Arma 3 VDS server optimization.

[[RG]Mash]

For the life of me I can't find any info on how to optimize all the bandwidth options on my arma 3 server launcher. Has anyone found optimal settings from the list below?

Max Messages Send:
Max Size Guaranteed Bytes:
Max Size Notguaranteed Bytes:
Min Bandwith kbit/s:
Max Bandwith mbit/s:

I'm getting extremely low FPS (4-5 FPS)when the server gets about 20 -30 players. I also look at the CPU usage and it only uses about 30% of the CPU. My ping stays around 31. I'm also running arma on an SSD. Server details below.


Location: InterNAP Dallas
Bandwidth measured by: Total GB usage
Base bandwidth: 6000 GB
Overage cost for bandwidth: $0.05 / GB
Virtual CPU cores: 6
Memory size: 6144 MB
Standard hard drive size: 600 GB
SSD hard drive size: 20 GB

Any info would be helpful, thx.
-Mash

[kraze]

Hi,

30% can mean you are maxing out a core and with game servers that is bad. Are you peeking any cores on your server?


Try with these:

MinBandwidth=12800000
MaxBandwidth=1073741824
MaxMsgSend=128
MaxSizeGuaranteed=256
MaxSizeNonguaranteed=1348
MinErrorToSendNear=0.029999999
MinErrorToSend=0.0099999998
3D_Performance=1
Resolution_Bpp=32

[.=QUACK=.Major.Pain]

Are you also using these parameters in your commandline?

-nosound -nosplash -maxmem=2047

[[RG]Mash]

This is my command line:
-server -noSplash -world=empty -cpuCount=12 -high -maxMem=6144

Performance Tuning Settings:
Max Messages Send: 128
Max Size Guaranteed Bytes: 512
Max Size Notguaranteed Bytes: 256
Min Bandwith kbit/s: 19200000
Max Bandwith mbit/s: 2000000

None of the cores on the server are peeking.
CPU0 = 20%
CPU1 = 20%
CPU2 = 40%
CPU3 = 20%
CPU4 = 20%
CPU5 = 20%

[Edge100x]

If you only have 6 CPUs, it would likely work better to reduce the cpucount from 12. This will reduce lock contention, context switching, and general overhead.

[[RG]Mash]

Ok, I'll give that a try. I was reading some forums and 12 is supposed to allow steam to use Hyper-threading.

[kraze]

-cpuCount=

I have actually read on a few places that -cpucount is a depreciated value now since the server will auto detect cores. Using this value would probably be better suited if you are trying to limit cores on a server.

This is what the Bohemia wiki says:

The best way to simulate dual core on quad core is to use -cpuCount=2 when you run the game and then change the affinity to 2 cores to make sure additional cores can never be used when some over-scheduling happens. It might be also possible to set the affinity in the OS before you launch the process, that would work as well.

You may also want to try running a single server instance only for testing. Also how much CPU is one of your servers using? You can get a rough idea by checking the processes tab and looking under the CPU column for that specific process.

In your case if a server is using more than 16% it would be using an entire core. Arma 2 is one of the games that is better at multithreading, though so higher than that should be fine.

[.=QUACK=.Major.Pain]

Correct.

-cpucount was found to cause extreme lagging and stuttering.
It was later suggested to remove it because it is now auto detected.

If used, you might have to play around with adjusting the value to find a place where it causes minimal lag.

This was in the case of Arma 2 and DayZ servers.
For Arma 3, it might be the same.

[[RG]Mash]

OK, so I should just remove the cpu count all together then?

[.=QUACK=.Major.Pain]

Yea - I would try it without.