Active Players: 619
Games Played: 170030
Stats Last Updated:
2008-05-12 07:32:05
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10230 Members
197 Forums
793 Topics
7133 Posts
Max Online: 96 @ 09/22/07 02:39 PM
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#5699 - 01/30/08 06:17 AM
Re: server donations
[Re: bombor]
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tireces
 | Tireces =IX= |
Crossed Swords
Registered: 03/31/07
Posts: 71
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#5726 - 01/30/08 09:00 PM
Re: server donations
[Re: karma2]
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iron
 | uncle |
Sword & Dagger
Registered: 03/31/07
Posts: 48
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Server chat lag is also caused by Myth itself, if running on a dual core CPU.
On Windows you can address this by opening the Task Manager, finding Myth II.exe on the Processes list, right-click and choose Set Affinity, where you make sure only one CPU is checked. Unfortunately you'll have to do this every time you start Myth, but in 1.7 we'll fix the problem properly.
On MacOSX I have no idea how to change the affinity, perhaps someone else can help with that...
If you still get server lag then I guess it actually is the server causing the problem 
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#5730 - 01/30/08 10:35 PM
Re: server donations
[Re: iron]
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karma2
 | Karma |
Three Daggers
Registered: 03/31/07
Posts: 10
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Well, I had no chat lag, ever, on PlayMyth, and I have zero chat lag when there's <20 players online... which leads me to believe it's probably the server!
In any case I'm on a mac... So I can't try your fix out!
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#5765 - 02/01/08 01:17 AM
Re: server donations
[Re: eddaweaver]
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bombor
 | qwerty |
Sword & Dagger
Registered: 03/31/07
Posts: 25
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I have no chat lag on Mariusnet so I don't think it's the server.
It helps if you actually log on to the server. You've only got 6 games played.
_________________________
people to hateplay: Toecutter, Urzooked, Vinylrake, Beaver, Father Xmas, VITO, se7en, jahral
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#5772 - 02/01/08 09:39 AM
Re: server donations
[Re: bombor]
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vinylrake
 | vinylrake ~OoH~ |
Swords with Shield
Registered: 03/31/07
Posts: 375
Loc: East Coast USA
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I have no chat lag on Mariusnet so I don't think it's the server. It helps if you actually log on to the server. You've only got 6 games played.
# of games played only has a coincidental relationship to the amount of time logged onto the server. e.g. If you have played 1000 games you've probably been logged a fair bit, but you could be logged on perpetually and never actually play a game. And more to your comment, you don't have to play games to be logged onto and/or chat on the server a lot.
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#5914 - 02/08/08 02:09 PM
Re: server donations
[Re: plataypus]
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vinylrake
| | vinylrake ~OoH~ |
Swords with Shield
Registered: 03/31/07
Posts: 375
Loc: East Coast USA
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omg. now the chat lag is effecting the forums too!
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#5924 - 02/08/08 08:23 PM
Re: server donations
[Re: plataypus]
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pyro
| | Pyro |
Crossed Swords
Registered: 03/31/07
Posts: 62
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Or option #3. How does the stat tracking work? Perhaps there is a way or make it work better if it was somehow incorporated into say... a new Myth 2 patch. Somehow the feature would tell the site about stats instead of the site constantly looking for the stats. Well I don't know enough about this without more details but maybe... maybe there is a way to do it more efficently/faster/better. Of course Project Magma would have to see if something like this is even remotely plausible to begin with.
Edited by pyro (02/08/08 08:24 PM)
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#5980 - 02/11/08 02:10 PM
Re: server donations
[Re: bombor]
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plataypus
 | PrplPplEater #@L# |
Swords with Shield
Registered: 03/31/07
Posts: 337
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no, the Who's Online thing has no affect.
Here's the basics behind the cause:
Cause 1:
The ranking system is a downright whore when it comes to demanding CPU cycles. Because of the way the system works (completely recalcuating everyone from top to bottom every 5 minutes), the more games that are played, the higher the hit on the system. During peak times when multiple things are updated, this means that the CPU pegs at 100% utilization for more than a few minutes at a time. This has been the case with the MCS since its inception in 2003-ish. I used to have to offload the job onto a separate machine so as not to kill my web server.
Cause 2: I'm not sure that the server was ever intended to efficiently track this many stats for this many people. It appears that the process of it re-importing the processed rankings and then updating everyone's profiles bogs the thing down. This appears to be, given the frequency of the chat lags, the primary cause. It might be a Disk I/O issue more than anything as once it loads the updated info into memory, it then needs to open, update and close 11,000 config files, which are simply XML based text files. I never cared about this before as the ranking system was hardly ever working or used while it was on my hardware.... it was previously hosted on a box owned by one of the #CP# members (or something like that).
Further proof that the root problem is primarily Cause 2 is that the issue still persists in its worst form even with the process in Cause 1 disabled and not running at all.
Whether the true problem is software or hardware though is unknown... and irrellevant, as nothing can be done about it. The software is as it is and same with the hardware... neither is going to change.
_________________________
PrplPplEater
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#6021 - 02/12/08 09:49 AM
Re: server donations
[Re: bombor]
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plataypus
| | PrplPplEater #@L# |
Swords with Shield
Registered: 03/31/07
Posts: 337
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why or why not isn't the issue... the issue is that it does and changing that requires code changes... which takes us back to "the software isn't changing".
Beefier hardware.... yes that would help, but off the top of my head, it would have to be significantly beefier. There are both CPU & Disk I/O bottlenecks that need to be overcome.
The problem there is that the machine is a leased dedicated server. You can't just upgrade them, you have to upgrade the lease package, which increases the monthly cost to the tune of about $100/month at each step.
The other option is building a custom machine and then finding a suitable datacenter that does affordable colocation. I figure that the base machine would run me probably at least $2500 because if I went that route, it would absolutely be a dual socket quad-core rig and use 15k rpm SAS drives with a caching controller. Figure about $400 for the mobo, about $400 for each CPU, about $200 for each 73GB drive (need a minimum of 4 for a 0+1 array) and about $250-$300 for a decent entry level controller. We're at $2250-$2300 right there. Add in some RAM, maybe 4GB, for about $150 (has to be ECC) and a cheap DVD drive and it is just needing a rack mountable case with a sufficient power supply. That would absolutely smoke anything I could rent/lease... but it would also be expensive as hell, even if I can claim it as a tax deduction because of the websites I would run on it. It also doesn't include whatever the costs would be for a spot in a reliable datacenter.
Rock, meet Hard Place.
_________________________
PrplPplEater
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#6022 - 02/12/08 10:14 AM
Re: server donations
[Re: plataypus]
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vinylrake
| | vinylrake ~OoH~ |
Swords with Shield
Registered: 03/31/07
Posts: 375
Loc: East Coast USA
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How about:
1) Comment out the code that does the 5 minute cycle of reading 11,000 files and recalculating stats. (I know you said the code isn;t changing, but it's generally pretty simple to comment stuff out)
2) Make the xml files that contain the stats accessible to interested people. Or just have a script that copies the files into a publically shared directory once a day.hour.whatever.
3) This would let interested users with sufficient skills write their own routines to calculate stats - Stat magicians can come up with their own ranking systems and publish them on their own web pages which mariusnet could link to if you feel so inclined.
This would remove the bottlenecks on the server - though I am sure you would probably need to limit access to the directory to prevent bandwidth flooding - as I am sure someone would try something lame like writing a script that read the 11,000 files directly from the mariusnet server instead of from their own server.
I am sure people would bitch and moan about not having dynamic stats right in Myth, but I am sure a reasonably clever coder could come up with a little xml widgetlike app that could look up user stats by player name. If it were a small window someone could have it open while playing Myth if they wanted to check stats on someone.
Edited by vinylrake (02/12/08 10:20 AM)
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