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Dedicated issues (Only activating 1 cpu)

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Alright today 4 am I receive a call from clan members that the server is lagging so I take a peak and notice the ArmA Server is running on 1 CPU only.. The server itself have 8 cores and I recently updated it to Beta too as adding cpucount due I discovered this bug too before.. Its really pissing me off that it does this.

Server Specs -

Type AMD Opteronâ„¢ 3280 8 cores @ 2.4Ghz each

16 GB Ram

Performance during 1 CPU usage 6 fps..

Anychance its a arma bug? Or Box bugged.

Edited by brightness

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Try: -cpuCount=2 -exThreads=1

What mission? One with much AI, right?

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Insurgency with 20 Playera online, isn't it possible running 8 cores or atleast 4?

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For what purpose?

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Cause 1 core is weak as its 2.4GHZ Each Core, if I run at least 4 core I can offer a smooth playing with at least a server fps rate of ~30-40fps ..

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Since the server has been coded multi-threaded, the server really has only used 2 core's. 1 for AI and the other for everything else. Without having made a good choice of server-cpu architecture, the ai-thread will strangle 1 core. I have a 3Ghz Wolfdale Xeon, when I attempt to run Benny's with all the ai, 1 core is pegged at 100% and server-framerates go single digits.

There isn't a whole lot that can be done, the server wants more speed provided by efficient architecture, not cores.

...Syn...

Edited by VisceralSyn
Dang gumbed typos....

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So to be exact, The Octo Core with 2.4GHZ is kinda weak cause what I get is that 1 Core is for AI and another one is for the rest ..

Shouldn't this be fixed? Cause more cores usage is easier to maintain the "Smoothness", as your members were having a smoothness when Server FPS were at 10.

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Server should detect cores automatically and spread usage among them. Not equally but at least its better then using just one. To be clear, I agree with above that one core will have 100% CPU usage with a lot of AI and there is nothing to do about it.

I assume you got some kind of affinity setup if its using only one core, but it may also be that you activated all of the AI available or have incorrect networking setup in cfg for larger amounts of players, which might lead to high CPU usage.

If after launching you server with parameter -cpuCount=4 -exThreads=7 CPU usage is still too high for one core, while others are idle, and you get low server performance, then try setting your mission parameters to omit some of the AI ( eg. turn of civilians, and reduce bots to 50% and amount of their vehicles ).

If after said above nothing helps, then try tweaking your servers arma2oa.cfg

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Before I set cpuCount to 4 - It does not recognize 8 cores right? Only four cores correct?

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Before I set cpuCount to 4 - It does not recognize 8 cores right? Only four cores correct?

If you set it to 4 then thats what is will use. But there is no reason to set it to 8 cores if only one is actually with high usage. 4 is more than enough.

If you want you can try it with 8 instead of 4.

-cpuCount=8 -exThreads=7

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Alright thanks for the help, any chance BI is fixing the Multi Core usage and tries to use all cores fully? Instead of having AI using 1 core .. (Funny part we didn't feel any AI issues just desync for a small amount of time then it went smooth)..

But is 2.4Ghz too weak for each core? As we mainly use the server for private missions (Not AI that is like 1k) & Web hosting as different games and 1 public server for arma.

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Since when has dedicated servers made use of more than 1 core?.

Its been 1 core for as long as I remember did they make a patch that now allows the server to use more than 1 if so thats great news :)

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Since when has dedicated servers made use of more than 1 core?.

Its been 1 core for as long as I remember did they make a patch that now allows the server to use more than 1 if so thats great news :)

It has always been using multithreading its just that its not evenly spread among cores. One will always have high usage on heavier missions with much AI, while others will be much less used.

For example in War in Takistan, one core will have 99% usage, next will be around 50-60%, next 20-30% next 10-15% and so on.

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BIS created missions typically do not tax cpu's as hard as the user-made ones.

...Syn...

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But is 2.4Ghz too weak for each core?
Yes. A 2.4 GHz Bulldozer CPU core is probably far too weak for Arma. However, check to see if you have CPU frequency scaling enabled in both the BIOS and the OS and make sure the CPU is able to scale all the way up to 3.5 or even 3.7 GHz when loaded. Alternatively, experiment with turning CPU frequency scaling off in the OS and let the CPU run at full speed and see if that helps. Edited by Killswitch

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I still find a issue that the usage of cores isn't really done properly and that AI usage is stuck on 1 Core, the rest is blended out in different cores..

Maybe something to fix in ArmA 3 ?

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brightness you should do some research first about multicore programming. BI has even write some blog posts about it.

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I have read about their article .. As it seems its reasonable what they've done I still can't see 2.4GHZ each core is to weak .. As there are servers out there offering stronger cpu, they offer less ram. I will stay with my Octo Core & 16GB Ram as it seems reasonable cause the CPU usage depends on how many AI you have and most user made missions (Insurgency for example spawns around 50 - 100 ai same time cause of the big world and players) which isn't really a issue for us due the server were running smooth with 10 FPS (It was running like it was on 50 fps) and no one were desyncing again after 3 minutes.

Therefor, moderator please close this thread - I've been informed of cause and its been resolved (Highly recommend that its stored somewhere so people that want to buy a new server doesn't do a mistake like I've done)

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The only way you're going to have a good performing server is to get high clocked cores (3.0Ghz and up preferably).

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Fancy linking me links to good dedicated hosting companies with those??

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www.jestservers.com

We're playing with 60+ guys in Co-Op on one of their German servers with ACE/ACRE, etc. and the lowest it dipped was 8FPS at one point - no desync as of yet apart from when everyone was joining in.

It's really very reasonable pricing for what it is as well and the Customer Support's second to none.

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