How much CPU do your AI use?

[ezremake 13]

For those of you out there who run AI on their servers/headless clients, how much CPU are you seeing them use on average?

 

I'm wondering how some servers manage to run hundreds of AI, when I'm personally seeing ~20-30% usage with just 16 AI units running on a 3.2Ghz dual core (nothing fancy I know, but still).

 

Just doing a test with no scripts, 20 red ai vs 20 blue ai, and usage was on average 80%.

 

I'm trying to figure out what kind of factors might play into making it better/worse. I know AI fighting in towns increases usage for sure, as does fighting around smokes or during night time.

[terox 316]

we run some old xeons, X5675, we dont use HC

in A2 we could run around 700 AI with 50 players. A3 is a different beast, we cannot run with half that amount, especially on the larger islands such as Altis

Our sensible limit tends to be around 200 AI (This was many moons/patches  ago and I haven't run any bench testing to see if that has increased, although it most likely has)

 

I wouldn't be too concerned about what from most would be  inaccurate bragging by many of those who run servers. They seem to think quantity is more important than quality and boast 150 player servers to try and encourage players to join.

Me personally I would prefer a smaller number of players and a better quality gaming experience with a decent cps/fps

 

The number of AI you can have in a mission is very dependant on what mods you run, the quality of the mission scripting and most definetley the number of players you have connected and their connection quality and ability to process the network data quickly.

 

You can increase the number by using headless clients if you have spare cores or some form of caching system that removes and reinserts the ai when players are near. BI have also recently added some network saving commands that put the AI in a kind of stasis.

 

Your bandwidth settings , rate and size of packets sent can also effect this

 

Most important thing and the aim of the mission design is to maintain a minimum of 20CPS on the server for the number of players you want to host for.

 

Dont believe everything you hear :-)