Multiplayer games with MANY players

[pointless 0]

*sigh* OK, so evidently it isnt my computer. First I thought it was the fact that my VIA mainboard wasnt the stablest in the world but now my opflash dedicated server is a P3-800 that has NEVER had ANYTHING unexplicably crash in its 6 months of life. Sure some things go wrong but never out of the blue.

Unlike with operation flashpoint dedicated server.

Now I have a BIG link, 100mbit switched, meaning I've been gathering large maps with say 40 player slots. And with Opflash 1.20 this used to go well enough. I experienced the occasional crash now and then. And this was with my old VIA board.

Currently:

-CLEAN windows 2k install. NOTHING exept DirectX 8.1, SP2 in there.

-CLEAN opflash install. v1.00 -> 1.20 -> 1.30 patched.

Hardware:

Asus CUSL2 (intel i815EP chipset) mainboard (this has been described as a very compatible, stable thing)

P3-800

3com Vortex 100Mbit network card

S3 Savage 3D videocard (this IS giving me problems, opflash won't even start, but for ded server it works)

What happens:

Well, first of all, we're having a horrible time actually getting players assigned to sides. The scrollbars in the East and West windows do NOT work correctly, so people in the pool have to wait until already assigned players move themselves down the list. For some reason they can do this.

But then, at random points, the game just crashes. Foom. Byebye. 'Operation Flashpoint has generated an error and will be closed'

Can someone please tell me what is going on? If people from BIS want me to show how it goes they can contact me, Im happy to help.

[pointless 0]

A few additions after playing one good game:

1/ It only seems to happen if there are more then say 20 players. Maybe the chance of failure increases with every new connection but I have better luck with fewer players.

2/ In-game it's all fine. So the bug is definately in the 'server setup'. (although, it did crash too during the map downloads.. I was already looking at the map, some people still 'red')

3/ How come my Athlon XP 1800+ gets exactly the same game speed as my old P3-800? In singleplayer the Athlon is at least 2x as fast, but in multiplayer its not that great. (Its not horrible, but it feels like I have a P2-450 and I don't)

[crashdome 3]

In response to OpFlash not running on your S3 savage... way back when, a friend of mine installed a Savage4(played the game several times) and did a re-install for 1.27 only to find it didn't work. All it said was "Error!" and gave no description of the problem. Even the preferences didn't work. Even if we didn't patch the game.

Couldn't figure out why until we realized he did not have the config file the preferences creates when you first run it. This was the only difference from when he put it in and it worked, to when he re-installed it. So we copied the config file from my computer to his and manuelly adjusted it and it runs great. The only problem is the preferences still doesn't operate right.

[RN Malboeuf 12]

regardless of you Net con you puter is not fast enough, and might need more memory to have more then 10 players with ZERO lag

Sure you can have more players conect but by doing this you loose performace some where

I have tested most of the DED North America servers on the net, I can tell which ones have a slow CPU speed when a AI disapears and pops up to the left or right

and can tell when he's lagging from poor upstream, you'll see a yellow box on the lower right

Now just because you dont see any thing does not mean your lagging the #### out of every one

I have a 1.6ghz and still try not to host while I play even tho I have 1700/1500 streams , the ded server runs fine at thes specs

Also I play on Two servers that have had 32 players on them and it was fine

the servers do crash after 5-6 hours of play due to bad Voting

[pointless 0]

Thanks Crashdome, I'll try that S3 fix.

As for the multiplayer thing, all I can say is that it workED ok enough, and I did actually play with 40 people on a 900mhz server. My own box was right next to it, and I experienced little game lag with that. Yes, it was a bit slower then usual, but only a BIT. Some people were slow (hopping around) but then that were the people who had bad links and couldn't handle that much data.

But the maps I use are streamlined, very very few AI etc.

And still, as I said, even though maybe I should or maybe I shouldnt try at 40 player, fact is it CRASHES during game setup, and that is bad.

Anyone (SUMA! ) able to tell me what's up with this?

[RN Malboeuf 12]

for each extra play you have online you have to send a larger packet to all the players

say a packet contains two values

1 for the player and 1 for the players data

now each time a new player conects the formula changes

1 for the player 2 for the players datas

2 ppl play would be 1x2=2

6 ppl would be 1x6=6

now lets add a new data say 10kbs per player of info

1x6x10=600 kbs to each player

thats now 6x600 kbs wich is 3600 (3.6 megs a second)

are you following?

this is what makes it very hard as a server

I'm just using examples (if you actually followed that)

but if you have even 1 bottle nec like a 2 meg router (older ones) you kill your server speed no matter how fast you Net speed is

[Mister Frag 0]

That must be the new math -- the way I learned it, 1x6x10 is still 60, not 600.

There are so many flawed assumptions in your analysis and calculations that they are useless. The notion that six players require 3.6MB/sec. of bandwidth underscores that.

[RN Malboeuf 12]

it was an example to show the multiplication of data that a server has to send to each client

my numbers are in no way correct

with every new client the packet size increases allot

I could go into GREAT detail on the packets and even show you how much info is in one with 2 playersand then compare it to a packet with say 32 player

there's a very big difference,more thensome would know

[Mister Frag 0]

Fine. But the example you came up with winds up using about 60Kilobits/sec., which (given some compression) can be dealt with even by a V90 or similar analog modem.

[RN Malboeuf 12]

yes but thats for each client

I know it's not 60kbs

lets say 10 kbs a sec just for arguments sake

10 players at 10 kbs packets (thats 10000 characters player/AI postions, thier movents, what they are doing, where they are looking, what they are carring, what they look like, what they fring)

thats 100 kbs

so that means lag for guys with 100 kbs updtream (allready compressed)which is the average person upstream

you should know all this baa