Serious Bug: JIP-LAGs (+ possible easy-fix idea)

[SWAT_BigBear 0]

And thanks to Mr.g-c for his time and effort

I 2nd that........

maybe the Mods will remove his +1 warning level

[Yoma 0]

Nice nice nice.

Good job mr.g-c & Suma.

Seriously if BIS can fix this one then the game will be much much much much better!

However, let's all not cheer too early and test this out first!

I'd be happy to help in testing. Anybody got a decent non-dedictated server running?

PM me

[mr.g-c 6]

And thanks to Mr.g-c for his time and effort

I 2nd that........

maybe the Mods will remove his +1 warning level

No let it there, it reminds me to behave better here so it didn't missed its "function"

Other than that: Thanks for all you kind words and if we have a better Arma Experience from it - then the Time was worth it!

[vipermaul 246]

I'd be happy to help in testing. Anybody got a decent non-dedictated server running?

PM me

I believe we do. Server with Remote Desktop Win2003. But I haven't tried running Armed Assault on it yet. Only the dedi server.

I will try to break from work and see what I can do.

[maddogx 13]

Wow this looks like great progress being made.

Kudos to Christian for the detailed repo. I guess running a Sahrani Life server would tend to give you some experience. I look forward to seeing if the server FPS issue is/was really the source of the problem.

[Yoma 0]

I'd be happy to help in testing. Anybody got a decent non-dedictated server running?

PM me

I believe we do. Server with Remote Desktop Win2003. But I haven't tried running Armed Assault on it yet. Only the dedi server.

I will try to break from work and see what I can do.

I honestly don't know how rdp will react when you open a directx game, but i don't think the result will be pleasing...

Unless you have local access to the server i wouldn't really try it. Allso you'd need a decent VGA which won't be availlable in most servers.

[ModaFlanker 0]

Suma--

A very big factor in deciding to buy ArmA 2 when it comes out is exactly the type of work you are doing here.

Thank you for your attention, your time, your explanation from a developer's perspective [EXTREMELY essential], and your willingness to make a difference.

Thanks to you Mr. G-c for the post setting these events in motion... the JIP bug is a showstopper and I am very happy to see attention being placed on fixing this as best as can be done.

[Striker90 0]

Super news man thx Suma!!

[barmyarmy 0]

Its nice to see BIS have found a bug and are fixing it.

On the matter of http downloads.

I was going to suggest looking at something like unreal tournaments redirection system.

Then I realised we had something similar with OFP watch, infact I believe Yoma was working on something similar as a third party client for Arma. I've flirted with writing one for our tournament but scripting keep me more than busy enough.

Anything that prevents an Arma Server from concentrating on its primary function - running the game is a bad thing. Serving files is not is primary function, sub contract the job out to a web-server which is designed to do the job.

Mod.pbo files are an obvious choice to host externally, but extending this system it to allow players to upload their squad.xml files and faces would futher reduce load on busy game servers.

Existing community servers might be willing to offer this service in a hope of increasing circulation. Personally I'd hope that AtoW would be able to find some server space and bandwidth to contribute.

The only real issue would be that of trusting the third party hosts versions of the files... but thats what signature files are for aren't they... ?

As for proper multicore/processor supports - I'm hoping that sickboys comments about not needing it lost something in the translation ...

Read more

http://www.unrealadmin.org/uz

http://forum.armedassault.info/index.php?showtopic=1100

BarmyArmy

[kuIoodporny 45]

It was mentioned, wasn't it? If it wasn't, then

{

Couldn't all the custom files like faces, clan logos and sounds be stored on the net (f. e. on player's free FTP account) and downloaded individually by clients so not wasting server's bandwith?

};

[mr.g-c 6]

It was mentioned, wasn't it? If it wasn't, then

{

Couldn't all the custom files like faces, clan logos and sounds be stored on the net (f. e. on player's free FTP account) and downloaded individually by clients so not wasting server's bandwith?

};

Thats not the major problem and major JIP-LAG cause.

The major part are game-progress-data and mission-file for players who haven't them on their harddisk.

[barmyarmy 0]

Just to clarify when I said mod.pbo files I meant both addons and missions.

But thanks Suma for finding the pesky JIP bug, we look forward to recieving a fix in some future patch.

Apologies to those who feel we are hijacking the JIP-bug thread with 'off-topic' discussion of http-downloads.

BA

[kuIoodporny 45]

It was mentioned, wasn't it? If it wasn't, then

{

Couldn't all the custom files like faces, clan logos and sounds be stored on the net (f. e. on player's free FTP account) and downloaded individually by clients so not wasting server's bandwith?

};

Thats not the major problem and major JIP-LAG cause.

The major part are game-progress-data and mission-file for players who haven't them on their harddisk.

I know just wondering about these 50k custom file limits etc. - they surely aren't pointless

there's no problem for 10 players, but when you have to download 30 x 500 KB it becomes one.

[mr.g-c 6]

It was mentioned, wasn't it? If it wasn't, then

{

Couldn't all the custom files like faces, clan logos and sounds be stored on the net (f. e. on player's free FTP account) and downloaded individually by clients so not wasting server's bandwith?

};

Thats not the major problem and major JIP-LAG cause.

The major part are game-progress-data and mission-file for players who haven't them on their harddisk.

I know just wondering about these 50k custom file limits etc. - they surely aren't pointless

there's no problem for 10 players, but when you have to download 30 x 500 KB it becomes one.

Yes you are absolutely right on that.

As i made the tests i found out that a average of around 50% of the people connected to our server had either squadlogos, custom sounds and/or custom faces. I found that out by looking in the tmp directorys the server creates on the fly during a game.

This amount of files creating (depending on the amount of players and catual server FPS) a rather "smaller" JIP Desync/LAG because somehow the Server don't use much bandwith for it. Yet still this smaller JIP-LAG (the first of three) which occurs direct at connect, is "big" enough to ruin some peoples games which are currently in a firefight or else.

But the worst JIP-LAG, means with the longest durations and 100000 Desync for all players (which can cause be kicked from the server because of those timouts mentioned) occurs definitely at downloading of large mission-files and at long games (sahrani-life runs sometimes like 2000minutes) it's the gameprogress which gets both sended with full-spped but causing these LAGs.

Regards, Christian

[Actium 0]

It was mentioned, wasn't it? If it wasn't, then

{

Couldn't all the custom files like faces, clan logos and sounds be stored on the net (f. e. on player's free FTP account) and downloaded individually by clients so not wasting server's bandwith?

};

Thats not the major problem and major JIP-LAG cause.

The major part are game-progress-data and mission-file for players who haven't them on their harddisk.

Forcing every player to mirror his custom files on a webserver is in my mind beyond the line of creating minor and endurable disadvantages for the players. (Does every single one of you using custom files have a public webspace? I doubt that.)

I've already mentioned the possibility of redirecting static downloads (like maps/mods/etc. no userspace custom files.) to external http-/ftp-servers since their sole purpose is serving files as fast and as efficient as possible and would hence be superior to arma's internal download system (This is how Q3/ET manages file downloads and that system just works without any known disadvantages (besides having to set up a httpd/ftpd - let's all pity the poor admins.).).

[mr.g-c 6]

Actium, even though your suggestion is great, do you really think the developers who are mainly busy with making Arma2 currently, do seriously consider your suggestion? Even if they could fix it (like Suma said) with a very easy step by not relying bandwith on the Render-FPS anymore?

I think the suggestion you have is great and you really should considering to open a thread about it in the Arma2-Suggestions board - because thats where it belongs.

Best Regards, Christian

[sickboy 13]

I believe we do. Server with Remote Desktop Win2003. But I haven't tried running Armed Assault on it yet. Only the dedi server.

I will try to break from work and see what I can do.

I honestly don't know how rdp will react when you open a directx game, but i don't think the result will be pleasing...

Unless you have local access to the server i wouldn't really try it. Allso you'd need a decent VGA which won't be availlable in most servers.

DirectX is simply unavailable under RDP. Or any Remote Control software for that matter (that I know of). Maybe some simple direct3d rendering, but nowhere near DX9

[Yoma 0]

I believe we do. Server with Remote Desktop Win2003. But I haven't tried running Armed Assault on it yet. Only the dedi server.

I will try to break from work and see what I can do.

I honestly don't know how rdp will react when you open a directx game, but i don't think the result will be pleasing...

Unless you have local access to the server i wouldn't really try it. Allso you'd need a decent VGA which won't be availlable in most servers.

DirectX is simply unavailable under RDP. Or any Remote Control software for that matter (that I know of). Maybe some simple direct3d rendering, but nowhere near DX9

I was just trying to avoid him locking up his rdp session (again i don't know how it reacts...)

How does it react? Does it simply not launch the application or grind to a halt :-)

[sickboy 13]

DirectX is simply unavailable under RDP. Or any Remote Control software for that matter (that I know of). Maybe some simple direct3d rendering, but nowhere near DX9

I was just trying to avoid him locking up his rdp session (again i don't know how it reacts...)

How does it react? Does it simply not launch the application or grind to a halt :-)

With RDP, it should simply halt with an error message that certain required features can not be found in the videocard.

With other remote control apps, I have not so much experience, but I think they simply black out the pieces that contain DX stuff.

[Actium 0]

Actium, even though your suggestion is great, do you really think the developers who are mainly busy with making Arma2 currently, do seriously consider your suggestion? Even if they could fix it (like Suma said) with a very easy step by not relying bandwith on the Render-FPS anymore?

I think the suggestion you have is great and you really should considering to open a thread about it in the Arma2-Suggestions board - because thats where it belongs.

Best Regards, Christian

Well, let's just see if the FPS-fix is going to solve the JIP-issue. In case it should turn out that the static downloads do still cause lag after that fix has been implemented, such a change in the download system would probably be a lot simpler than finding/fixing the remaining issues in the download system or even reimplementing the whole way of how files are transmitted internally.

[Revellion 0]

hmm, i heard someone mention spawning a process to handle a JIP client. that would be fairly inefficient i'd reckon.

it would be cheaper CPU-time wise to spawn a thread to handle it. could be problematic to handle stuff like accessing the servers memory to read state of the game with a seperate child process XD.

dunno if it's really very relevant though since it seems the fix should work without adding additional tricks to the server engine.

[SWAT_BigBear 0]

With other remote control apps, I have not so much experience, but I think they simply black out the pieces that contain DX stuff.

To run our CoD4 server on our dedi w/2003, DX files HAD to be installed via RD, just so it would load the server console window.

[rundll.exe 12]

Great news! but I guess a hotfix is too optimistic...

I just tested, and you cant run arma (even windowed) via RDP, even if the server has a decent videocard.

my PC acted as server, and connecting with laptop

First You get an error from Arma:

then ATI drivers kicks in some error about no video card found. Then the server locks up on-site (screen locks), while the rdp keeps working. A reboot was needed for it to run normally again

so better not try it on your dedicated host....

Update:

TightVNC seems to do the job fairly good, you cant really "play" but the game gets rendered and you have something like 0.1 fps on the client. So TightVNC might be a solution for ppl with servers that have the videocard that can actually start arma.... (and ofc set all settings to low so it doesnt eat too much performance...)

[Frank-O 0]

Great news. Ty Suma, Mr-G-C.

I've been playing vanilla Arma 1.1.4 + QG just to avoid adding strain when entering gaming servers. Any recommended upper limits on addon/custom file sizes under this potential next update? 1.1.6? 1.1.8?

[cross 1]

Please, do not rejoice too much, until there is some verification the fix really fixes what you (and me) hope to fix it. Our internal fix testing is still in progress, and there is still no independent verification. Luckily, the host testing could give you or anyone else to preview the fix potential even before we release it. Who will be the first one to report results here?  

I was just wondering..wouldn't actually running the game on the server put additional stress on CPU and the server itself and dilute the server performance (JIP Lag) test measurements. Or is this effect minimal / non-existent?

Performance wise (CPU & Memory, not JIP) is dedi-server hosting = in-game hosting ?

Also, i think we should copy the dedi-server network traffic  settings in server's basic.cfg to the arma.cfg in default directory Mydocs/arma in order to eliminate possible "network traffic setting change" effect. Y'know the ceteris paribus thing..