Lag during looting.
 

Anyone had this problem before?

If not, what are some good steps to assist in finding out what the problem is.

Running on a dual-core athlon 2.6Ghz 3G Ram
...but on vista. Might be my problem them.

Have you tried getting the AMD Optimizer Driver yet? The FAQ in my sig should help with multi-core CPU issues.

Ooops, let me give more detail. But, thanks for your answer.

Its not *me* playing the game, but rather my game-server *everyone* has loot lag (20 seconds sometimes) when looting something.

What do you mean by "when loading something"? When they are loading into the server to char select? When they are entering the world from char select? When they are zoning? Need a bit more info. If players load slowly when zoning or entering the world, then it is probably due to your upload bandwidth. How fast is your upload speed? Also, is this issue constant or does it only happen some of the time?

"looting" not loading.

Just when they click a corpse to loot, it sometimes takes 5-20 seconds.


Doesn't always happen either.

Ohh, my bad lol. Are you sure you have the .conf files updated in your server folder to match the revision of source code you are running?

Well, I always copy everything but the eqconfig.xml file when I update a binary release. So yes, it does include the .conf files

What's the processor/memory usage looking like? How about mysql queries? If your hardware just can't handle the load the server is experiencing, I'd expect lag to be a consequence.

Maybe I should tweak MySQL settings...

Athlon X2 dual-core BE-2350 2.1Ghz
2G RAM
Integrated Nvidia 6150SE nForce 430
250G HD
Vistia Premium x86

This might be related to the server enforced delay KLS implimented for looting recently.

Ok, a couple more things.

1) This is only when bring up the loot window, find transfering items from there
2) Also, when you click sell/buy from a merchant it takes a couple extra seconds.

Loaded GnS Affinity on the server just to check...running at very low CPU usage my 2G memory isn't really being peaked either.

what about overall network usage? The server is probably processing the request as soon as it gets it, however if there is a lot of network activity, or some other series of network events occurring, it may simply take that long for the data to travel.

I would look at port forwarding, collisions, and other such.

while in your client press f11, and your net stats will show in the upper left corner, what is your latency?

Hrm, good point. I logged into eq via the same machine and looting is pretty instantaneous.

Port forwarding:
9000 to 9000
7000 to 7100
3306 to 3306
5998 to 5998
9080 to 9080
10234 to 10234
7779 to 7779
I'm forwarding both UDP/TCP with those port ranges to the server machine on a Linsys WRT54G

OK, we're getting somewhere...

But, on my other machine...right next to it(thru same router) I'm gettin 100% and 22ms response...get loot lag

wired or wireless?

Its all wired, but I did notice the 100% flickers to another number consistantly and then back to 100%.

This sound like network collisions.
Do you have people connecting externally, or is it all LAN?
If all your connections are LAN you may be creating a problem by port forwarding when it's not needed.

Most people play via the internet, I'm the only one on the Lan and get the lag too like everyone else.

UPDATE: I am also getting the lag on the pc that runs the server now, so it seems independant of location now.

the computer may need to go down while you do some file maintenance. Sounds possibly file fragmentation.

I would recommend Pagedefrag. This utility will defragment the page file on a startup. Also fun a more traditional defragment utility such as: http://www.tucows.com/preview/505489
or use whatever suites your fancy... I use those both with very good results

I'll give that a go, but strange that if it was lookup/page problems that it wouldn't be more consistant. But, I'm willing to try anything at this point as its a realy bummber...and unique to me for some reason.

your expecting consistency from Windows?

Try a crossover cable between server and computer next to it.

(edit: try different network cables to all machines first too, maybe a bad cable?)

A couple issues this could uncover:

Bad router if the speed is fine.
Bad NIC drivers if speed still is bad
Driver conflict if you have more than one NIC in the server. If speed is still bad.
Bad NIC or NIC settings if speed is still bad.

Also is this a motherbaord integrated NIC on the server? If so and these issues are not resolved by a crossover direct link. Try a PCI NIC and disable the onboard.

Is there any noticeable latency in any other real time environment on either the server or client machines?

Give all that a shot, let us know what happens.

The deep defrags did not help.

Would the crossover do anything, since even logged in on the same machine I get loot lag?

I mention that to make sure it isn't the router and possibly the cable going to the router.

I have a router that does some weird tricks similar to your odd slow downs and sometimes it outright refuses some apps on ports that are set to be open. I replaced the router and all was ok.

If you're running a Virtual Machine for either server or client & are using a bridged network connection, then yes. Otherwise, no.

BAM, fixed.

So, I went into my mysql performance stats. Notices there 100k's of page searches, not using indexes. So i found what query was being used a lot, it involved timers. Well, it had no key. So there where tons of dupliactes, of course no lookup capability. Fixed that, and boom..all problems solved!

that's interesting, was it an EMU table and query or some other project you have going on?

Awesome, glad you got it fixed. I guess I missed that part where you said it was lagging on the same machine too. (I post usually when tired lol)

I second the question if it was something defaulted with the emu that caused it. I haven't personally had this issue. But if someone else does, this thread could serve as a help to them.