Server Performance

OddJob001_XI
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Server Performance

Post by OddJob001_XI »

We have been experiencing server performance issues for about the last 2 weeks. So I have a few questions for you guys. Official Servers can ignore this.

1 - Have you noticed an increase in poor server performance?
2 - I am assuming that you guys also get lag(rubberbanding) on NS maps? Especially Lost Island and Operation Mortar
3 - Have you noticed lag/rubberbanding on your vanilla maps too?
4 - How many plugins do you have running?

Performance has been great up until about 2 weeks ago. I'm not just talking about NS DLC as I think most everyone confirms they have rubberbanding on them. But the concern is we are now starting to see this rubberbanding topple over into standard Vanilla maps.

Trying to get an idea if this is something with our particular setup (plugins/scripts) or if the general population is noticing the same thing.

Thanks, as always.
wihgaming
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Re: Server Performance

Post by wihgaming »

1. Yes. Server performance's been crap for the past several weeks for some reason.
2. Yes. Lag on NS maps. We don't run OpMor. We're seeing lag on Vanilla maps like Wave Breaker and Hainan Resort too.
3. Yes.
4. We have BasicGameInfo, InGameAdmin, Spambot, UltimateMapManager, WatchdogLanguage, Multibalancer.

Players are leaving our server in droves. They're telling us we should dump our server provider and find another as they don't experience this kind of lag on other servers they play on. :/
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soja
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Re: Server Performance

Post by soja »

You can see at any time if it is a hardware issue by looking at the "Server Health" tab. NFO keeps CPU under 40% at all times, and load balancing occurs if the machine goes over 40% for an extended period of time. With this, there is virtually no way hardware performance is the cause of any lag on your BF4 server.
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wihgaming
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Re: Server Performance

Post by wihgaming »

I watch my server very closely. When the CPU % is < 15, I don't see lag or get complaints about lag. When it approaches 18-19%, I start to see lag and get complaints. So i don't think it has to get to 40% to be detrimental to the gaming experience.
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Re: Server Performance

Post by kraze »

wihgaming wrote:I watch my server very closely. When the CPU % is < 15, I don't see lag or get complaints about lag. When it approaches 18-19%, I start to see lag and get complaints. So i don't think it has to get to 40% to be detrimental to the gaming experience.
Not necessarily, but at that range you aren't looking at a box wide issue or even a load issue. Though, your server could be peaking a core. Which could explain any issues you're seeing.

Are you running AutosS for PB?
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Re: Server Performance

Post by wihgaming »

Nope. I used to have PB autoSS on, but I've turned it off for several months now. It's possible it's crappy R32+ server code causing these issues bc before that, I had lag, but nowhere near as bad as it is now.
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Edge100x
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Re: Server Performance

Post by Edge100x »

wihgaming, players in general like to say that problems don't occur elsewhere and guess that they are server-specific or provider-specific. They've been doing it since the beginning. In the case of BF4, other providers use the same hardware that we do (now, at least -- previously, slower machines were more common) and the same server code. Our systems are very good at managing load and other factors, which is why we can say with confidence that they offer the highest performance.

If you have your own dedicated machine and a single game server on it, 12.5% would represent that server using an entire CPU core, so problems at 15% would make some sense if you have a large and intensive server. There's not much we can do about that from our side -- the game uses what it wants to use (given your chosen settings). A different threshold for load-balancing than 40% would also not help us to compensate for that, even on a shared machine. The 40% limit is meant to make sure that there is a lot of headroom, and spare cores, on the machine overall.
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Re: Server Performance

Post by bhzdclan »

we have been rubber banding alot lately also, even with a low player count, too bad it happened right after our 6 month payment. go figure....
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Re: Server Performance

Post by kraze »

If you're seeing issues you should definitely contact us via the "help" tab in your control panel so we can investigate your concerns.
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wihgaming
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Re: Server Performance

Post by wihgaming »

Thanks for the explanation, Edge100x. If their server code is poor, there's not much you nor I can do.
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Re: Server Performance

Post by Edge100x »

There may not be, but we should check to be safe, since we've also seen other reasons for performance problems (routing, 3rd party tools, PB and the PB configuration, Blaze flare-ups, rare hardware concerns, and so on).
OddJob001_XI
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Re: Server Performance

Post by OddJob001_XI »

soja wrote:You can see at any time if it is a hardware issue by looking at the "Server Health" tab. NFO keeps CPU under 40% at all times, and load balancing occurs if the machine goes over 40% for an extended period of time. With this, there is virtually no way hardware performance is the cause of any lag on your BF4 server.
Keep in mind this is the server itself. Not your Xen VM. So the Server Health tab is pretty irrelevant.
Server could be at 5% CPU, but your VM could be at 90%.
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Re: Server Performance

Post by OddJob001_XI »

Since I cant edit the last post...
wihgaming wrote:1. Yes. Server performance's been crap for the past several weeks for some reason.
2. Yes. Lag on NS maps. We don't run OpMor. We're seeing lag on Vanilla maps like Wave Breaker and Hainan Resort too.
3. Yes.
4. We have BasicGameInfo, InGameAdmin, Spambot, UltimateMapManager, WatchdogLanguage, Multibalancer.

Players are leaving our server in droves. They're telling us we should dump our server provider and find another as they don't experience this kind of lag on other servers they play on. :/
Ok thank you. At least it is good to hear others are having the same issues as us. We are hearing the same things as well. Players saying they are not seeing the issue on other servers. Although I write most of that off as BS. But it is interesting to know that you are also seeing performance issues that used to never exist. We never had lag or rubber banding on vanilla maps, even with 3 times the amount of plugins and scripts. I have now had to disable about 80% of our plugins and scripts over the last 3 weeks. We still see lag no matter the map/mode/number of players. I have now removed Lost Islands and Operation Mortar as well.

That being said, I assume this is probably an issue with some server update that came along the way. Our other server that is hosted with fragnet in the UK is not having issues. We used to be with Fragnet and moved here for better performance. I highly doubt any change back would help us and will most likely stay with NFO for the life of the server. I just really wish we knew what was causing this new lag.
soja wrote:You can see at any time if it is a hardware issue by looking at the "Server Health" tab. NFO keeps CPU under 40% at all times, and load balancing occurs if the machine goes over 40% for an extended period of time. With this, there is virtually no way hardware performance is the cause of any lag on your BF4 server.
I do not believe the Server Health shows your Xen VM. Server could be at 5% CPU, but your VM could be at 90%. I believe it shows the cluster or server that all their VMs are running on. I highly doubt each of our vm/servers has 115GB of RAM. :P Also the fact it says 183 days of uptime tells me that this is proably part of a server failover cluster, else you would see the uptime reset anytime you reset your server, or a patch was applied. The Server Health page is pretty irrelevant to me. Now if they changed it to show my VMs health, I would be watching it like a hawk.

I check that server health page often and have never once seen it above 12% even after a procon up time of 5 days with 66/64 players on.
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Re: Server Performance

Post by Edge100x »

OddJob001_XI wrote:Since I cant edit the last post...
We still see lag no matter the map/mode/number of players. I have now removed Lost Islands and Operation Mortar as well.
If you see performance problems regardless of the number of players, then it's not CPU usage related and you should definitely contact us. Also, that would make it highly likely to be PB. Are you using PB screen shots?
I do not believe the Server Health shows your Xen VM.
The health page shows the CPU and memory usage of the OS that your server is directly hosted inside. If you are on a managed VDS, it shows the overall usage of that managed VDS. If you have a standalone game server on our regular system, then it shows the overall usage of the physical machine that is hosting the server, because we host all standalone game servers on bare hardware.
OddJob001_XI
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Re: Server Performance

Post by OddJob001_XI »

Edge100x wrote: If you see performance problems regardless of the number of players, then it's not CPU usage related and you should definitely contact us. Also, that would make it highly likely to be PB. Are you using PB screen shots?
This is the first information I have heard of this. I have an open ticket right now. We are indeed seeing performance problems regardless of players. Our morning admin team generally play with 2-16 players on, they have seen the performance issue with as little as 4 people on. We do not use any type of PB screen shots, no.
The health page shows the CPU and memory usage of the OS that your server is directly hosted inside. If you are on a managed VDS, it shows the overall usage of that managed VDS. If you have a standalone game server on our regular system, then it shows the overall usage of the physical machine that is hosting the server, because we host all standalone game servers on bare hardware.
Ok. Its as I expected. Theres no way my single Xen vm (I believe thats the OS you use?) would be given 115GB of memory. Possibly 10 years from now. ;) So for those of you that watch your Server Health and are on a vm and not a physical guest, the CPU is all machines on it.

This is so awesome you reply back with the exact information and not some customer facing answer. Another reason why NFO is the best experience we have had with servers so far.
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