darkpeace

Is there a known bug list ? Wouldn't mind knowing what is being worked on before posting. Or is it a secret ?

A1) If 70% of servers are empty, go play on them A2) I don't complain about dial-up people that contribute to the server build or gameplay, most however take something fromhe game by complaining A3) See A2 A4) Don't need to brag, everyone that foots the bill has 512kbps or higher, it isn't really fast, just average these days. More and more games will require 512kbps Internet as a minimum in the coming years, Time to upgrade I think. A5) They still cost money, cuz they are using megs, however I did not say this above, as I consider it uses less than 5% of server bandwidth and very little server CPU time. However if someone lags and starts teleporting around the place, while everyone else is playing on equal grounds.....well...what would an umpire do ? A6) Who doesn't MFCTI = 175ms on 96kbps only. Its a sign in itself A7) Just general bullshit complaining, as stated above no one wants to hear it A8) So do I sometimes he gets shit for bad ping, because of they few immature ones on 56k that just keep complaining, every time they die. A8.B) Yes, people on broadband (or averageband as it should be called) make addons aswell, and they also get equal respect. 9) If the AI is so good, why play online and give yourself a bad ping and bad connection when there are perfectly good solo missions?, With the game as scaled as it is these days really needs 192kbps minimum to play and a ping under 125ms, Flashpoint has grown up, (Time to upgrade to grow with Flashpoint, not against it) eg: MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS FOR ONLINE PLAY: You can still host small deathmatch maps on 28.8kbps and have 1 or 2 players join and share that 28.8kbps, and host a small map on a non-dedicated server if you are desperate. Wouldn't be surprised if clans or factions start up, password their server change the password every week, and actually ask the 10 players to foot 10% of the otherwise huge bill each. You need to understand that admins are spending alot of time, and alot of money hosting the kinds of servers you see today. eg: Athlon 64FX-Winchester core at 2.6Ghz and up with Dual DDR and fast memory controller, do not come cheaply for hosting fast MFCTI and RTS3 games. As such all 18 slots are reserved, and if someone ICQs the admin, who is paying the bill and says "Wait up, make a slot for me, I have reserved one by helping foot the bill" then the admin will pick the highest pinger, or lowest datarate player and just kick without warning. Why: Because AU$200/mo divided by 18 people is actually an affordable figure ? of $10/mo each, and the admin can pay the remaining $30/mo. PEOPLE RESERVE SLOTS, The above is a likely reason as to why you are being kicked. Also if 12 paying players ask for a high pinger to be kicked, I ain't going to argue with 12 PAYING customers, vs 1 person who doesn't really count in the whole of things and ISNT OFFERING A CENT (aka: a leecher as we call them) Sure there are 6 slots free, but you need to understand most maps these days are designed around a 128kbps and 100ms ping minimum (with the occasional ADSL retrain, etc, which lasts 5 to 37sec in an ideal world, and sometimes over 90sec) No one wants 'lag induced vehicle lock; (see above) when playing a team oriented simulator, esp if someones lag keeps screwing everyone else. Seriously try being on the other side -WE PAY HEAPS FOR SERVERS -WE PAY HEAPS FOR BROADBAND -WE LAG WHEN 56ks ARE Manning VEHICLES we are in cargo of -WE ALL KNOW EACH OTHER -WE LIVE IN THE SAME COUNTRY, TIMEZONE, AND ALL FOOT THE BILL -WE ARE ALL 'PART' ADMINS OF SOME SERVERS -Hell we even hide our servers from master.gamespy.com to stop freaking 12yo 56kers joining now Enjoy, PS: When you have hosted your own community server for 3 years come back and we can talk.

Never said 56k uses any bandwidth, it just pings badly. There is a fine book called 'XDSL Technologies....' that explains why modems ping slower in great detail. Even a 64kbps ISDN will ping fine as its connection has less overhead (time wise, not bandwidth wise) to the ISP. Anyone under 175ms I ain't going to kick under normal circumstances. However, as for 4 hour session limits and MFCTI games.....well don't like to see half the palyers drop, when 20 others on DSL where wanting to play aswell. eg: anything under 384kbps will ping badly to MFCTI, or simply lack the datarate (I'd kick an single channel ISDN monkey if his ping was 5ms , but his datarate is only 64kbps, so once the game starts he'll lag out anyway.....) As stated above: ~~~~~~~~~~ The reason some admins kick high pingers, is because if a Driver, Gunner or Commander has a high ping it 'rolls over' to anyone else trying to get in or out of the vehicle. General Rule 1: If you are a high pinger, do not go Driver, Gunner, Pilot, Commander, stick to the cargo. Unless of course each player gets their own vehicle, the AI are not going to complain about lag induced 'vehicle lock' If you have never played on 192kbps or greater, you have likely never experiecned the freaking huge delay, disemarking, or getting into a vehile piloted by someone on dial-up. Known Bug: ~~~~~~~ eg: If a player gets 'Lossing Connection..." then drops out, due to bad ping and desync, no one in their vehicle can do shit (eg: eject be the high pinger crashes the chopper do to lag), as all the players are ment to be in sync, and due to the 90sec time out, it takes 90sec for them to drop and the chopper to crash, killing everyone, Team Kill style. This normally results in a ban, and with good reason. You can recreate the event on a LAN even, by using NetLimiter and capping at 4kb/sec (as 6kb/sec saturates a modem link and can increase ping at the cost of higher data rate) Its all basic networking. I acknowledge anyone on dial-up who spent time to create addons, Hats off to them, really, they make themselves an exception to the rule, and are generally well known and welcome on any server internationally even with 500ms pings. Sadly however this does not roll over to ever other player on dialup. But if YOU where paying AU$200/month or spending cash on hardware to get a server hosted specificially for playing MFCTI and its varients, then you can kick who ever you like, since it is YOUR server after all. (After some experiencing hosting YOUR own MFCTI server you'll kick anyone over 175ms with under a 96kbps datarate on sight) (MFCTI was ment for LANs, nuf said) If a few dial-up dudes got together and put in $2/mo they could host a HPB only server, and ban pingers below 125ms, etc ....This is a common practice in every other online game, just not in Flashpoint ......why they don't do it, no idea .... Sure is better than complaining about being kicked for joining a server not even in the same timezone as yourself. Community should work together, so everyone benefits. Alternatively just play on another countries server where their local time is 2am and there are no admins to kick you. Better yet, get your mates together and host a LAN, or get some wireless gear and build a community Flashpoint wireless LAN, its cheap, you all get 11mbps+ to each other, and no ongoing costs (unlike dialup Internet). You also learn alot and it looks good on a resume. Anyways, Anyone under 175ms ping with over 96kbps datarate I welcome to any server I host. If other areas need help getting a local server up I am sure 'RN Malboeuf' from Roughnecks, and other fine admins and network gurus are glad to help, just don't bitch about being kicked from a server YOU ARE NOT FOOTING THE BILL OF. Shit its like giving a country free food (hosting a server and not charing people to play on it), and then having said country, of food deprived (online flashpoint deprived) people start to complain the food tastes bad (oh, my ping sux to your server, your doing something wrong, cry, cry, I want a free server that I can play on and not have everyone else bitch about my high ping) Solution: Go buy your own food (go host your own server) PS: I have DeaDMeaT (or an impersonator) on my ICQ Contact List: ICQ Number: 116-632-203 Since he contributes something he gets respect straight away, which cancels out playing on a non-local server in anyones eyes, if he lags out, his choice. Still don't see everyone else on Dial-Up contributing anywhere near as much as Deadmeat does.

The server only ever gets sent the Player ID, and figures out for itself if it is valid or not (eg: blacklisted, etc) Even encrpyted it would be folly to send either the actual cd-key or the semi encrypted version that is stored in the above registry keys. PS: I am more than happy to WHIM both my IDs, as well as my Resistance CD-Key, and other CD-Keys to an admin, if they suspect I am trying to run a pirated copy of the best game ever made.

If you store the NetLog file on a NTFS (Compressed) partition then it ain't really anywhere near the 6mb in 12 hours as it is mostly text it would compress very well indeed, at a minimum of CPU overhead. PS: NTFS lets you use NTFS Compession on a per file basis aswell, so search for all *.txt and *.log on a system, and flag them as compressed (Hey; that one was actually a useful tip.) That'll be 2c thx (just kidding)

The reason they kick high pingers, is because if a Driver, Gunner or Commander has a high ping it 'rolls over' to anyone else trying to get in or out of the vehicle. Known Bug: ~~~~~~~ eg: If a player gets 'Lossing Connection..." then drops out, due to bad ping and desync, no one in their vehicle can do shit (eg: eject be the high pinger crashes the chopper do to lag), as all the players are ment to be in sync, and due to the 90sec time out, it takes 90sec for them to drop and the chopper to crash, killing everyone, Team Kill style. This normally results in a ban, and with good reason. ~~~~~~~ I mean FFS if an admin spends AU$100/mo (or more like $200/mo) hosting a server the least they can expect is to play with mates with low pings. The last thing you want is some clueless idiot joining from another country, having done no TRACERT on the server on a link with high packet lose to go Pilot of a Blackhawk and fuck your gaming experience. ESP SO AT AU$200 PER MONTH I mean is this clueless idiot playing or contributing to the server bill ? HELL NO. He is freeloading in a manner of speaking a resource and crying. Playing online is a privlidge, and not a right, as so many Counter-Strike players might think. If the player joined a clan, and contributed $5-20/mo to play on a fast server, then hey, no problem here, by all means let them play on their local servers. Before they bitch they should try hosting their own ****ing server and see how much it costs them. I would strongly recommend only having the #vote overthrow when a #voted admin is in. On any decent server the admins are almost always trusted members of the clan hosting the server and all foot the bill equally or otherwise, even then you learn which voted admins can play nice, and which ones are ****wits pretty quickly. Generally speaking ****wits don't get voted admin, and if you get kicked, think twice 1 - Am ***I*** contributing anything to the server bill ? 2 - Am ***I*** effectively leeching bandwidth and CPU time on a rented server ? 3 - Am ***I*** local, or is my ping going to effect their vehicle action times if ***I*** play as a Commander, Driver, Pilot, Gunner, or any other position not in the cargo. If a high pinger on my server gets in a primary vehicle position, after repeated warnings not to, I'll ban the bastard for 14 days just so he gets the message. Other Bugs: ~~~~~~~~~~~ - Also the horn appears to be client side only

Here is a tip: The bandwidth commands go in flashpoint.cfg not server.cfg as I pointed out to everyone in the 'MutliThreaded server - will it ever happen ?' thread. The other server commands go into your custom server.cfg (or whatever name it has) See DS-ADMIN.RTF if you don't believe me Failing that ask Suma, he said it was just a Placebo effect. If an admin thinks they are actually seeing benefit from using the commands in server.cfg (not flashpoint.cfg as DS-ADMIN.RTF states) then Suma claimed that they are mistaken (as above see my post 'MutliThreaded server - will it ever happen ?, where Suma replied and pretty much the same was said) UPDATE: 768kbps in 'hex' CPU friendly format is 786432 bps Multiply 'Kbps' by 1024 for 'bps' that are more CPU friendly. For 'Mbps' multiply by 1048576 for 'bps' figured that are more CPU friendly (better add this to my personal FAQ) UPDATE2: MaxMsgSend = 640; MinBandwith = 52428800; MaxBandwith = 83886080; MaxSizeGuaranteed = 512; Holy crap, thats telling the server to actually use more than 50% of the 100mbps link, do all yours players have 10mbps links or something ? You would need something in the order of a 40 Ghz Pentium 4, or a 27 Ghz Athlon 64FX to host that. And, no, the server will not thread over 32 CPUs either. Also if a 100mbps link (backbone or otherwise) has a usage over 40% (ever) it will increase ping times by quite a margin indeed my friend. Try these first, and work from there: MaxMsgSend=768; // (Or more for a MFCTI Server) MaxSizeGuaranteed=1280; // (About right) MaxSizeNonguaranteed =768; (About right) MinBandwidth 1048576; (1mbps, uses little CPU on server) MaxBandwidth=4194304; (4mbps, uses medi CPU on server) MinErrorToSend=0.01 // (Try 0.10 to 0.001) MaxCustomFileSize=0 // Or 65,536 max* (* - if you want custom faces, sounds, etc to be usage, bear in mind they burn bandwidth.) These are the settings I recommend everyone try first. I mean Holy **** !, over 50mbps minimum for a server AT ALL is just LOCO DUDE, that would hammer CPU, and server FPS would suffer, like well below 15fps, heck below 5fps is just lag (well CPU induced desync to be accurate) city.

Anyone know if the VBS1 server is actually threaded (in such that it can use 100% of all CPUs if required, assuming no other bottlenecks are introduced) ? Would be mad to have MFCTI at a LAN with 32 per side with server running at 50fps, even if it means AU$200 per player to get a copy of VBS1. (Yes I am serious, if it is threaded as above, and someone can prove it to me with a screenshot while hosting 1 single server, not 4 servers over 4 CPUs, then I'll go out and do it)

Multi CPU / HyperThreaded Flashpoint server s/w Will it ever happen ? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Why all these USA admins are running Dual 2.8 Xeons is beyond me, surely they check the CPU load on the server ? Or is there a magic trick or did someone edit, then recompile the source code for the server to make it more optimized on the multi CPU / threaded side of things ? Also with the recent updates I have seen a few servers cap themselves at 32 fps, is there anyway to make this 50fps or more ? 2 servers: -Intel Pentium 4 2.4/800/HT @ 2.9/1066/HT -'Borrowed' Intel Quad Xeon 2.66/533/HT @ stock speeds -All CPUs have 512kb l2 cache, and no l3 cache -The P4 has a higher FSB, and memory benchmarks are better in SiSoft SANDRA because of this The Xeon makes a better file-server than the P4, but the P4 makes a better Flashpoint 1.96RC server. Surely you could squeeze more usage from all those idle CPUs ? Well done on the memory usage though guys, that was quite impressive. Someone ? And does anyone know, (and is willing to answer), if VBS1 servers are more optimized thread wise for 8 logical CPUs under Linux ? - I have asked around and been given conficting reports, I suspect that VBS1 server is NOT any faster, or uses any more CPU than Resistance 1.96RC (unless they removed the 50fps or 32fps limiters. Suspect it is no faster on the Xeon above, than Resistance was) Anyone with FACTS ? Regards, DarkPeace

If someone wrote a trojan to collect the information from the following registry keys: -HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Codemasters\Operation Flashpoint (player id is based from this string, which is just the cd-key in a different, encrypted shall we say, format, to protect it yes, however it can sadly be extracted with ease.....and I am only a mediocre hacker / security tester) -HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Codemasters\Flashpoint Resistance (used at installation, otherwise appears unrelated to "player id" in resistance, and can be removed without affecting resistance at all", possible omition in Resistance source code ?, however GOTY does not use this key at all, while still permitting Resistance to be run) Or otherwise exported the "encrypted" versions of the game serial number (they do not match your cd-key, but they are the same thing, just scrambled, trust me on this, they also relate, equally to your 'player id') Then anyone with the scrambled key could create a *.REG file, and thus be able to pirate the game, using someone elses cd-key, simply by hacking their machine, and stealing all the information in say the "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software" branch of the registry. I won't go into to much details for obvious reasons, but I suspect many players running Windows 98 or earlier have had this performed on their PCs. I am thankful the cd-key/serial was encryped in the registry, but it is not impossible to reverse engineer (adv maths, hex, etc) to the original cd-key. Also if they pirated the game folder (not an ISO of the CD) then all a given priate needs is the *.REG file, that is very easy to create. Unfortunately this can cause havoc for legit customers. (I paid for Flashpoint Gold, and got Resistance the same day, later on, due to file patching and different CRC issues, and admins claiming as my CRC was different I must be cheating, which I was clearly not, but some admins don't even know what a CRC is,-see NASA website for CRC they invented it-I also paid for the GOTY version, which only needs 1 patch, and CRC matches most server based installations) All in all, it was worth it, 2 cd-keys, PDFs of all the maps, and the music from Seventh.....the GOTY is only AU$35 these days on most online shops ! Also does FADE actually still do anything ? - eg: affect accuracy, speed, hitpoints, sprint movement, etc ?

Good to here , Not here to argue about benchmarks. Bear in mind that P4-Northwood was only made around dual threaded software, and that the 4 Way threading performed (last screenshot above) may hinder some results slightly. Either way, I can see how it is realated to the Flashpoint Server exe, as a program. I started this forum with the intention of server only optimisation, and intend to keep it that way, the game engine itself (the client side of it) can be left to the other 98%+ of the forums. Didn't think the app was coded by yourself. Well Done. Based on the screenshot, you can see how I came to my conclusions though - lol. It wouldn't surprise me if it did have some MMX support, as good compilers these days add a CPU detection routine to the final EXE, and add reasonable support for certain features on certain CPUs (based on compiler date). For example: Half-Life runs on a 486, (try it, it really does, esp with a TNT2 PCI video card on later 486s with PCI bus)yet it is Pentium optimized, and will use different code for Pentium systems. There are also better compilers than the MS or Intel one lying around, but support for them is limited Still I find it very weird that your floating point benchmark was slower when threaded, and the optimized version of Whetstone (and the iSSE2 version aswell) are much, much faster with hyperthreading. They are both similar benchmarks and both utilise floating point instructions. Perhaps there is a difference (likely) at the compiler / final code level, between HyperThreading and actually having 2 CPUs. In that a given compiler that was designed with HyperThreading as well as Dual CPU in mind would give vastly different results. It all comes down to the code being fed to the CPU(s), I guess version 6 was just not meant to create (terrific) P4 output programs (as it may predate the Northwood). Also was the P4 you tested it on using a decent i865pe or i875p (or any Dual-DDR) chipset ?, as large numbers of 80bit or 64bit floating point values eat memory bandwidth. Just curious as it may have affected just the FPU results, as most integar values are only 32 bits wide. As for DirectX and OpenGL benchmarks, etc, laeve it to game forums, I do not see a dedicated server using OpenGL for assistance with AI. It is not unheard of to have video cards do things other than video, but what I really want prob needs a special AI Card/Device, with its own bus to the CPU / Northbridge, that is like an AI Accelerator (like the early 3D video cards where.....) Oh well, maybe in a decade or two...... Hehehe, It would have its own language and not use antique instruction sets, yet still plug into x86 systems. OpenAI and the MS ripoff DirectAI. Maybe when Direct X 12 comes out will such hardware exist.

The whole "Relative to PII-400" casts doubt over that benchmarks SSE support , as the PII-400 only supported MMX and had some extra cache. Me thinks that the program you using is a 'tad' dated. Still valid figures all the same, to see how a P4C+HT handles PII FPU code.

1.97 Server running at: 131.236.20.138:2302 A30VESLNET00061.VESL.local | 52ms Looks like a VBS testing server, running VBS and ADFA2 mods (This server ain't to far from my house) So was 1.97 a custom version for ADFA ? Wouldn't mind seeing the fixes list

Certa see my Drystone / Whetstone benchmarks a page or so back. Has all the info one would need (bear in mind it is optimized Drystone and Whetstone, not the standard ones) Drystone = MIPS Whetstone = MFLOPS ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Ahhh hell I'll post them again: Here are some SANDRA 2004 scores of various CPUs: [CPU Name] [Drystone, Whestone FPU, Whetstone iSSE2, MHz] [Performance Index vs P4-C w/o HT] Intel Pentium 4-C [2 SMT] 3.2GHz 512L2 (HyperThreading) 9808, 4059, 7095, 3200 119, Â 171, Â 164, Â 100 Intel Pentium 4-C 3.2GHz 512L2 (No HyperThreading) 8243, 2368, 4330, 3200 100, Â 100, Â 100, Â 100 AMD Athlon FX53/Opteron 150 2.4GHz 1ML2 9749, 3764, 4903, 2400 118, Â 159, Â 113, Â 75 (so far 3.2Ghz add 33%) AMD Athlon XP 3200+ 2.2GHz 512L2 8380, 3465, NOSSE2, 2200 102, Â 146, Â Â Â " Â Â , Â Â 68.75 (so for 3.2Ghz add 45%) Intel Pentium M 1.8GHz 1ML2 (*) 7084, 2499, 3196, 1800 Â 86, Â 106, Â Â 74, Â Â 56.25 (so for 3.2Ghz add 77%) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ HT FPU/SSE added 71% performance boost vs non HT HT FPU/SSE2 added 64% performance boost vs non HT Bear in mind the above was one some very optimized code that run threaded very well, so these are the expected maximums in performance one could theoretically gain by using such a feature. Main thing I noticed was that SSE2+HT was 74% faster than SSE+HT and SSE2 w/o HT was 83% faster (so the code benefits from SSE2 heaps) ALso the Athlon 64 FPU was 59% faster in plain (non threaded) floating point ops. So in theory the majority of applications that have FPU/SSE support, ***but not hyperthreading or SSE2***, would perform much better on a Athlon 64, than on a P4 Northwood core (and this is comparing 2.4 Ghz to 3.2 Ghz) Once HyperThreading came into the equation the Athlon 64 only trailed by 8%, so for non threaded code (the most common type) performance should be excellent, yet in threaded code it is only 8% slower. That is a damn fine trade off if you ask me. HyperThreading is only good in video editing, some web server specific roles and running 2 archivers (WinRAR) at once, on each 'logical' CPU (note: that each RAR operation will take longer than it would have, but doing 2 at once makes up for it) It has a future in gaming, but I doubt we will see any real support (aka: over 75% CPU usage reported by Task Manager) in games for a long time to come (and longer still for gaming servers) Summary: ~~~~~~ If only all software could be coded so well, or 'exploit' features (eg: Use ALU and FPU at the same time, and perform as much floating point in batches that need the same operation performed) In reality however, this is not possible, as the human mind can only comprehend so much at once.

If you just want raw memory bandwidth the Opteron is meant to support up around the 19.2 GB/sec mark (vs 6.4 GB/sec on 800 FSB Pentium 4's) Mind you that is the equivilent of 6 Channel DDR400 (PC3200) so I'll have to dig around to see which chipset supports it. Also, Intel have new 1066 FSB Xeons on the way (as well as 1066 FSB Pentium 4's) http://www.amd.com http://www.amd.com/us-en....00.html http://www.intel.com (I use the .au domains, as I am in Australia)

Yeah the way I see it: If it is HT+SSE2 optimized the P4(any core) will do well If it is not HT or doesn't benefit from it then the Athlon 64/64FX tend to perform faster (plain x87 is over twice as fast as a P4-Northwood plain FPU - AT EQUAL CLOCK SPEEDS). SSE2 tilts it in Intels favour, as AMD opted for less strong SSE2 peformance, and faster x87 and SSE performance. Downside is AMD-64 do not have HT function See my Drystone etc scores above (last page) That and with the AMD-64 the pipeline is shorter, more L1 cache, nuf said

But Flashpoint 2 will have a fully threaded server....right.....right.....?

Yeah, for example in 7-Zip, which reads as maxing both logical CPUs on a HT system, does not mean the time to 7-Zip is halved. I should get off my ass and time it again, It was still a marked improvement over a non-HT system though. But anyway, with 2000+ AI surely it would make sense to run it on a well threaded server (software wise). Then we could really see P4-Northwoods take off in OFP:R Server performance, and Dual Xeon/Opteron systems would perform even better. More and more people I know are switching from Counter-Strike to Flashpoint, as a AthlonXP2000+ can be had cheap and run Flashpoint well, even on a uni-student budget (aka: not me) so they are "evolving" their PCs and their gaming requirements. Anyways, as I said earlier I would pay $$$$ lots for a well threaded OFP:R Server that runs on SuSe or Win2K/XP....I can not really justify spending $$$$ lots on VBS1 though. (Can anyone confirm or deny if VBS1 Server is threaded any better than Resistance 1.96RC Server ?) That VolanoMark is bloddy weird. All we need now is a OFP:R-196RC-ServerMark to confirm if it really is that memroy intensive. I have a slightly different explaination for the VolanoMark scores though. The 2 logical CPUs on the Northwood are competing for the same cache and same l2 cache using Java which really hurts performance. Same is true on UltraSPARC chips, thus the need for 8mb caches and more 'real' not logical CPUs when using good old "effecient" (sacasm) Java. As Intel stated the PreScott has double the cache, and other features that 'help', thus when the 2 logical CPUs are competing against each other the extra cache means more cache hits, thus performance does not drop as much. (Quote: Yes, its results were better with HT disabled but when enabling HT we only saw a decrease in performance in the neighborhood of 12%. The Northwood-based processor suffered a 35% decrease in performance. Morbid, but true.) I know Flashpoint uses a few scripts here and there, but the AI code can (and should) be threaded. Hell 64 squads of 12 soldiers each could use 64 threads which do not rely on results from previous calcuations to process, thus they can be run in unison.....(maybe even 64x12 threads, except there is a bit of overhead there, surely)

Cheers, I am at <darkpeace@internode.on.net> if anyone feels like emailing server screenshots with TaskManager (Each CPU + Kernal usage as red line) with Flashpoint in foreground, as well as a "#MONITOR 5" report (enter when logged on as Admin to a server, or voted as admin) about 90 - 120 minutes into a CTI game, just go nuts ! ***!!! Please use PNG or JPEG or JPEG2000 format as required !!!*** Also basic server specs and OS would be nice with the above.

All I need to complete my research is the #MONITOR 5 figures about 90 minutes (or longer) into a CTI game. Thanks for the uber fast replies btw.

Few questions for "backwoods" (2 posts up): ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Do you play (MF)CTI or RTS or other large scale warfare maps ? What is the peak CPU load that a single given OFP:R Server thread will use on your server ? If you load the server heavily and get it down to 10fps (for testing only) does it use near 100% of all available CPUs ? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I have checked out: http://www.firedaemon.com/register/ I assume I need to be running the one with SMP Support for the subprocess optimisations to have any effect (once I get a MFCTI server at over 75% available load, on P4+HT, I will be a very happy man) The SMP version will "force" the server process to run on all available CPUs correct ?, and thus get above 50% (or 25% in some cases) utilization ? (That is assuming server fps is well below 50fps, or 32fps in some cases, indicating it has "hit the usage wall" as I have come to call it) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ [evil laugh - lol] I found it (doh): http://www.firedaemon.com/downloads/FireDaemon-Pro-1_7-Pre-GA.exe The above is the direct link, see the main http://www.firedaemon.com for more information, appears I can test SMP after all, for a 30 day trial, now I can really begin the fun. (maybe I can keep my overclocked Northwood and actualy see some REAL performance......was going to build an Athlon 64(FX maybe) for a LAN in a few weeks, could save some dosh here as FireDaemon looks like an inexpensive solution) Unless of course SuSe have something better on the linux front, and I doubt many gamers will fork out for VMware and the VMware Virtual SMP add-in, etc Cheers all, Keep the info coming in, this is helping many gamers as we speak Tabris.DarkPeace GarageLAN, ACT

Would be interesting to see if you, RN Malboeuf, setup your own overclocked Barton core Athlon XP (running SuSe Linux or Windows 2K/XP) as a OFP:R Server and ran some CTI maps on it to compare performance. (cuz I reckon RN Malboeuf can pull it off easy, and has the Via 4in1 drivers or nForce2 drivers ready to rock) Or is there anyone out there (Prime?) that could (be arsed to)make a map that could be used to "manually" benchmark servers ? (With the servers ViewDistance noted manually or by the map) Maybe the ViewDistance was something dodgy on the DevGRU Barton (you sure it was a Barton ?) Also when you say 2500, you mean PR2500+ clocked to PR3200+ yeah, on say a 400FSB with 400mhz DDR-SDRAM yeah ?

Was digging for more ways to make the server balance over multiple CPUs (not just use 25% load over 4 CPUs) and VMware came to mind aswell (not the cheapest solution, only for big CTI games, etc, would it be required) http://www.vmware.com http://www.vmware.com/products/server/vsmp_features.html I *suspect* one of their products makes multiple CPUs appear as one single CPU to the "Guest OS", thus if you run OFP:R Server on the guest OS it should hit 100% usage (or never, ever dip below 50fps unless you hammer it very badly) I'll ask around at work and see who says what, the above may be untrue (I only *suspect* it may be the case) I have also é-mailed VMware themselves to confirm this. Would be damn nice for a Quad Operton if it did work though

I had a Athlon XP2000+ (mind you it was on 310 FSB or so) and it performed very well in MFCTI v1.0 and v1.1. It is hard to benchmark a OFP:R server though The 800FSB of the P4 is just for branch mispreditctions so it can reload its 20 (or 30+ stage for PreScott) stage pipeline still it would help in memory intensive tasks. Well maybe it is more Drystone and Memory/Cache related than I thought, still makes the Athlon 64(FX) look attractive as a server (or a overclocked P4-Northwood/PreScott) Anyone got any scripted missions (with lots of AI) that you can run to benchmark a server and manually note the FPS at 15 sec intervals ? (using #MONITOR 15 from the word go) Cheers, Tabris.DarkPeace GarageLAN, ACT

I heard SuSe Linux had some sort of addin that makes all the CPUs be seen as 1 single CPU by software. How well it works is another thing. FYI: ~~~ 1) Quad Opteron is overkill 2) I didn't think OFP:R or VBS1 ran on non-x86 systems 3) No x86 system (system not cluster) I am aware of supports 64 CPUs, the FSB of most systems can only handle 8 CPUs. (UltraSparc + FLashpoint = No Go) If / When you get it working, post some pics here with some CPU load and process lists of flashpoint running with 2000+ AI.