[trevius]

I think the NPC ghost will still be there because it doesn't check if it is actually there, it only updates if it is there. So, since it isn't there, it would never update until the globalposition timer was up.

I do think we are doing the same work multiple times in some cases though. If so, it is a huge waste of bandwidth and resources. For example, from reading the code, it looks like the globalpositionupdate is done everytime the threshold (60 seconds by default) is met. But, it will still send it even if that same mob is within close range of the player and may have just sent an update already. Here is the code that decides when to send the position update:

npc.cpp

	global_position_update_timer(RuleI(Zone, NPCGlobalPositionUpdateInterval)),

//lines between this code and the code below here:

		//60 seconds, or whatever the rule is set to has passed, send this position to everyone to avoid ghosting
		if(global_position_update_timer.Check()){
			SendAllPosition();
		}

And then the SendAllPosition code:

mob.cpp

// this one just warps the mob to the current location
void Mob::SendAllPosition() {
	EQApplicationPacket* app = new EQApplicationPacket(OP_ClientUpdate, sizeof(PlayerPositionUpdateServer_Struct));
	PlayerPositionUpdateServer_Struct* spu = (PlayerPositionUpdateServer_Struct*)app->pBuffer;	
	MakeSpawnUpdateNoDelta(spu);
//?	spu->heading *= 8;
	entity_list.QueueClients(this, app, true);
	safe_delete(app);
}

After thinking about it more, maybe the zonewide update of the NPCGlobalPositionUpdateInterval should actually be part of the update manager settings. So, it all works in the same system and all works together to make it as efficient as possible and reduce any overlapping possibilities.

Maybe an all around better system would be to only update NPC locations if they actually move from their current position. So, only pathing NPCs or NPC that have been moved by a player by being pulled or whatever would ever be sending updates. Then you instantly reduce regular updates down to only pathing NPCs and the few that are maybe aggroed and chasing a player or whatever. Then, after the check to see if the NPC is moving happens, it would use a radius check to see how far away they are from the player to decide how often they will update the player. This should minimize traffic to a very bare minimum, at least the traffic related to spawn updates. From what I have seen, it does seem like a large portion of the traffic for the emulator is related to updates, so tweaks to the system could have a nice impact. If this could all be adjusted on a per zone basis, I wouldn't be too surprised if servers could be tweaked to handle double the number of players that they can now. I haven't really done any detailed testing on this yet, but from what I have seen, the changes I have made already are a very noticeable improvement.

Maybe if we could check the NPCs current position and if it differs by X amount from the last time it was checked, it sends a global position update.