ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds_linux
