-pingboost 3 vs -pingboost 2

[hlds_noob]

I was doing some testing last night on one of my other boxes, it's a dual 3.6 gig xeon with 4 gigs of ram. Intel chip set & Intel motherboard on a 100MB port.

When running "sys_ticrate 10000" & "-pingboost 2", the server started out at 1000fps, but then as players joined the FPS kept dropping. Once it has around 20 players in it, the server stayed around 300fps.
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When running "sys_ticrate 1500" & "-pingboost 3", the server stayed at 1000fps even when the server got up to 22 players.

Besides the fact that -pingboost 3 stops the CPU from sleeping as much as it does with -pingboost 2 and is harder on the CPU, What exactly is happening to cause HLDs to stay at a constant 1000fps ?

The server ran so incredibly good, it was unreal. So why not offer -pingboost 3 ?

[rustydusty1717]

Running -pingboost 3 I found stability issues. If the servers was a busy one, it would crash a lot more often. I believe I used a ticrate of 1500, pingboost of 2 and kept a 950+ FPS at all times. Using pingboost it would vary a lot more, and instability. If it works for you though, use it. Varies across different hardware really.

[hlds_noob]

I used a ticrate of 1500, pingboost of 2 and kept a 950+ FPS at all times.

Thanks for the reply RustyDusty.

I don't think that would even run the server at an initial 1000fps, because I am running NFO's Ultra-accelerated setup right now, at sys_ticrate 10000 with -pingboost 2 and It doesn't stay at 1000fps.

It then will drop when clients start playing, and the more clients the lower the FPS goes.

You can't run a constant 1000fps server with those settings. Now maybe if you have some specially compiled Linux kernel. Not sure about that situation.

I am talking about running a server that will stay no lower then 1000fps, even when there is 24 players on it.

It would be nice if I could get 24 humans in my DayofDefeat server LOL, but sadly, the game is almost completely dead, and what servers/communities that are left, are run by dictators, that ban anyone who kills them more then twice in a row Bad for me, because I destroy 99% of doders.

I just leased a coreI-3 from another GSP for my redirect servers, so we will see how that goes.

[Edge100x]

-pingboost 3 can have some strange performance artifacts at times because the FPS is unrestricted and the game doesn't actually handle more than 1000 correctly (when the FPS is more than 1000, it does its processing as though it's 1000). -pingboost 3 also uses more CPU power than -pingboost 2.

Our ultraaccelerated servers here use our proprietary FPS Locker and we run them on very fast hardware, which is why they stay at 950+ FPS at all times, with either -pingboost 1 or -pingboost 2.

A dual Xeon 3.6ghz machine would be very old and very slow. We're talking about a CPU that was released in 2004, potentially. It's no wonder that you'd be having performance problems! It's been a loooong time since we've used anything that slow here.

I'll move this to the dedicated servers forum.

[hlds_noob]

I have the same thing happen on my server here at NFO.

Running DoD at "sys_ticrate 10000" with "-pingboost 2" you're Ultra accelerated setup.

My server doesn't stay at 950fps, unless the server is empty.
Once players start joining the server, it starts dropping from 1000fps to as low as 250fps with 24 players.

As for my other boxes elswere, I have run settings on dual xeons before that kept my servers fps at a constant 1000. I will be doing some testing over the next few days on a coreI3 3.6 setup I just got from Hypernia, and will post the results of both that box and my dual xeon from calpop.

John, is the box that I'm on here at NFO have an Intel motherboard, because if it's not an intel motherboard. it may not even run at 1000fps.

[hlds_noob]

Wouldn't let me edit my last post to add this from valve.

Valve
Intel vs. AMD CPUs
If you set sys_ticrate (HLDS) or fps_max (SRCDS) to 1000, most Intel CPUs running on Intel chipsets will run the full 1000fps (plus or minus a few). AMD CPUs and Intel CPUs on non Intel motherboard chipsets may only run at 500FPS with a setting of 1000.

[Edge100x]

My server doesn't stay at 950fps, unless the server is empty.
Once players start joining the server, it starts dropping from 1000fps to as low as 250fps with 24 players.

Try sys_ticrate 0, instead. Also, is this a regular ultraaccel server and not a server on an unmanaged machine?

John, is the box that I'm on here at NFO have an Intel motherboard, because if it's not an intel motherboard. it may not even run at 1000fps.

Intel vs. AMD CPUs
If you set sys_ticrate (HLDS) or fps_max (SRCDS) to 1000, most Intel CPUs running on Intel chipsets will run the full 1000fps (plus or minus a few). AMD CPUs and Intel CPUs on non Intel motherboard chipsets may only run at 500FPS with a setting of 1000.

I'm not sure what Valve was thinking when they wrote that, since it isn't the case. In any case, our CPUs here are all Intel on Intel chipsets.

[hlds_noob]

Also, is this a regular ultraaccel server and not a server on an unmanaged machine?

This is a regular ultra-accelerated server. NFO has sys_ticrate 10000 in it's server.cfg.

I just tried "sys_ticrate 1400" with "-pingboost 3" on both my I-core3 box and my dual Xeon, and they run at a constant 1000fps even with players in the server.

[Edge100x]

This is a regular ultra-accelerated server. NFO has sys_ticrate 10000 in it's server.cfg.

You should open a support request so that I can take a closer look at it, then. HL1 servers on our system should be locked quite rigidly to 1000fps.

Using "-pingboost 3" and specifying a high sys_ticrate will unfortunately cause some strange problems in-game, like bomb timers going at the wrong speed. You can try to tweak the sys_ticrate value to minimize this, but it will never be quite right, or quite as accurate as a server using the FPS Locker and -pingboost 2 or -pingboost 1.

[hlds_noob]

You should open a support request so that I can take a closer look at it, then. HL1 servers on our system should be locked quite rigidly to 1000fps.

Okay will do =)

Using "-pingboost 3" and specifying a high sys_ticrate will unfortunately cause some strange problems in-game, like bomb timers going at the wrong speed. You can try to tweak the sys_ticrate value to minimize this, but it will never be quite right, or quite as accurate as a server using the FPS Locker and -pingboost 2 or -pingboost 1.

I have seen this effect on my CS servers, but not with DoD servers.

[rustydusty1717]

I've had many issues with -pingboost 3. I always ran ticrate of 1000, pingboost of 2 and managed to have 950FPS at all times. You won't notice that extra 50 FPS, plus is it worth the extra CPU that pingboost 3 uses? From my personal experience it's a significant amount more, plus like John said, stability issues.