Arma2 dedicated server howto

[mosh 0]

I sure don't know the difference other than the spaces and the oa, mine has,

 
reportingIP="arma2pc.master.gamespy.com";

and has no issues showing up.

Windows, not linux.

And it's an OA or CO server? I always wondered if that really mattered, but never thought to test it... thanks for the info.

[teilx 4]

I am running a little dedicated server (DualCore E8600) planned for just 5-8 players @ a ADSL of 50mbit(dl)/8-10mbit (up).

I was playing around with the values, at the end i was stuck at

Code:

MinBandwidth=15000000;

MaxBandwidth=100000000;

MaxMsgSend=1024;

MaxSizeGuaranteed=1024;

MaxSizeNonguaranteed=64;

MinErrorToSend=0.0024999999;

MaxCustomFileSize=0;

Windowed=0;The server runs fine on 46fps ;used ram 170-300 (well growing);out ~600kb;in ~10kb.

But on each setting i treid, the AI units are kind of asynchron.

I am sure everyone knows what i mean.

The units look like moving 5 steps forward and 3 back.

For testing i used the original mission "Lasershow", without mods.

I thought minimum error send would be responsable for the desync aswell.

But atm i am clueless, as i dont know what to change anymore but by chance.

I should probably mention that we tested it within a personal Lan with 3 people tonight.To eliminate any prob with connections, it ested it on my own either, but got the same result.

Is there any thumb rule to get this desynch eliminated?

What are your hints for getting closer to eliminate or at least decrease the desynch.

same here. would be nice to see some hints^^.

[Sira 10]

I sure don't know the difference other than the spaces and the oa, mine has,

 
reportingIP="arma2pc.master.gamespy.com";

and has no issues showing up.

Windows, not linux.

I just changed the address between the "", and it worked before with arma2.

As far as I'm aware arma2oapc.master.gamespy.com is the correct address for OA.

EDIT: I got it working twice but the server dies as soon as I connect, and above problem still reoccurs randomly.

Edited December 18, 2010 by Sira

[SWAT_BigBear 0]

Mine is CO, A2+OA.

Is there a difference with the Combined Ops release, or is it just a multi pack with both installs?

[Eclipse4349 0]

I have been trying to find some definitive answers as far as bandwidth and server setup. So far, no luck.

First of all, I host on the same machine I play on. It is as described in my signature block. My Internet connection is ~12Mb/s down (at the lowest) and 7Mb/sec upload.

Can bandwidth settings be tweaked on a hosted server? If so, what are the lines of code to do so? I know some, from the basic.cfg from the BIS wiki on dedicated servers, if those apply to a hosted server. Are there more than the ones outlined there?

Finally, what settings best tweak a server with this upload bandwidth for maximum un-lagginess for the clients that connect? The big issues being warping when viewing far away units, and maximizing the number of units that we can handle smoothly.

Any help would be appreciated!

[Birdseye 0]

Whatever I tried with settings, with windows dedicated server I couldn't get it lag and warping free. Basically it was pretty bad, also close-up.

Now I tried with Linux (mint) on a old laptop as server, and although not powerful enough for bigger missions, the lag and warping very much decreased with AI, as long as the server fps is sufficient.

edit...reinstalled and also with windows dedicated server warping &lag is now far reduced in LAN

used settings:

MaxMsgSend=512;

MaxSizeGuaranteed=512;

MaxSizeNonguaranteed=64;

MinBandwidth=30000000;

MaxBandwidth=70000000;

MinErrorToSend=0.0025;

MaxCustomFileSize=0;

Edited December 25, 2010 by Birdseye

[nobrainer 0]

@Eclipse

Your download don't mean that much when hosting. You have to count everything on you upload.

Yes you can use bandwidth and those parametres from basic.cfg on your client as well.

What's the best setting? No one knows, but there have been some testing that CTI and those kind of missions, needs a whole lot of other parameters than CTF/C&H.

[Eclipse4349 0]

@Eclipse

Your download don't mean that much when hosting. You have to count everything on you upload.

Yes you can use bandwidth and those parametres from basic.cfg on your client as well.

What's the best setting? No one knows, but there have been some testing that CTI and those kind of missions, needs a whole lot of other parameters than CTF/C&H.

Yeah,I figured the heavily scripted missions like warfare would be a bit more resource intensive. Which is important, as I am currently working on 1-town Warfare missions. I'm now at the playtesting and balancing stage, having finally found the right way to adjust the bounty for killing enemy units. Turns out the LK-Warfare init_common.sqf file had it wrong. You can't just have bountymodifier = X, you have to use a setvariable command on the bountymodifier. In my case, I wanted the payoff for killing an enemy unit to be the cost of the unit, so I used:

BIS_WF_Constants SetVariable ["BOUNTYMODIFIER",1];

Once I get everything tuned up where I think it flows well, I am hoping to move my 1-town Warfare missions to many other locations, and release the missions as a package. :)

Thanks for all the replies do far! If anyone can help any further with bandwidth optimization, I am all ears!

Edited December 24, 2010 by Eclipse4349

[nobrainer 0]

If anyone can help any further with bandwidth optimization, I am all ears!

Me too!

BIS has done a great job with cpuCount and exThreads, but I'm still missing a 64-bit server version and not 4GB memory limit and of course some more information on network tuning both on LAN and internet.

But they are going in the right direction

[Dwarden 1125]

NoBrainer it was explained numbers times that 64bit version is not feasible nor easy to do ...

if it was You would already got it

[Killg0re 0]

Is there any thumb rule to get this desynch eliminated?

What are your hints for getting closer to eliminate or at least decrease the desynch.

I use for our servers, wich actually runs fine

(3 servers, 12p (i3d.nl), 20p (home server) and a 64 player server (windows bulk network):

language="English";

adapter=-1;

3D_Performance=100000;

Resolution_Bpp=32;

Windowed=1;

MinBandwidth=800000;

MaxBandwidth=1000000;

MaxMsgSend=512;

MaxSizeGuaranteed=512;

MaxSizeNonguaranteed=128;

MinErrorToSend=0.001;

MaxCustomFileSize=100000;

[nobrainer 0]

NoBrainer it was explained numbers times that 64bit version is not feasible nor easy to do ...

if it was You would already got it

Yes I know.

Didn't mean to offend you. It was just a wish....and I have many wishes.

I think you guys are doing a great job. Not allways the way I would like, but your getting there slowly.

Also know that your company needs funds, so I keep on buying everything you guys give out for Operation Flaspoint / Armed Assault / ArmA2. Have been following you through sommer 2002 until now.

[jkhaaja 10]

Is there a way to run combined operations dedicated server with the steam version of the game ?

[Gunter Severloh 4071]

Didn't mean to offend you. It was just a wish....and I have many wishes.

I think you guys are doing a great job. Not allways the way I would like, but your getting there slowly.

Also know that your company needs funds, so I keep on buying everything you guys give out for Operation Flaspoint /

Armed Assault / ArmA2. Have been following you through sommer 2002 until now.

Dwarden isn't being offended, hes just stating the facts

what he said

Originally Posted by Dwarden View Post

NoBrainer it was explained numbers times that 64bit version is not feasible nor easy to do ...

if it was You would already got it

is a statement telling you that what your asking has already been asked before. I dont think Dwarden would feel

offended unless you critizided him directly or personally, but being a BI Developer I think he would be more likely to

be professional and see what he can do to inform then give you a reply acting as offended.

[nobrainer 0]

No problem.

I just wanted to explain that I allready knew about the 64-bit question.

[TechnoTerrorist303 10]

Is there a way to run combined operations dedicated server with the steam version of the game ?

I'm unsure how steam arranges the files if you install CO. You need to run the Arma2OAserver.exe file with the arma2 addons folder defined as a mod.

[galzohar 31]

Yes, with Steam you need to run Arma 2 as a mod - same for if you have the A2 installed to a different folder than OA for any other reason, as that's basically what Steam does. This is actually what the _runA2CO.cmd file does - all the "nasty" code there seems to basically try to find the correct folders.

[jkhaaja 10]

I see. Thank you for the info TechnoTerrorist303 and galzohar. Now I just hope I can run the server without steam being open so I can actually use my other computer to play on the server :)

Just to clarify, I do a -mod=*arma2folder* or arma2 addons folder?

[jkhaaja 10]

Ok where can I get the new arma2oaserver.exe ? It is not included in the steam patch. Tried googling with no luck

[PogMoThoin 10]

Ok where can I get the new arma2oaserver.exe ? It is not included in the steam patch. Tried googling with no luck

Use the one in the latest beta patch

[Dwarden 1125]

try use arma2oaserver.exe from beta build 77007 :)

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=112711

[jkhaaja 10]

Thx that worked :) I got the server to run now, however I think it might not be running in combined ops mode. I tried opening a mission requiring combined ops on the server and it wouldnt load just went straight back to mission selection.

I used the following parameter in the shortcut to server:

-mod="c:\program files (x86)\steam\steamapps\common\arma 2\AddOns"

Any ideas?

[jkhaaja 10]

Still no solution to this problem :/

I think I figured out what was wrong. I checked the steam script that launches the combined ops and I was missing a -mod=ca; from there. Dunno what this ca does but apparentally it fixed the launching of the server.

Edited January 10, 2011 by jkhaaja

[Nephris1 10]

@Moderator: Could that thread become sticky plz?

It contains all info you actually need to setup a Dedicated.

[nobrainer 0]

one question for you guys who knows about these things....

in server.cfg

onUnsignedData = "kick (_this select 0)";

We have kicked players that don't have sigend addons.

How can I also give that user a message?