How to run SP Missions on Dedicated Server?

[doveman 7]

As an experiment, to see if I can get higher than 30 FPS which is roughly what I get in SP missions and seems CPU-related rather than GPU (changing the graphics settings doesn't make much difference and I can see my CPU's only 50% loaded), I want to try running them on a dedi server and then launch OA and join the local server and play the missions.

What's the easiest way to do this? I had a look at TA2DST but frankly that's a pain in the a*** for this as I have to add each mod I need for the mission one at a time by browsing to it's folder and then I have to close and re-open to add the next one as it gets stuck and will only show the subfolder I just added. It also doesn't show the missions in the Missions folder, only those in MPMissions, so I can't select the one I want to test.

[jedra 11]

Missions you run from a dedicated server have to be in the MPMissions folder. Also, the missions that are SP only will not work in multiplayer as they need to have a description.ext file. Lastly, unless the mission is coded specifically for MP you will not see much of an improvement. Performance gains are achieved by running code on the server only - this has to be done by script in most cases. If the code is not written specifically for this then the code runs on the server and all clients.

What you are trying to do is not really going to help you troubleshoot your problem.

[doveman 7]

Ah, OK, that's a shame, thought it might be worth a try. I was going by this post http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?73537-Answered-ArmA-2-Multicore-CPU-support-flawed-(only-50-CPU-usage-on-quadcore)&p=1909113&viewfull=1#post1909113

[Gunter Severloh 4071]

missions that are SP only will not work in multiplayer as they need to have a description.ext file.

May I make a correction, Sp missions will and do work in MP without a description.ext, just that when you die you will default respawn into the bird,

adding a description.ext will give you the option to have a respawn, and other parameters.

For those that do not know what a description.ext is refer to the wiki page here

for more information on the parameters and other features you can add to a mission be it SP or MP.

Most SP missions are just that SP or single player meaning just you are playing, if you wanted to have it where its a coop as in you and a

friend or two play the same mission then you would need to either add or update existing AI and make them playable, and then set a respawn

point as in a marker somewhere for which to respawn at, refer to the description.ext page on respawn seen here

on the types of respawns you can do.

As for performance, it will not be much different then when playing mp, If your hosting, a sp or Mp the performance is dictated by

well what your computer can handle, as well as whats going on in the mission Ie., Lots of AI, fire, and explosions, smoke, ect,. all lag the game,

this is a given, lots for your GPU to render, and CPU to process.

On a server the performance should be better as the mission is not relying on your machine to run obviously.

[doveman 7]

Thanks Gunter, that's useful to know. It's still a pain trying to setup the mods with TA2DST, so maybe I'll try a find a no-mod mission I can test with.

I'd be happy if I could maintain a minimum 30 FPS, but at the moment I'm getting lag and short drops to single-digit or in the teens at random times when looking around/zooming in, which is really annoying. I've found putting Objects on Very Low and PP on Very Low boosts the FPS when paused but as soon as I return to the game it's the same as before, so it definitely seems CPU-related.

[jedra 11]

Thanks Gunter - I stand corrected.

doveman - is there a particular mission or island you are having trouble with? It sounds like you may be running many mods - have you tried running without any mods to see if the problem persists. Running a lot of mods which are script heavy can reduce your performance in certain situation.

For example if you are running ACE with the enhanced reticles selected this can slow down zooming because it is quite script heavy.

[doveman 7]

Jedra,

The mission I was playing was Joint Strike Force by BlackFox34, which does use ACE http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=15796

I've just been playing a mission I created with plannedassault.com and All Along the Watchtower by Jeliz http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?93485-Jelliz-s-missions-(SP) which don't use ACE however and they had similar problems. I was using the following mods (mostly which were required for my plannedassault mission but I left them on for the second mission).

-mod=D:\Games\ArmA 2;Expansion;ca;Expansion\beta;Expansion\beta\Expansion;@blastcore_visuals;@jsrs;@sos;@rh_heli_sound_mod_1.1;@sthud;@stmovement;@sapclutter;@gdtgrassmod;@mapplus;@mma;@mma_xeh;@adukes helos;@rksl;@ka-50;@mctierone;@island duala;@Island QueshKibrul;@sg_gru;@p85

When using scope, it would drop to 25 FPS or less. I found if I changed Object Detail to Very Low, I'd get 55 FPS when scoping and on High 41 FPS but on V.High 25 FPS. Of course, on anything other than V.High we get the horrible LOD switching, so I can't really play on anything below that unfortunately.

Yesterday I was playing The Forgotten Few with the following mods and that was hitting 30 FPS at most, even when not scoping.

-mod=D:\Games\ArmA 2;Expansion;ca;Expansion\beta;Expansion\beta\Expansion;@cba;@cba_oa;@cba_a2;@blastcore_visuals;@jsrs;@sos;@rh_heli_sound_mod_1.1;@sthud;@stmovement;@sapclutter;@gdtgrassmod;@mapplus

[jedra 11]

You have a much better system than mine doveman so any comparisons are probably not valid. But, I had a quick run on JSF and I was getting a solid 25fps for much of the opening mission. I was running this as multiplayer though (it is designed to be MP, so it should be placed in you MPMissions folder). I was also only running the mods that were essential to the mission.

I'll try and stick it on my dedicated server tomorrow and see how it runs there.

[Gunter Severloh 4071]

Consider to your running the beta too, try without.

Do a process of elimination, make a basic mission in the sp editor, just 2 squads and maybe some armor going againsted each other in a village,

save it transfer the file to the mp folder, run the game without mods, and the beta, and your performance should be alot better.

You should consider condensing your mods that are related into one mod like COWarMod ;) that way you dont have 20 different folders to load up,

I do this with islands, and planes, and choppers, and I have minimal performance loss.

[doveman 7]

Well I'll certainly test without the beta but I couldn't play without it because of the LOD switching bug that's only recently been fixed.

Thanks for the suggested approach, I'll try that. I keep mods in separate folders as if a mission needs one mod and it's lumped together with others it's impossible to enable just the one. Now perhaps it doesn't matter and I can enable all terrains/islands, all units/vehicles, all weapon packs and so on and it has no impact in terms of performance but I don't know if that's the case (I'd imagine it would increase loading time, if not memory usage). Obviously certain mods that change the functionality (mma, heli_extras, aircraft hud) as well as others that add/rely on scripting (cba, acre, jayarmalib, pradar, dfs_stanceindicator, jsrs) as they could (and have in my experience) cause a mission to malfunction but if it's possible to leave all the other mods enabled always, that would certainly make my life easier, instead of having to make a profile in ArmaII Launcher for each mission with the right mods enabled (I'd still need to do that for some missions that use these 'special' mods of course).

Leaving all mods enabled is a different question to putting them all in the same folder though and that's obviously going to make it impossible for SixUpdater to autoupdate them for me.

---------- Post added at 00:16 ---------- Previous post was at 00:03 ----------

You have a much better system than mine doveman so any comparisons are probably not valid. But, I had a quick run on JSF and I was getting a solid 25fps for much of the opening mission. I was running this as multiplayer though (it is designed to be MP, so it should be placed in you MPMissions folder). I was also only running the mods that were essential to the mission.

I'll try and stick it on my dedicated server tomorrow and see how it runs there.

Thanks for testing Jedra.

I'd say your comparison is valid as it seems to show that my "much better" system doesn't actually benefit me much in terms of Arma ;)

I also tested with only the required mods, except for oktnoblurbeta which I use so that I can have PP on without getting nauseous. You're right that it's a MP mission though so I should definitely test it like that. It doesn't work very well in SP anyway and the other soldiers mostly ignore any commands I give them and get shot a lot :) I should try the no-mods version of JSF (only needs Clafghan) for comparison's sake as well.