Internet server, Sick of reading

[m0nkm0nk 0]

Hi dudes,

Got arma now for over 4 months and still cant get a normal LAG free multiplayer online?

Yeah i read every damn topic but cant fix it, here is the prob:

- Soldiers / Vehicles always are stuttering! Changing settings will make it less or worse but not just NORMAL.

I have a Dedicated server with Windows Server 2003 Enterprise x64.

Specs of the machine:

- Intel Dual core 2.4 Ghz

- 4 GB Ram

- 100 Mbit Internet connection

- ArmA 1.08

Server is located in Amsterdam and is on the True network!

THE BEST IN HOLLAND YES?! ok thnx

We just want to play with only 3 players or something and need a lag free AI.

Server ram and cpu is fine when server is running.

Can someone please help me,

I will really appreciate it.

[.kju 3244]

can you please do a small recording of the probs. (gamecam)

several causes are possible.

at distance units jump a bit, see the bug report here:

2356: Again Soldiers teleporting 1- 5 Meters on Dedicated Server

other than it depends a lot on server performance/FPS, player

ping/connection.

[whisper 0]

We've played mission on the OFCRA's server with 20 people and quite a high number of units per mission, without too much lag.

One of the configuration while "testing the limits", working kind of flawlessly for 10 players, fair number of troops, planes, views distance between 3000m and 5000m, was the following :<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">MaxMsgSend=4096; // 128 par défaut

MaxSizeGuaranteed=128; // 512 par défaut

MaxSizeNonguaranteed=128; // 256 par défaut

MinBandwidth=8388608; // 131072 par défaut

MaxBandwidth=104857600;

MinErrorToSend=0.001; // 0.01 par défaut

Note that the mission was rather script-free. No issue reported, no lag or teleportation either.

For day2day playing and heavier missions, we now use the following settings :<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">MaxMsgSend=2048; // 128 par défaut

MaxSizeGuaranteed=128; // 512 par défaut

MaxSizeNonguaranteed=128; // 256 par défaut

MinBandwidth=8388608; // 131072 par défaut

MaxBandwidth=104857600;

MinErrorToSend=0.002; // 0.01 par défautLooks fine for players.

Server is :

C2D E6300 2x1.8GHz

2G RAM

100Mb/s connection

ArmA 1.08

[m0nkm0nk 0]

thnx i will try it and post the results

[whisper 0]

I hope it works for you too.

Keep us informed, knowing if such settings are really helping is important.

[tomcat_ 0]

i think this one is more appropriate for the mp forum...

the minerrortosend according to my opinion makes the biggest difference on what you are describing as stuttering.

Decrease this to say 0.0001 or lower and you will see that the units are smoother. You will take a big hit on your fps of the server and also you will see a massive increase on ur bandwith. I have run my test on our dedicated, running evolution, and with the above minerrortosend, the bandwith that the server was sending out for one player was about 130kB and that is Bytes not bits...which means 1040Mb...

imagine the minerrortosend equal to what unreal and half life engine has which called tickrate. I did have some clips showing that with different settings but now i can only find 2:

http://www.realityfriends.com/forum/images/videos/0.0001.avi

http://www.realityfriends.com/forum/images/videos/0.008.avi

The fps for the same actions on the server dropped from 40-45 to 15...so u get a massive hit.

I did play around with the maxmsgsend but doubling it, it didn't make much of a difference. Not so sure how a value of 4096 or 2048, as suggested above, will affect the stuttering.

Eventually i would say that the stuttering is inherent with the engine...is either down to settings or down to optimisation of the netcode...Arma and OFP is probably the only game around using huge amounts of bandwith...

[whisper 0]

MaxMsgSent let the engine send more info at once (one cycle). Server can update more units in 1 frame, it also its FPS and bandwidth but somewhat reduce lags when high number of units are present.

Lowering MaxSize(Non)Guaranteed also helps lag and unit teleport quite a bit, but going below 128 has been not good for us.

These settings are for high bandwidth server.

[tomcat_ 0]

what do you mean by lag? do you mean the stuttering of units in distance...or the stuttering of flying vehicles...or the ping of each individual player or the fps of the server?

[whisper 0]

It's not the distant unit teleport you can sometimes witness (like in your vid). I talk about "movement back" of some units, whatever the distance between you and said unit.

Sometimes some unit simply stop in place, then suddenly go back, or forth. They can be very close to you, so it is not related to the server relaying less info to your client because of distance between your avatar and the units the server is sending infos about (which is an bandwidth management mechanism that can be tweaked by the miniErrorToSend parameter), but is more related to either :

1) client network/CPU issues. You can do much against that

2) server network issues. You can work on this one. Your parameters may either saturate serveur bandwidth, in which case, you'll need to adjust for less bandwidth consumption, or you don't use much of available bandwidth, so you could tweak your settings to use more, but that may lead to point 3

3) server CPU issues. If you witness that for any mission, then it's probably not script related, and one can probably tweak a bit some parameters to put less stress on server. Mainly by forcing less operation per frame.

It's a difficult balancing between our available CPU and bandwidth. Sometimes, it's better to not take advantage of all available bandwidth to keep the CPU less stressed.

That's why the maxMsgSend settings for us is lower in heavy environnement (daily settings).

Well, that's what we guessed, not sure at all it's the truth, and that's why I'm interested to know if we're lucky or if our settings are truely effective.

[tomcat_ 0]

interesting what you are saying...and i think with a few more people contributing and with videos if possible we can learn a lot more about server settings which although the engine exists for the last 6 years...it is still an uknown quantity....

I think what you are refering to...is indeed lag...if i understand correctly...sometimes u observe people just running static...and then suddenly they appear further down etc? So when u have what u are describing, is your maximum bandwith reached and what is that bandwith that the server is sending out? do you also get a red chain link?

[whisper 0]

Yup, that's it. I didn't knwo how to properly name it

[W0lle 1050]

Moving.

[m0nkm0nk 0]

tested some of the settings above. it helps a little but its stil not perfect.

If the units can't move normal without stuttering it sucks to play...

for tomcat_ we dont get red chains

my own internet connection:

Upstream 512 Kb

DownStream 3072 Kb

i guess i dont have to use my whole line for arma? :/

[Chaka 0]

Is that the final conclusion? Know-body else try this with different results? I just want a MP game that isn't laggy yet I don't see anyone else doing anything about it.

[sickboy 13]

tested some of the settings above. it helps a little but its stil not perfect.

If the units can't move normal without stuttering it sucks to play...

for tomcat_ we dont get red chains

my own internet connection:

Upstream 512 Kb

DownStream 3072 Kb

i guess i dont have to use my whole line for arma? :/

Where did you put the settings? They should not go in your server.cfg but into your arma.cfg located in the server profile folder, default: My Documents\ArmA.

Also, your upstream: 512/8=64 KB and 3072/8=384 KB. It's not super at all, but it should be more than enough to play a game :P

[tomcat_ 0]

We've played mission on the OFCRA's server with 20 people and quite a high number of units per mission, without too much lag.

One of the configuration while "testing the limits", working kind of flawlessly for 10 players, fair number of troops, planes, views distance between 3000m and 5000m, was the following :<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">MaxMsgSend=4096; // 128 par défaut

MaxSizeGuaranteed=128; // 512 par défaut

MaxSizeNonguaranteed=128; // 256 par défaut

MinBandwidth=8388608; // 131072 par défaut

MaxBandwidth=104857600;

MinErrorToSend=0.001; // 0.01 par défaut

Note that the mission was rather script-free. No issue reported, no lag or teleportation either.

For day2day playing and heavier missions, we now use the following settings :<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">MaxMsgSend=2048; // 128 par défaut

MaxSizeGuaranteed=128; // 512 par défaut

MaxSizeNonguaranteed=128; // 256 par défaut

MinBandwidth=8388608; // 131072 par défaut

MaxBandwidth=104857600;

MinErrorToSend=0.002; // 0.01 par défautLooks fine for players.

Server is :

C2D E6300 2x1.8GHz

2G RAM

100Mb/s connection

ArmA 1.08

has anyone else tried to change the setting of maxmsgsend from default to 4096 or 2048? Have you seen any difference?

This is a massive change but i do not really see a difference.

I see a huge difference if i change the minerrortosend to 0.001 but i fail to see how the maxmsgsend affecting the performance..?

[RN Escobar 0]

just to add something to this, since everyone has talked about the cfg settings, i'm gonna ask a nice simple question

is the server.exe locked to one core? or is the OS free to switch it from core to core?

if its not locked i would suggest that is your first move, having a server exe floating around in OS thread dispatching hell will cause the problems you are having since everytime the exe is moved it will induce a small amount of CPU lag.

try locking the EXE, either with FD or taskmanager, depending on what system u use, since the exe is not multi-threaded its best locked to one core, i would suggest CPU1 since u have a dual core, leaving the OS to whirl away on CPU0

[cain2001 0]

About the server Bandwidth. I did alot of testing in OFP:R on a server where we played 36 players on CTF maps such as St.P and early Riverbattle versions. The truth is that an normal server dosnt use more than 2-3Mbit/s going out of the server. (check Monitor 1) And 2-3 Mbit/s is when you have 30-40 players with full fights and people getting killed all over the place.

What is important is the CPU and RAM combined with a good value for the MaxMsgSend. The MMS is really hard to set. Problems like ai desyncing occur when people are playing maps with loads of scripting that are being run on th server because MMS is set to handle that much. If it was lowerd less information would be send and the information like the Ais movement would be send without desync. Again this could be bad because if the server would have to send out alot of information then it would create lag because it can only send out 512 MMS each cycle. (This is why its hard to see a difference because either way you will end up with lag). So if your running alot of scripts i would say high MMS, if your running few scripts but has alot of ais on the map. Go for a lower on.

I think 1024 was used in the Resitance days for the MMS, as for the bandwith, like i said. Any bandwidth above 5Mbit/s should be fine.

Ofcourse this is just what I think and have experienced a very long time ago but hopefully it could be to some help, even today.

//Cain

[whisper 0]

Not sure the values are still the same with ArmA, moreover with the highest number of possible players

[tomcat_ 0]

has anyone ever done any tests with minerrortosend? Personally i found this value to have the biggest impact on the AI stuttering...

also..have u done any tests with by assigning the server to one or two cores and you found lag with two?

Using two cores you are getting marginal better server fps (from 31 to 32)...but haven't seen lag...