Zoning Performance

[Irreverent]

I'm trying to put together a FAQ on Performance, especially zoning and here is a few questions I had:

-Zone times are pretty random. Some times quick, some not so much. I noticed while watching the world server that there is a trigger for a zone-to-zone request in WORLD_ZONE...then the actual lag time seems to be to the WORLD_CLIENT that shows Mode=(Zoning).
-> Is this something client specific waiting to load/send the packet to the world to wake up, or is it a server thing that doesn't have good communication times to the world?

-Is there any hints / tweaks to the performance of zoning either on the client or the server side? (Other than downtuning graphic requirements if your computer is low tier.

[John Adams]

Have you run any comparisons to dynamic zones vs static? I am pretty sure static ones should boot faster (since they are already booted). Although, I run 30 static zones, and 10 dynamic... and imo, it's no faster either way. Puzzling.

[sfisque]

i would also guess that a big affector for zone construction would be how many "special npcs" are present (for dynamic zones).

loading a bunch of "kill targets" is probably faster than say, loading a ton of merchants with all their "purchasable tables", tradeskill objects (remember, they're placed and not part of the landscape), doors, as well as other "clicky targets".

that might create the "randomness" he's seeing. i'd guess that for a dynamic load, PoK is probably a bajillion times heavier than say, sro, because sro only has a handful of merchants and zero clickies (no doors, teleporters, etc.)

== sfisque

[John Adams]

Now there's an idea... to get a baseline of the game code performance. Remove all placed objects, npcs, doors, etc... then test zoning to see how fast it is.

I'm curious as to the performance differences with the database regarding indexes, FKs and engine (MyISAM vs InnoDB). I remember an old thread talking about how MyISAM blows.

[Irreverent]

Yea, but I've had InnoDB get corrupt...and well, you're SOL. So I'm skeered of it. But I'm a big SQL/key person as well and will be doing some performance stuff here soon.