Inefficient server software?

[DrHat 10]

At least, this is what I was told by the hosting company I have my Arma 3 server with. (Multiplay.co.uk)

A little background: I have bought/rented a 32 slot Arma 3 server - wanting to do some dedicated Zeus missions. Last night I was having a wonderful time (I could tell you a lot of stories and show you many a screenshots, but I shan't), with 18 people on the server and people loving it.

Near the conclusion of the mission, the server crashed/restarted. (note: At this point the server had been running for about 4 hours tops)

Long story short, I wasn't happy, have had several problems so far with the hosting company, went to their support department - asked the hard question of "I need to know, right here and now if you can give me the server I paid for/want, or not..cold hard facts please", they said yes and they would escalate it to their tech department.

Just now got this reply:

Hi DrHat,

There's an issue with the ArmA server software that causes it to make increasingly ridiculous CPU calculations the more objects are on a map, to the point of extremity (which is where we set the auto restart limit - higher than many other games to allow as much leeway as possible without getting to the point of negatively impacting other users.

At this time we aren't able to alter or otherwise increase the resource limits for ArmA because the engine is so inefficient that the diminishing returns from doing so would mean little to functionality - you can see this in the spikes on your statistics graph.

Your best option would be to lobby the developers to improve the performance of the engine while also trying to avoid having high object presence in any given mission.

My mission had less than 25 NPC's in it, and only 18 people playing. Not that many objects either, and I kept cleaning up after the players in areas they had already been through.

So - is this true? Is Arma 3's server software absurdly inefficient? Or should I tell the hosting company (Multiplay.co.uk) to eff off? Because see I'm having a hard time buying their story, especially when I watch much bigger servers, with much larger action going on, and no problems at all. (I mean sure, you should try to restart your server once or twice a day..but every 3 hours, because if you push it to 4, then crash? ..What?)

Also, my server's performance graph:

Edited May 11, 2014 by DrHat

[windies 11]

I give that reply 5 stars, mostly because they gave you a pretty honest reply rather than some bullshit. I think their "story" for the most part is true but there are a lot of factors that play into it, like they said "high object presence". These big missions with much larger action going on may be on different parts of the map, for instance very devoid of actual map objects. Just because you have 25 NPC's and only 18 people playing doesn't mean you're not playing on a "busy" part of the map as far as object count goes. I know a clan mate of mine has mentioned on the forums here how he made a mission and was getting terrible performance and simply moving it to a different part of the map made it completely playable. There's definitely truth to their statement.

It also differs between server hosts and who's to say the bigger servers with much larger action aren't just renting a box in some datacenter that they can do with what they wish, basically bypassing the need for a server host and their limitations.

[griffz 1]

my humble advice.

you said you "rent" a 32 slot A3 server ? i understand that you didn't rent a server with 2 CPU , 4GB ram, and 100mbit bandwith . instead, you rent a server software, named arma3server.exe, running on a mutualized computer, sharing its ressource between 6 or 8 video game server. wich is maybe , in the worst case, itself a virtualized computer , running side by side with 3 other virtualized computer, all that on the same hardware plateform. what i means , is , the cpu horsepower avaible on these kind of "game server" is totally CRAP. because it is shared with a lot of other client.

and it's typically the problem you face here. if you want a decent arma3 server , you need to rent a whole server. with windows OS (atm).

with 2 CPU minimum (prefere i3/i5/i7), 4 gig and 100mbit internet bandwith. it may be a virtualized server too , but you will have a real operating system, wich can be use for anything you want, and the CPU time you want to have dedicated to arma3 will be available.

that said, the downside is ... the price. a good server with windows licence is 150 US dollars a month , in my country. but at this price, you have 100 mbit , and 4 powerfull cpu core ! if bohemia succeed to program a working LINUX dedi server, then the price will fall to 90-100 dollars/month . What the tech service answer you totally proof my point. "your program eat too much ressource, so our script stop it automatically" . remember , you paid for an ARMA3 server, not for computer, at 100% cpu load , 24/24.

so to the question "should I tell the hosting company (Multiplay.co.uk) to eff off?" , my recommendation is set a game clan , share the fees, and rent a server. not a "game server"

---------- Post added at 02:33 AM ---------- Previous post was at 02:14 AM ----------

I give that reply 5 stars, mostly because they gave you a pretty honest reply rather than some bullshit..

the techy use a nicer way to explain him , the tougher "you have what you paid for".

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multiplay.co.uk propose the 32Slot @ €57.34 but it is a waste, it can't work . instead you need something like that :

http://www.kimsufi.com/fr/#servers => core i5 @ 35E/month with tax . it's LESS expensive ... *scratch his head* but linux only it seems.

the second price range is there, these ones can run a windows licence =>

http://www.soyoustart.com/fr/offres.xml from 42 to 58E taxe included. it's still LESS expensive than multiplay.blabla

if you want even moar performances =>

http://www.ovh.com/fr/serveurs_dedies/enterprise/2014-SP-64.xml

81€ /month taxes not included.and 100€ installations fees. with 64GB ram , you will be able to load arma3 in a ramdisk. no need SSD

Edited May 12, 2014 by griffz