Arma 3 - Altis Life

[dburke87]

So I just recently purchased a 12-core VDS and even added an extra 4 GB of RAM (now @ 16 GB) and 40 GB of SSD space. I've setup an Arma 3 server playing Altis Life, and run the database on the local virtual machine through XAMPP, and for a while everything went well. Now that we've gained some popularity, the Arma server starts crapping out at around 30 players. I've dont a bit of custom work with the mission, but nothing too intensive, but even with that I can't imagine this thing not being able to handle more than 30 players. If anyone is familiar with Arma Server Monitor, the server starts at 40+ FPS/CPS, but then quickly drops to ~20 at just 10 players. At 30, these figures can get as low as 0.5. Anyone have any advice on how to optimize my server so it can handle a greater number of people. Whatever other information you need, let me know (like my Basic.cfg, etc.).

[armalover]

can u help me set up my server for arma 3? I am also trying to do a rpg altis life server but i can figure out how to do it nor can I do anything else as far as setting prices and locations and weapons and vehicles just dont know wtf Im doing.. please help me man

[dburke87]

I understand your frustrations; this was my first-ever attempt at setting up a server and scripting for a game. But, can I suggest that you create a new topic or search this forum and others for information on setup. This forum topic is directed towards something else.

[Caliban55]

So I just recently purchased a 12-core VDS and even added an extra 4 GB of RAM (now @ 16 GB) and 40 GB of SSD space. I've setup an Arma 3 server playing Altis Life, and run the database on the local virtual machine through XAMPP, and for a while everything went well. Now that we've gained some popularity, the Arma server starts crapping out at around 30 players. I've dont a bit of custom work with the mission, but nothing too intensive, but even with that I can't imagine this thing not being able to handle more than 30 players. If anyone is familiar with Arma Server Monitor, the server starts at 40+ FPS/CPS, but then quickly drops to ~20 at just 10 players. At 30, these figures can get as low as 0.5. Anyone have any advice on how to optimize my server so it can handle a greater number of people. Whatever other information you need, let me know (like my Basic.cfg, etc.).

Fist, XAMPP in a public server enviroment is a very bad idea, it should not be used. Try to use MySQL instead.

Second, what actually leads to this behavior can be a bit difficult to find out, but let's try (when you refer to Arma Server Monitor, you mean the #monitor command?). If a server starts to drop in cimputational frames, this is usually the result of code that is cleanly coded and starts to drag down the complete server, if you execute it per client, you only multiply this.

To get a bit more info, try to run a clean version of Altis life, which is completley unmodifid and monitor the server computational cycles with the #monitor command. Could also be a good idea to clean the MySQL database (make a backup first!).

[dburke87]

Again, I'm pretty new to this, but isn't XAMPP just an install package for things like MySQL, etc. The actual service that is running is MySQL, just it was installed with the XAMPP package. By monitor I mean http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.p ... -useful%29. Same thing I presume, just in a nicer form and remote. I'll try and throw up a "test" version with the standard Altis Life mission and see what happens, but what else can I do to isolate these problems? Would my .cfg and profile files reveal anything? Logs? Also, we have added a full suite of custom textures for the cops, and by their very nature, you have to run a script on every machine to get them to show, but otherwise there shouldn;t be anything too heavy.

[Caliban55]

XAMPP is a collection of usefull programs (database server, webserver, etc.). The problem is, that it is not secure to use it on a Internet connected/public server, the programs are not compiled from up-to-date binaries. Even if you apply the "secure mode", it is not really good. In short, don't use XAMPP on a Internet connected server (it's perfectly OK to use it on your home computer for testing).

If just need a database server/webserver, you can use the MySQL community server version and to manage the MySQL server I can recommend the MySQL Workbench - works perfectly, easy to use. Link here:
http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/

http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/tools/

Back to the initial topic.
Your config and profile files are not really important to determine the problems (profile files are not really needed for a server anyway), the .RPT logs can be usefull if there is an error that actually leads to this problem. Please post it, so I can take a look at it.

Custom textures (tricky by the way...) can be added, though this should only be done client-sided through a mod paramter (@whatever_texture_pbo) and this way won't affect a server.

One of the reasons that can result in a server loosing performance over time is by adding objects after objects and the server just can't handle them sooner or later, if they are not also deleted when they are not used anymore, or destroyed.

A 12 core server should be able to handle the Arma 3 instances without any problems.

[dburke87]

Yeah, I definitely know what you mean about the textures. To get it work, we had to send out the setobjecttexture command to every client (incl. JIP), for every textured player. I can imagine that gets a little intensive.

I'll definitely switch out of XAMPP--thanks for the info. Would Arma2NET be able to work with a MSSQL server, or would my best bet be MySQL?

Here's our latest .rpt file as well (.rar). You can effectively see where the server just shuts down. No crashing, but the server just stops executing any commands like syncing or the bank robbery scripts.

It's a long file from nearly 12 hours, but the "Server: Network message 24f9f56 is pending" messages are where everything goes to crap. Also, any insight into the object not found messages? Thanks for all the help by the way; it is very much appreciated.

[dburke87]

I've also noticed that 2 of my virtual cpu cores are essentially maxed out. Any way to get around this?

[Caliban55]

I have never used MSSQL, so I can't say if it will work or not, you would have to try it. MySQL will work though.

Object not found messages: You can ignore those (I do), as there are many reasons for this in a network MP session and most of those you can't influence. I have never seen a session rendered unplayable by this so far.

What worries me a bit more are the scripting errors, especially the one right at the start when sending a public variable over the network fails, because it is not declared properly (in your .RPT file those are lines 371 through 388) associated with "life_server", to be exact vars.sqf, line12.

Further down the .RPT file are several more errors with arrays and such, which should not be there (in the .RPT for example lines 9251 - 9264, which seem to handle some police parts; "function wanted...").

If those are not executed correctly, other parts of the mission will not work/stop working, like your mentioned robbery I could imagine.

To further narrow down the issues, please run a complete clean version of the mission (latest version please), without any Add-Ons loaded that are not required (ASM for example). If the errors are still there, you could inform Tonic to fix those.

As to the VDS cores, leave assigning the cores to the applications, Windows Server usually does a good job there.

[dburke87]

Yeah I've looked at those publicvars several times and cannot for the life of me figure out why I'm getting those errors, but I will take a look again. I'll also load up the originial mod, 3.11 or something I believe, and see what happens. Something tells me I'll still see performance issues with those two cores maxed out, but I will give it a go and convince some people to hop over to that server for some load tests. Still, I'm disappointed with how Arma utilizes my cores. It seems as though the game just won't use more than 2 cores for the heavy loads, and when those get maxed out, the server just stops responding. Perhaps our upcoming move from a 12-core virtual to a 4-core physical box will help, as core for core performance should be greater, right? Thanks again!

[Caliban55]

I have downloaded the latest version and can't find any reference at all in the code to the error around the life_federal_funds_debug variable.

As to the cores: in this particular case, I don't think that it will make a difference as you are seeing those errors even with a few players connected. What you see is a degradation over time due to some mission code not working correctly, additional core usage would not help here.

I also noticed that you are not loading a valid basic.cfg file (server will use a default in this case, but it is a good idea to use a valid file for fine-tuning):
https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/basic.cfg

[dburke87]

Tonic's version does not have that reference. I added it in so I could monitor how much money was in life_federal_funds, without making life_federal_funds a public variable. the undefined variable has since been fixed; I seem to have accidentally deleted the initial creation of that variable. But, this should have little effect because 15 minutes into the game, the variable was being defined anyways. So even though I missed it in the initialization, the variable ultimately got defined.

As for the other undefined variable, life_can_use_artillery, that has also been fixed. This was an issue of one script finishing more quickly than another, so I just made use of a waituntil !isnil.

Still, after fixing the two undefined variables, we see the exact same performance issues. As to the basic.cfg, we do load one. It's called Arma3.cfg under my /users/administrator folder. I load that profile in my startup parameters. These were the exact setup instructions I found under two different ArmA3 dedicated server guides.

Here are its contents:

Code: Select all

language="English";
adapter=-1;
MinBandwidth=12800000;
MaxBandwidth=1073741824;
MaxMsgSend=1024;
MaxSizeGuaranteed=1024;
MaxSizeNonguaranteed=64;
MinErrorToSend=0.003;
MaxCustomFileSize=100000;
Windowed=0;
serverLongitude=0;
serverLatitude=52;
serverLongitudeAuto=0;
serverLatitudeAuto=52;

So, to the best of my knowledge, those two undefined variables should not have ever been an issue. While they were not defined at startup, one was defined immediately afterwards and the other 15 minutes into the game. I presume I'm loading my "basic.cfg" (Arma.cfg) properly, but I could be wrong. So, I circle back to being lost again. However, we just moved to the full-box dedi last night, and we are already seeing massive performance gains. At 40 players, the highest any core reached was ~40%, while the old virtual server saw both cores maxed at 100% around the 40 player mark.

[dburke87]

This is fixed. Two words: power options. I had left the server on balanced power mode since the beginning. Changed it to high performance, and instantly noticed a quadrupling of performance. I'm an idiot.

[Edge100x]

dburke87, thank you for the follow-up on that. I've adjusted the default option now so that others shouldn't see this in the future for new installs.