Server hardware.

[Warthog]

For those of you who have a dedicated *nix server, what hardware do you use? And under what conditions do you notice any server lag? I'm considering just biting the bullet and purchasing some used hardware for it, but I don't want to purchase old junky stuff only to discover it's inadequate.

Thanks.

[flipper]

I'm not qualified to answer your question, so take this with a grain of salt (if nothing else this will serve as a starting point for discussion)....

How much oomph you need will depend on how many zones you plan on hosting and the # of losers (errr... users) you plan on hosting.

My best guesstimate is that you'll want 256MB of RAM and a 500MHz P3. You can always start with 128MB of RAM and another stick if you start seeing swap space being used. You shouldn't need much disk space at all (~5GB drive will suffice). For a dedicated server you wont need to install X (if you want X, then throw in a 10GB drive to be safe).

You better have a cable modem or DSL with at least 128kbps uploading speed. A 256k (or more) upstream connection would be preferred.

I'm using a 700MHz Celeron with 192MB of RAM, but I will only be hosting 4-5 players and 2-3 zone servers at most. My machine runs low on RAM (i.e. uses swap) because I'm also running a forum on my server with ~70 users and 2000+ posts (mysql eating up memory).

==Flipper==

[theCoder]

I run my server on a 133 MHz Mandrake 8.1 computer with 128 MB RAM. I don't really notice much impact from the server, though it does take up more RAM per process than it probably should (about 17 MB for the server, 15 MB for each zone server). You're not going to realistically run more than 5-10 zone servers on a single computer. But that's where wonderful things like clustering and port forwarding come in. More than one machine for zone servers -- that's what Verant does. I think that this EMU should be really good at scaling. You can even put the database on a separate DB server. Gigabit networking between each of the servers. Dual Xeon processors with a gig of RAM on each box.... *drool*

Sorry, what were we talking about again?

[Warthog]

God damn. I never thought it'd require nearly that much of a computer.

This is for a 5-10 user setup at most. I figured that with 128-256MB of ram and the server in a ramdrive it'd go decent on a 200-300MHz machine.

Most of the requirements for huge servers would be to support the 3,000 active users or whatever it is, wouldn't it? Although I suppose if the server has to track every zone, and every NPC in every zone et cetera, it must get pretty hairy.

Anyone else care to post their experiences?

[Warthog]

Oh, here's a question that may clear things up for me. When you say "2 - 3 zones at most", does that mean that you can selectively activate and deactivate zones? Liiiike say me and a buddy are playing, we can choose to just have Qeynos active. If we wanted to zone, I'd activate where ever we're zoning to. NPC's would be reset, spawn points, etc. Maybe with that architecture I could handle running a server on a smaller machine.

Thanks again.

[theCoder]

heh, I was just going overboard with the hardware... you really don't need that much for a small server (I hope). I haven't done any benchmarking, but I haven't noticed any real lag when I play on my local server by myself. A 200-300 MHz machine should be fine for a couple of people I think.

As for the number of zones, yes the Emu does allocate zones dynamically. So only the zones that you're in are actually up and running. And when you leave, the zone goes away. The world server manages which instance of the zone server manage which zones and dynamically starts and stops them. This is mainly so you can go to all the zones in the world without running hundreds of copies of the zone server. But it is kind of existential -- the zone only exists because you're there, and disappears when you leave...

[Trumpcard]

Speaking of high end linux hardware, know anyone using the new high end AMD MP chips for a linux box, and what kind of performance they're comparable to Intel's SMP?

I'm thinking about upgrading my dualie 466 for one of the new Tyan boards and popping in a couple of the MP 1800's. Ive heard that the FreeBSD folks have 'certified' the chips, but havent heard about linux embracing them yet..

Im thinking this would be a great, and relatively inexpensive power server if the architecture works worth a damn with the latest linux kernels..

Tyan Tiger 2480
2 AMD MP 1800 processors
2 Gig DDR Memory
GeForce 2MMX (Why bother with a 3 or a 4 yet, havent heard anything great about the linux performance, doubt the Xfree performance would be any better from 1 to the other)

Trying to decide whether to bite the bullet for SCSI drives, or just go with 2 standard WD 120 Gig's and set them up with an IDE RAID card.... If I can find a good SCSI raid array pretty cheap, I might think about it..

[Warthog]

Originally Posted by theCoder

As for the number of zones, yes the Emu does allocate zones dynamically. So only the zones that you're in are actually up and running. And when you leave, the zone goes away. The world server manages which instance of the zone server manage which zones and dynamically starts and stops them. This is mainly so you can go to all the zones in the world without running hundreds of copies of the zone server. But it is kind of existential -- the zone only exists because you're there, and disappears when you leave...

Does that mean if I leave a dungeon that it'll have a complete respawn? That's harsh!

[Trumpcard]

I believe the emulator still supports spawning a zone and leaving it running...

For instance, if you boot the zone with a static name, rather than a . , the zone should stay 'alive' , though Im not sure that when it goes to sleep if it flush the spawns and cause them to need to be respawned from the database..

Technically, we should probably have an option to disable zone sleeping, that way if we want to merge in Malevolent's AI code and have the zones function as big 'Conway's Game of Life' simulators we could.

[Ztaar]

Well, I have tried running the emu-server without any lag, but that was on a quad Alpha 750Mhz with 2Gb Ram. No problems there
On my own dual 450Mhz P2, there aren't any serious lag either, but I haven't tested it with a lot of people online.

Ztaar
-- Nunc ille est magicus --

[flipper]

Hey Trump,

I'm admin'ing a 42 processor Linux cluster at work that is based on Tyan's dual AMD motherboards (a mix of MP and MPX chipsets). I don't have our benchmarks in front of me at the moment, but I can say that it's super fast. We compiled a custom kernel (2.4.17) with the athlon arcitecture flag thrown. Our applications are also compiled with the athlon arcitecture flag. Your choice of compiler will have an impact on application performance. Our kernel is compiled with GNU, but our apps are compiled with a mix of Intel and Portland Group C compilers. The latest beta Intel compiler performs exceptionally well on Athlon MPs.

Regarding SCSI... only go down that road if you need:
(a) more than 2 drivers per controller channel
(b) super fast access times

The sustained read and write speeds of SCSI aren't stellar enough when compared with ATA100/133 to justify their enormous price tag.

I'd be pretty surprised if the performance of GF2, GF3, and GF4 weren't quite different for OpenGL apps. The lastest nvidia drivers for Linux enhance OpenGL performance and add in some tweaks for GF4. The question is... how many OpenGL apps will you be running on your server? If the answer is 'not much', then save some cash and get a GF2.

In summary, I'd go with dual AMD with IDE because you get great performance at a great price. I'd go with an MPX chipset or one of the Tyan Thunder MP boards without onboard LAN and SCSI -- again to save $$$. Go with GF2 unless you plan on doing a lot of OpenGL gaming. If you wanna do OpenGL or run Windows DirectX games via Code Weavers WINE (*gasp*), then get something juicier (hmm, did i spell that right?).

==Flipper==

[Trumpcard]

Hey flipper, thanks for the advice!

Actually, I was just over at Toms Hardware listening to him say the same thing about SCSI's , he was talking about the new WD 120Gig JB, the new drive that pops the cache from 2 meg to 8. Even without ATA133, the speeds are comparable to SCSI seek times. Throw DMA into the mix and reduce the CPU drag, and you have a really fast IDE solution. I wanted to do RAID just so I had some intregrity, I run a few databases and webservers off this machine, so having everything mirrored is nice (Nothing that good backups wont cover though) . Then again, the performace boost outta striping is nice too.. Decisions, decisions.. Plus I have one of the promise pci raid cards laying around (probably wont use it though as its only ATA66)

Glad to hear some good experiences with the MP chips, been hoping that architecture would pan out, I really hate having to look to overpriced Xeon chips as my only route for a decent multiprocessor system.

Funny you mention wine, i was just at their website today looking at the changelog on their newest release. Looking at the games/apps theyve gotten to work under it, it's almost worthwhile to go ahead and get a better video card!

Thanks again!

[flipper]

Careful with that Promise IDE RAID card. They are only supported for Red Hat 6.2/7.0/7.1 (not 7.2). If you plan on rolling your own OS or going with something other than RH, then you might be stuck using software raid (which the promise card is anyway -- it's not a true hardware raid implementation). The software RAID in Linux works great. I have a file server at work that has been going strong for about 3 years now using software RAID.

[Warthog]

Originally Posted by Trumpcard

I believe the emulator still supports spawning a zone and leaving it running... For instance, if you boot the zone with a static name, rather than a . , the zone should stay 'alive' , though Im not sure that when it goes to sleep if it flush the spawns and cause them to need to be respawned from the database..

It makes sense that sleeping a zone wouldn't perform any UPDATE SQL commands on the MySQL database. But with that being true, when you reactivate the zone that would mean that everything is identical to the way you left it.

So if you pulled a beauty of a train in Unrest for example, they'll still be standing at the same spot in the zone that they were when you left it. That's bad news to me heh. Now of course this would only happen if you sleep the zone..

The ideal implementation would have to involve a form of automatically sleeping a zone. If all players exit a zone, the server keeps the zone active until the spawn inside is back at their normal location (unless they're dead of course). This would simulate an active zone to some regard. You'd still have to actually sit in the zone for any timed respawns to kick in (and that would stink for the long ones), or for any NPC's to walk around, but it's a better solution that shaking hands with a train over and over or completely resetting the zone.

Another nice feature would be passive zones. The zone is considered active for the purpose of creatures spawning only. No players can exist in the zone, NPC's have no AI, etc. The server just checks the zone's relevant DB entries to respawn creatures at the appropriate times. Sort of an middle choice between sleeping a zone or activating a zone.

[ninja_looter]

humm