Dedicated Client / Headless Client feedback (dev branch)

[Dwarden 1125]

I've very nice news about headless client (HC) which is variant of dedicated client for server use

we will be rolling out soon (days) new test version for both linux and windows

- no more steamclient nor steam account with game ownership needed for HC

- HC needs only steam dedicated server binary and set of commandline params

- auto-connection recognize & detection of HC by server (server needs some config to allow that)

- multiple HC per server are supported

- HC can be primary used to offload AI work and secondary for some script jobs

- logic for mission & scripting operations with HC introduced

- HC are autoassigned to slots

- HC are not visible to players

- HC are visible to admins

- HC isn't counted against playercount in server list

- BattlEye supported (1.36 RC2 released 28.11.2014 18:00 CET)

today's DEV:

•Added: Enable new headless client implementation - see https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Arma_3_Headless_Client for more details

note: known limitation, none (except some AI bugs, need repro/confirm)

note: what needs to be somewhat tested/determined/improved/changed is disconnect & reconnect of HC and all related to that

post bugs, feedback and ideas below

Edited November 28, 2014 by Dwarden
BE supported now

[armatech 8]

yay at last

[SavageCDN 231]

Oh yeah!!

[cifordayzserver 119]

Great News! Amazing work by all!

[nikiforos 450]

Is this a big step forward or am I totally wrong? :confused:

[artisanal 22]

As we say in France

Champagne ! :811:

:dancehead:

[Fadi 22]

Great to see HC getting some attention. For Arma 2 at least, it's made a pretty drastic improvement for general server performance.

For Arma 3 specifically, has anyone tried Arma2MapConverter? For A2 this is what we've been using to convert sqm to sqf to run on the HC and it works great.

Edited October 3, 2014 by Fadi
switched link, meant to link a different fork

[pvtdancer 5]

Thanks David! I'm super excited to give this a go!

[CaptainObvious 95]

Best news since FFV, jood job Bohemia, I owe you a beer! :cheers:

[papanowel 120]

Very welcome news, something very useful for those who like to play huge mission.

[kremator 1065]

Hallelujah ! Finally some good news on the HC front.

[sgtgunner 10]

Fantastic news!!

[serjames 357]

brilliant !! sounds much easier!!

[Sari 18]

This is all fine and dandy, but will these features actually improve the performance of the HC? Last time I looked, adding a HC to even the most simple missions in A3 caused a performance HIT on the server (Some proof to back up my point).

[Fr33d0m 11]

GRRRRRR!!! After I spent all that money buying multiple copies of Arma 3 so I could use HC on my dedi servers, now it's free. CURSE CURSE CURSE!!! Oh well, Whatever. Nice to have. Good job Bohemia!!

Wish there was a buyback program or something so I didn't feel kind of burned, but meh. I'll get over it I suppose.

If anyone has trouble setting up the HC, get at me. I've been using it successfully for a while now. I haven't ran into the problems Sari has, strangely enough...

---------- Post added at 14:33 ---------- Previous post was at 14:30 ----------

Using A2MC:

it still works for the most part, although it has trouble spawning some units, sometimes spawning them naked and without weapons, and sometimes plain crashing the HC when it spawns the A2MC script. If you are familiar with SQF, you can usually fix the generated A2MC code to work with A3 when it doesn't want to.

I transfer ownership to HC after spawn to avoid trouble with A2MC, personally. It doesn't do INIT lines at all, triggers and waypoints seem to work fine.

[cyrus231 1]

GRRRRRR!!! After I spent all that money buying multiple copies of Arma 3 so I could use HC on my dedi servers, now it's free.

We bought a copy for my group as well. However I look at it this way, now I can give the steam account with the extra copy to someone who doesn't have Arma 3 yet. There is a silver lining.

[spanishsurfer 58]

This is all fine and dandy, but will these features actually improve the performance of the HC? Last time I looked, adding a HC to even the most simple missions in A3 caused a performance HIT on the server (Some proof to back up my point).

We had the same problem as Sari. Adding HC actually decreased server performance.

[Bouben 3]

Would it be, in theory, possible to utilize HC in single player too? Is there anything potentially useful for SP part of the game?

[pvtdancer 5]

Would it be, in theory, possible to utilize HC in single player too? Is there anything potentially useful for SP part of the game?

In theory you could, but you would need to be creating these missions in the editor and hosting them from a dedicated server. Some people made missions that are "SP" and if you added the necessary pieces you could use and benefit from an HC. BUT and its a big BUT, you would not be running a dedicated server and HC on the same PC you're playing the game on so you would need a dedicated box or a server hosted that can run an HC and the dedi server. so while it can be "done" It's fairly impractical if you're just using it for yourself on SP campaigns IMO.

Hope that helps

[Bouben 3]

In theory you could, but you would need to be creating these missions in the editor and hosting them from a dedicated server. Some people made missions that are "SP" and if you added the necessary pieces you could use and benefit from an HC. BUT and its a big BUT, you would not be running a dedicated server and HC on the same PC you're playing the game on so you would need a dedicated box or a server hosted that can run an HC and the dedi server. so while it can be "done" It's fairly impractical if you're just using it for yourself on SP campaigns IMO.

Hope that helps

Thank you. That is what I wanted to know.

[BL1P 35]

Great news on the don't need to buy it thing. (for some grrr)

Questions :-

When using HC or HCs on a single server box (one PC) is it still best to set priority for each instance of Server and HC to not use the same cores ?

Or does the New HC system allocate, so that not all CPU usage is on one core ?

Is the BIS recommended usage a separate PC, one for Server and one for HC ?

If the HC crashes will the AI using the scripts on the biki stop working or will the server take over control of the AI automaticly ?

Thanks in advance :)

BL1P

PS. Feel free to click my donate button BIS and get me beer to the amount it cost me to buy the HC version originally :)

Edited October 7, 2014 by BL1P

[Levia 10]

I can answer most of these for you :)

Great news on the don't need to buy it thing. (for some grrr)

When using HC or HCs on a single server box (one PC) is it still best to set priority for each instance of Server and HC to not use the same cores ?

Yes.

Or does the New HC system allocate, so that not all CPU usage is on one core ?

Chances are windows will assign a different core automatically since the HC is simply a separate client and as far as windows is concerned a separate application alltogether. However, still best to set different cores so windows doesn't even attempt to run them on the same core.

Is the BIS recommended usage a separate PC, one for Server and one for HC ?

I think if you have a server that has enough cores and clock speed you can easily run the HC off of that one since it is likely the Arma 3 server isn't using all of your resources.

If the HC crashes will the AI using the scripts on the biki stop working or will the server take over control of the AI automaticly ?

Yes, ownership of all entities in multiplayer get transferred to the server immediately upon a disconnect. This goes for players aswell (HC is simply a hidden 'player').

[BL1P 35]

I can answer most of these for you :)

Yes, ownership of all entities in multiplayer get transferred to the server immediately upon a disconnect. This goes for players aswell (HC is simply a hidden 'player').

Thank you.

Would that include all patrol scripts and skill scripts that would be running on the AI via the headless as this was not the case before.

When headless lost connection previously the AI would become dumb when transferred to the server and would cease patrolling etc etc.

Also I don't mean to sound rude but where did you get your info, as its seems quite informed for a first poster :)

[Levia 10]

Would that include all patrol scripts and skill scripts that would be running on the AI via the headless as this was not the case before.

When headless lost connection previously the AI would become dumb when transferred to the server and would cease patrolling etc etc.

Waypoints and that still get lost sadly when transferred :( Could build a generic system around it where you define waypoints and skill separately (in a separate function) so you can restore it more easily on transfer. By adding an eventhandler Local to the spawned object you can determine when its locality changes and you can reinitialize waypoints etc. Obviously this could be a bit complicated when you have to do this on the HC - the server won't have the event handler then. Multiple ways to deal with that.

Also I don't mean to sound rude but where did you get your info, as its seems quite informed for a first poster :)

Haha I've started Arma 3 scripting a while ago but never been on these forums. Figured I might aswell try and help people out. Most of this info comes from screwing around with the new HC in my own mission and the resources listed in this thread. The wiki was very useful but Monsoon's PDF even more so. As for locality, learned that from KillzoneKid's blog on Locality. Search on google for 'ArmA Scripting Tutorials: Locality'

I would link you to each of the resources but I'm not allowed to yet apparently due to being a new member :)

[Sturmgewehr 15]

Can the Headless Client handle player information (position,...)?

Player slots West 1-50 HC 1

Player slots East 1-50 HC 2