Yet another "is my server good enough" thread

[I.Gash 2]

Hello,

 

I looked to see if there is, maybe, a thread for people to ask these silly questions but couldn't find a collective one or one that I wouldn't necro. So I'll shamelessly open a new one for myself (and anyone who wants to hijack it).

 

I'm thinking of running an Arma 3 Server, quite vanilla, no mods or fancy 2GB missions. I'm hoping to find out what my "limits" are, is there anything I shouldn't install on it because of lacking hardware, etc.?

My Servers Hardware is as follows:

 

Dedicated Server (no virtualization)

Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700K CPU @ 4.00GHz, 8 cores

64 GB DDR4 Ram

512 GB SSD

 

It's running Debian 8 if that makes any difference. Other than a TS Server and a website there isn't (or is going to be) anything running.

[Tankbuster 1746]

For comparison, my dedibox is an i3 6100 with 16 GB of RAM running Windows 10. I run my own, vanilla mission on there and have had 7 players in game and not had any reported problems. I run TS on there too. 

So I think your proposed specs are plenty powerful for what you need.

[I.Gash 2]

3 minutes ago, Tankbuster said:

For comparison, my dedibox is an i3 6100 with 16 GB of RAM running Windows 10. I run my own, vanilla mission on there and have had 7 players in game and not had any reported problems. I run TS on there too. 

So I think your proposed specs are plenty powerful for what you need.

Sounds good! I don't really plan to have more than 7-10 players anyways. Mostly for coops with friends. Have you tried running Liberation? I was hoping liberation can work on mine as well.

[Tankbuster 1746]

I'm not familiar with that mission, no, but my mission is a coop too. I'm usually looking at 60-80 AI in mission at any one time.

 

A3 loves core speed, more than anything else, so your 4GHz is rather ahead than my 3.7. Looks promising.

 

Also, my box is at home, running on my domestic fibre broadband. When you start to get lots of players on, the internet connection does become an issue.

[tRiKy_ch 26]

3 hours ago, I.Gash said:

Sounds good! I don't really plan to have more than 7-10 players anyways. Mostly for coops with friends. Have you tried running Liberation? I was hoping liberation can work on mine as well.

my clan server run liberation on a very similar setup and we got serious fps drops on towns, i've got some improvements working around with liberation settings but frame drops still (randomly) present when too many reinforcement spawn and > 10 players

 

however i still thinking that's more a client side issue instead of a dedi server issue 'cause in fact server is always running @50 rock solid FPS

[Tankbuster 1746]

Whats a 'serious fps drop'? Unless I'm piloting anything over 20 fps is doable

[tRiKy_ch 26]

under 20 fps

[Tankbuster 1746]

When AI units spawn, there will be a momentary fps drop, that's normal. The server might be short of bandwidth.Could be a million and 1 reasons.

[I.Gash 2]

Sounds good. I hope Bandwidth won't be a problem too much. It's a symmetrical 1GBit/s in a data center where the server is hosted so I think I'm covered there. I was trying the mission today and it seemed fine. Will have to see once some more people join.

[tRiKy_ch 26]

thats not temporary and generally requires a client restart, the strange thing is its does not happen on every client and not at same time,

for the same reason i think it's not a bandwith issue (250Mbps), also because are always fps drops related issues rather than lags or desync

 

2 hours ago, Tankbuster said:

Could be a million and 1 reasons.

 

don't tell me i've tried everything so far, however every advice is welcome

 

[I.Gash 2]

6 hours ago, tRiKy_ch said:

thats not temporary and generally requires a client restart, the strange thing is its does not happen on every client and not at same time,

for the same reason i think it's not a bandwith issue (250Mbps), also because are always fps drops related issues rather than lags or desync

 

 

don't tell me i've tried everything so far, however every advice is welcome

I've actually expirienced this as well. After about an hour or two people will start to get FPS drops and they're fixed after restarting the client. Are you sure it has to do with the Server and not the Client itself?

[BroBeans. 279]

17 minutes ago, I.Gash said:

I've actually expirienced this as well. After about an hour or two people will start to get FPS drops and they're fixed after restarting the client. Are you sure it has to do with the Server and not the Client itself?

 

if it's fixed by restarting your client it sure isn't a server issue :-) 

 

and to answer your question. Your server is plenty good enough.

If you get FPS drops, which I'm sure you will; running liberation it's the mission file causing the issue. Not the server. 

 

Big complicated missions with tonnes of scripts will always have a horrible impact on server performance. 

 

4GHZ and 64gb RAM will absolutely slaughter anything arma throws at it. 

[tRiKy_ch 26]

3 hours ago, I.Gash said:

I've actually expirienced this as well. After about an hour or two people will start to get FPS drops and they're fixed after restarting the client. Are you sure it has to do with the Server and not the Client itself?

if you look at the official wiki the reccomendation is to restart every 3 hour or at least every 10 hour http://greuh-liberation.wikia.com/wiki/Server_Admin

 

then, wich parameters you have set for liberation? specifically with "Unit Cap" "Aggressivity" "Adapt to player Count" and "Civilians" parameters can you limit AI spawn and get get some minor improvements (limiting the epicness of battles unfortuntely )

[I.Gash 2]

3 hours ago, BroBeans. said:

 

if it's fixed by restarting your client it sure isn't a server issue :-) 

 

and to answer your question. Your server is plenty good enough.

If you get FPS drops, which I'm sure you will; running liberation it's the mission file causing the issue. Not the server. 

 

Big complicated missions with tonnes of scripts will always have a horrible impact on server performance. 

 

4GHZ and 64gb RAM will absolutely slaughter anything arma throws at it. 

Well that puts confidence into my server. I'm not planning on putting anything too crazy on it anyways.

 

 

33 minutes ago, tRiKy_ch said:

if you look at the official wiki the reccomendation is to restart every 3 hour or at least every 10 hour http://greuh-liberation.wikia.com/wiki/Server_Admin

 

then, wich parameters you have set for liberation? specifically with "Unit Cap" "Aggressivity" "Adapt to player Count" and "Civilians" parameters can you limit AI spawn and get get some minor improvements (limiting the epicness of battles unfortuntely )

I've used the standard parameters, only changed the fatique to 0, in order to disable it. The battles seemed fine and challenging and no one is too bummed about having to restart their game every couple of hours so it's fine for us at the moment.

 

About the restarts: I've read that as well. At the moment I'm restarting it by hand every couple of hours, does anyone know if there is an automated restart script for restarting? I've seen it for Altis Life, Exile Mod, etc servers and for them it's a script built into the mission file as well but I've not seen anything for liberation. I can create a cronjob in linux to run the ./arma3server restart command every couple of hours but I was thinking that people would be taken by surprise if there isn't any warning ingame a couple of minutes before.

 

Simply put: does anyone know a serverside mod or script that warns people at specific times before a restart and maybe, ideally, restarts the server by itself?

[tRiKy_ch 26]

running as service helps a lot (biggest advantage is the serve automatically restart when crash) https://forums.bistudio.com/forums/topic/193279-running-as-a-service-on-linux/

then could you set a daily cronjob for auto restart (my run at 5am when i'm sure no one is online), so liberation load but not really start until someone login, so you bring a "fresh server" when the first player of the day connect

to send rcon messages could you use this PHP script http://www.exilemod.com/topic/17-linux-server-startstoprestart-global-message-script/

 

then that's the script i use to restart, it begins to warn 15 minutes before restart

restart.sh

Spoiler

//restart.sh

 

./bemsg.sh "Riavvio in 15 minuti..."
sleep 300
./bemsg.sh "Riavvio in 10 minuti..."
sleep 300
./bemsg.sh "Riavvio in 5 minuti..."
sleep 240
./bemsg.sh "Riavvio in 1 minuto..."
sleep 50

./bemsg.sh "Riavvio in 10 secondi..."
sleep 5
./bemsg.sh "ATTENZIONE: Riavvio automatico in in 5 secondi..."
sleep 1
./bemsg.sh "4..."
sleep 1
./bemsg.sh "3..."
sleep 1
./bemsg.sh "2..."
sleep 1
./bemsg.sh "1..."
sleep 1
./bemsg.sh "RIAVVIO!"
sleep 1
#./bemsg.sh "#restart"
systemctl stop arma //this has to be modified according to your actual service name
systemctl start arma //this has to be modified according to your actual service name

 

 

bemsg.sh

Spoiler

//bemsg.sh

echo $1
php -q warning.php "$1"

 

[BroBeans. 279]

Not sure if BEC (BattlEye Extended Controls) is available on Linux. 

 

But BEC can handle restarts and restart messages. :) 

[tRiKy_ch 26]

with PHP script i mentiend could you send "#" commands too, not only messages

btw i prefer to do actual service restart rather than the embedd #restart function

 

 

[I.Gash 2]

I've looked into BEC but unfortunately it only runs with wine which I don't want to do. I also have a feeling it would also only work if the arma 3 server ran with wine as well.

 

Thanks a lot though triky I'll use that!

[tRiKy_ch 26]

another very important advice for you:

 

if you want to play DON'T UPDATE TO 1.70 for now, linux release its fully broken

https://feedback.bistudio.com/T124761

https://forums.bistudio.com/forums/topic/160270-linux-dedicated-server-feedback/?page=20#comment-3189115

 

[I.Gash 2]

7 minutes ago, tRiKy_ch said:

another very important advice for you:

 

if you want to play DON'T UPDATE TO 1.70 for now, linux release its fully broken

https://feedback.bistudio.com/T124761

https://forums.bistudio.com/forums/topic/160270-linux-dedicated-server-feedback/?page=20#comment-3189115

 

 I've noticed and been trying to troubleshoot it for a couple of minutes. good to know. Oh well waiting for a fix.