REQ: Kraze

[TacTicToe]

Hey Kraze-

I was wondering if/when you have some available time, could you try installing and running a Ravaged server on a VDS? I would like your input and thoughts on the server. Like you did with NS2.

The server seems to SLAM all 8 cores on my VDS, and lags terribly. Despite my efforts and tweaks, I can not get a stable lag free server on my box. I have set the affinity to 1 & 2 cores, with the same results. The players rubber band all over the place, and everyone shows theirs pings in the triple digits. My HLSW will show my ping to the server @ 40-50ms, but when I connect, and hit TAB to look at my ping, I'm around 180. Other servers I was on, did not lag nor have the rubber banding issues. I have also installed it on the SSD, but that did nothing for me either.

Servers can only be installed via the SteamCMD using app number 223160.

I'm basically looking for help with any tweaks that might make the server stable. Or info/feedback that I can pass on to the devs to work on fine tuning the code and hyperthreading. Any suggestions, including "don't bother trying to run this on a VDS" is greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

[kraze]

Good timing, I was getting bored of NS2...

I will do some research and see what I can turn up.

Edit: Not even sure how it's possible that thing is using 78% normalized CPU usage while idling...

[kraze]

Overall this game seems to just be very piggy. Uses about as much CPU as a full 18 slot NS2 server while idling, ram usage is very low and idling around 150M.

Looking at the configs I don't see anything that can be used to tweak performance. Usually games running on the Unreal Engine are piggy and it requires a lot of tweaking from the developer to fix. I.E Chivalry and Red Orchestra 2.

Using process explorer I see that Ravaged has a decent amount of threads but three which are using the most. You may find that assigning an affinity to three cores helps with performance a little.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get anyone in the server so I can speak of anything on full load.

The ping in the dedicated server utility is also wrong, 420,929 ping is what mine says.

[TacTicToe]

Well *supposedly* the game will support up to 64 players. I can't get a steady server at 24 players. My servers would fill, then empty due to the lag. They had a free weekend, last weekend, which was great. I was hopeful of getting the server established. Had over 9,500 players connect in all, over the weekend. However, the excessive lag just made the server unplayable.

I had to shut down virtually everything else I had running. It was just the TS3, Homefront and 2 Ravaged servers. The Homefront server is using the same engine, and full at 32 players it runs smooth as silk. What I don't understand is how other GSP's, that were hosting Ravaged servers for the event last week, had them running so smooth. Same game, and hardware that I would expect to be sub-par to that offered by NFO. When i would connect to them, my ping in the browser was normal. 60-70ish. My server showed triple digits.

My only conclusion is, that either they have some kind of uber tweaks, OR it has something to do with the VDS over head? I just don't see any other common denominator. Any suggestions I could pass on to the dev's?

[kraze]

I'd have to get some people in the server to be able to seriously evaluate it. Overall just idling it seems to be a very piggy game and usually piggy games don't do well on VDS's due to the overhead. This combined with an unoptimized game just make it hard to run them.

The few people that did connect were pinging fine in the player list. The "last server ping" in the dedicated server tool is definitely broken, though. I am showing a 1779796ms ping.

When your server fills up what is usage looking like for that specific process? Is it maxing out a core or more?

John may be able to provide a little more insight on any tweaks for that engine, personally I don't know any and wasn't able to find any.

[soja]

I installed the server program on my windows 7 comp and resource monitor shows an average CPU usage of 3.5-4% on 4 cores when idle. Maybe it is an issue with xen drivers?

[kraze]

I installed the server program on my windows 7 comp and resource monitor shows an average CPU usage of 3.5-4% on 4 cores when idle. Maybe it is an issue with xen drivers?

Could be several different things. Different OS, different CPU and being in a virtual environment.

You will also want to make sure you are looking at the "ravagedserver" process and not the dedicated server tool process.

[soja]

I installed the server program on my windows 7 comp and resource monitor shows an average CPU usage of 3.5-4% on 4 cores when idle. Maybe it is an issue with xen drivers?

Could be several different things. Different OS, different CPU and being in a virtual environment.

You will also want to make sure you are looking at the "ravagedserver" process and not the dedicated server tool process.

I was looking at the correct process.

I've tested vanilla servers(NOTHING changed) on 2 machines.

Gaming Computer:
Windows 7
Core I5 3570k(4.5Ghz)
3.5-4% Average CPU over 4 cores

One of my non-nfo servers:
Windows 2008 R2 Standard
Dual Xeon L5420's(2.5Ghz) 8 total cores
3.25% Average CPU over 8 cores


I don't have the game, so this is as far as I could go

[soja]

Also tested on:

Laptop:
Windows 7
Core I7 3610QM 2.3Ghz with HT(4 cores 8 threads)
3.2% CPU over 8 threads


I did this to eliminate the possibility of Hyper-threading causing any issues.

All of these tests are in an un-virtualized environment.


Here is a dedicated server package in-case anyone doesn't want to install STEAM on their server.
http://loye.bbqaion.com/Ravaged_Dedicated_Server.rar (direct download)

My suspicion is that virtualization is causing havok somewhere, how to confirm it is another story though.

[kraze]

Oddly enough I ended up re-installing the dedicated server and it is now idling around 3-4%.

[TacTicToe]

Weird. I just checked mine, and it is idling between 10-13% CPU.

Going to try re-installing and see what happens.

[kraze]

Weird. I just checked mine, and it is idling between 10-13% CPU.

Going to try re-installing and see what happens.

You may want to hold off on doing that. Been watching the server all day and I noticed as soon as a player joined it shot up to 9, 10% and hasn't gone back down even after they left.

[TacTicToe]

So I re-installed, and still the same. I should add that I have a SSD partition as well, and have the server installed on that SSD.