Multiplayer Server Performance Question

[mausAU 10]

...over the last six months.

Last I played, when playing MP the FPS would start dropping and eventually reach an unplayable stage after anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour. I recall that there was talk of BIS patching out something that might have been causing the ridiculous performance drops, but I got sick of it and told myself I'd give it a while and then come back and see if anything's improved.

To that end I have a few questions, if someone in the know could answer them for me I'd be extremely grateful.

- Has MP performance improved?

- Is there still a 200% FPS disparity between SP and MP irregardless of map content or polygons?

- Has anyone come up with a new I&A or similar co-op map?

Thanks a lot. Any info you've got on this would be muchly appreciated. Ta ;)

Edit: Also, last I played, if you destroyed a building, when the ruined house model appeared the game would simply copy the intact undestroyed model, paste it 50m below ground level and then deal with two sets of geometry where only one was needed. It really was an insane idea.

Is that still in place?

Ty.

Edited October 30, 2014 by mausAU

[terox 316]

MP has been steadily improving from the get go. It's still got some way to go, but a decent server can now run up to 50 players and about 200 AI + present at any one time.

Headless clients are available for increasing AI count by offsetting AI localisation to a different exe and therefore different cores and or there are plenty of AI caching systems around to choose from

Try Patrol ops as a replacement for I&A, much better organised for a public style coop server. We runn a 24/7 patrol ops server and its very popular

A3-Patrol-Operations-Official-Thread

I never play SP, so cant answer any queries regarding that.

[fn_Quiksilver 1636]

...over the last six months.

Last I played, when playing MP the FPS would start dropping and eventually reach an unplayable stage after anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour. I recall that there was talk of BIS patching out something that might have been causing the ridiculous performance drops, but I got sick of it and told myself I'd give it a while and then come back and see if anything's improved.

To that end I have a few questions, if someone in the know could answer them for me I'd be extremely grateful.

- Has MP performance improved?

Yes, somewhat.

- Is there still a 200% FPS disparity between SP and MP irregardless of map content or polygons?

Network traffic and bandwidth.

- Has anyone come up with a new I&A or similar co-op map?

Which version are you speaking of? Despite some optimization, the elephant in the room is AI count. The more AI you have running around running in their combat FSM evaluation routines, that has a huge effect on server CPU.

Thanks a lot. Any info you've got on this would be muchly appreciated. Ta ;)

Edit: Also, last I played, if you destroyed a building, when the ruined house model appeared the game would simply copy the intact undestroyed model, paste it 50m below ground level and then deal with two sets of geometry where only one was needed. It really was an insane idea.

Is that still in place?

Good question but not much can be done about it regardless. I spent a long time working on I&A and after learning about that, I sought to minimize the amount of destructive, explosive combat occurring in built up areas, using subtle gameplay manipulations.

Ty.

In bold.

Patrol Ops, Insurgency and I&A are all uniquely different experiences, so I can't exactly recommend one as a substitute for the other.

Patrol Ops plays out in small(er) team tactics and promotes squad/team level tactical cooperation, while you won't find a combined arms experience in Patrol Ops like you will find in I&A. Both in my opinion are fun, for different reasons. Insurgency I find can feel a bit old since IMO it overuses the buildingPos command and AI caching doesn't do well in public servers where lone wolves will run around activating zones inconsiderate of FPS. It doesn't have good performance controls last I saw, so FPS can swing dramatically at the whim of each and every player.

ArmA 3 pub servers is a post-Zeus world now, so in my opinion any scenario should implement it in order to enhance the experience. It can be abused, but that is a training and ethical consideration for whoever is responsible for the server to deal with. Adding a good curator system can greatly enhance any scripted mission.

If you want better FPS, reduce the number of AI, in any mission.

That is, of course, a balance, since less AI == usually less fun! :)

On a more serious note, if performance is dropping dramatically after 20 minutes or an hour (are you exaggerating?), that is indicating some serious script errors, which will appear in your RPT log. I was able to squeeze 14-18+ hour sessions out of full 40+ player I&A servers without FPS dropping below threshold. I believe MP optimization has actually gotten worse (in the ways that matter) since then, but cannot confirm as I don't do the server thing anymore.

mission objects don't bear much relevance on performance unless they're simulating, from my experience. To provide some perspective, I think a single AI walking around is the equivalent of 100 mission objects (ruins, craters, weapon holders, objects, etc) in terms of performance burden. So while over the long haul its important to maintain a healthy mission object count, the main thing again is AI running around.

There are some creative things you can do to reduce the CPU load of an AI unit, but those are supplemental and not going to make a significant difference (though noticeable).

Edited October 31, 2014 by MDCCLXXVI