The problem is it completely lags the main thread. While outgoing and incoming communication have their own threads the main thread still decides when we queue a new outbound position packet. People noticed that aoe with addition spell effects attached make the problem worse which might be that it's more work than attacks, tho not by much but also that for each spell effect it adds extra packets that then need to be sent out. And things like basic packets the client needs to stay connected are already lagged because the main thread is lagging.

Since position packets etc. aren't part of the base protocol they aren't automatically handled in those threads like ACK and disconnect/connect packets for example. Keep alive packets are part of the base protocol but I'm guessing the client expects more info from the server than the base keep alive packet to maintain connection. That is basically the problem. We could spawn another thread for just AoE calculations but that doesn't seem like a very elegant solution.

OK, I haven't looked at the code in question (and C++ confuses me), but back in my youth when I wrote ecological sims in Smalltalk we would cache all but the random variations on affects upon agents in a Dictionary, which is a lot like a STL map. This could save thousands of calculations. Could this be done, using a key like npc_type*100 + level, so for each level 25 kobold you only need to calculate a random(-5,5) or equivalent for each mob, rather than the whole sum for each mob and each iteration?

Will there be a fix for this ? =) i wan't to be able to use my eartshaker on the PEQ server :(

Godspeed