terox

this is just going to have anyone posting their server details and certainly shouldnt be taken as that server is stable. Most if not all coop servers running Altis missions with high player counts (35-40 +) are unstable at present

doesnt quite work as neatly as that, some of the higher difficulty settings, elite for example wont allow some of the easier options. Ramius's approach is the only one but it does have limitations

Firedeamon params field Example -port=2502 "-profiles=d:\Games\A3\A3ServerTest" -config=Config_@TEST.cfg -mod=@TEST Note the only place quotation marks are used is the -profiles

the subject of server optimisation has never been clearly explained to us. There are a lot of questions that remain unanswered and have been for over 10 years now. That tutorial link, is not actually a tutorial, but an attempt to raise those questions and get a better understanding so that it can eventually become a tutorial. It has so far failed to achieve that.

Because you are playing on public servers who are running public style disorganised missions. In this scenario, you do not normally get command, control and group cohesion. The only way that these style of missions can work in this environment is to give every player the ability to solo play. The easiest way to do this is to use VAS as this makes available every weapon in the cfgweapons config, meaning every new weapon that is released is automatically made available and does not require mission editing. There are some public play servers that do restrict weapon choice to enforce some form of roleplay. You need to search for these (Try Zeus as an example of this when the admins are running their "Sim" sessions

Agreed that the info for setting up the bandwidth settings is to put it mildly, vague at best But to set the min and max bandwidth at 100Mbps (12.5MBps) I believe is wrong. I doubt very much a 100mbps connection will ever actually be at its full max speed up and down The biggest performance achievement I have seen is MaxMessagesend Increasing Maxmessagesend does decrease server fps (It has to work harder at getting the messages out per server cycle (FPS on a client)) Typically for a pvp server this can be left failry low 100-200 whereas a coop server needs to send more data about the ai, typically a good value for that would be 300 to 500, the higher the upload speed of the server, the higher the Maxmessagesend you can use. MaxMsgSend=16384; I dont recollect seeing any server arma*cfg with that high a maxmessage value

I have been away for a week and returned Friday. I have an auto updater cmd file that is run from Firedeamon every week day. On my return on Friday I was pleasantly surprised to see the server had updated from beta to release build. It is currently set to DEV branch, which as of right now is exactly the same build as the stable release from Thursday. I suspect this will change tomorrow. My intention at the moment is to run DEV build until they sort this horrible mess that occurs on large multiplayer coop maps on Altis and then switch to Stable build, when we have one :-) As for MPMissions. If you only have the 1 install, then there is no real practical solution for multiple MPMissions. Tyhe most you can do is create a simlink to perhaps a drop box. There is a ticket raised for alternative ways of dealing with MPMissions, eg a nesting functionality requiring splitting MPMissions up into sub directories or other alternatives so you can filter out 3rd party addon requirement missions Wait until you start trying to optimise your bandwidth settings, that is an entirely different animal. Its like trying to land a man on the moon when the only information NASA gives you is "That round thing up there is the moon"

64 player coop at the moment may be pushing it, but that has nothing to do with the hardware you have 64 player pvp with no AI is possible Until more engine optimisations come in, I would suggest running a maximum of 40 player coop Altis is causing a lot of issues on large number coop servers especially at mission start. Mass desync, fps @ 0 for a good while etc Prove the server with non scripted simple missions

That is an advantage of side, however using a channel that the other players can't hear when using the comms procedures correctly can easily be worked around..... Example Command chat Alpha this is command Message......... Alpha group leaders heres the comms message and then asks his chaps to be quiet for a moment Group Chat "Hold on guys while I take a call from Command" then he speaks to command Command Net "Command this is Alpha SEND" (Conversation between Alpha group leader and then command ensues. when it is finished, Alpha group lead gets on group channel and then tells his squad whatever command has just relayed and also tells them it is clear to spam group chat So disciplined comms will work in the customised Command net channel if done this way

try this based on typical speed test upload of a server at 75MBps for coop play Minbandwidth=31440000; MaxBandwidth=78643200; MaxSizeGuaranteed=512; MaxSizeNonguaranteed=256; MaxMsgSend=327; MinErrorToSend=0.004; MinErrorToSendNear=0.01; class sockets{maxPacketSize =2048;}; 2048 is so so wrong. This is based on the max packet size that can be transmitted over the i/net, the default value is the only value that you should be using class sockets{maxPacketSize =1400;}; this allows around 100bytes for the headers for the various guaranteed and non guaranteed messages that are sent within the message see this link for more info http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximum_transmission_unit Following is theoretical .............................. Based on the following assumptions (This was quickly done so expect errors) Typically the server cycle rate (server equivalent to Frames per second on the client) should be somewhere between 20 and 50 The maximum size of any message (a combo of guaranteed and non guaranteed messages) is 1500 bytes (12000 bits or thereabouts) including headers therefore the maximum data transfer per second that the server could be sending is 12000 bits X 50 fps X Maxmessagesend Theoretically (and probably incorrectly assumed due to lack of info) the Maxmessagesend would be Maxmessagesend = Max Serverupload bandwidth / (12000bits x 50fps) (Get the maximum upload speed of the server via speed test (not very accurate but good enough) from this you could then get the minimum bandwidth required Minbandwidth = Maxmessagesend * 20 FPS * 12000bits if you want to run any calcs, dont forget the difference between bits and bytes

ref the sidechat spamming. The aim was to make things as simple as possible. If the command net was used, players who were not group leaders could not receive or transmit on it. So in a situation where the group leader was AFK or an important role wasn't that of a group leader then comms would fail. Sidechat was the workaround for this. Rather than have the commander transmit on 2 Command net channels, it was decided to simplify and just use the 1 universal Sidechat system. This has pro's and cons. Pro.... group leader shouldn't need to repeat the info to his subordinates Less keys to map for the commander and players (Side and group chat only) Cons.... Comms spam It is possible to create customised channels (via scripts) which players can opt in or out of at will via a small GUI. This is the ideal solution Tier1 uses such a system This could be added to the I&A mission which is commonly played. This will solve the spam issue, creating a single command net channel that anyone can use if they wish or need

There is no need for bikeys for serverside only addons mate. There are only a couple of serverside only addons anyway, one of them is now redundant. (Sorry I didnt differentiate)

I would remove all addons that do not have a bikey. Split the rest into Clientisde Serverside Required by both. (E.g objects, vehicles, weapons, islands, units and I would further seperate the 3rd section into subsections Units Vehicles Weapons & equipment Islands Objects Misc

If an Altis mission uses nearestobject (currently there is a big issue with this command and Altis) such as Domination, Invade & Annex, Insurgency etc then everyone is having issues connecting to DEV Branch servers, especially on high player number servers 30 +

Apparently nearestobject takes 1 minute to return a value on Altis, where it takes 1 second to do the same on Stratis. There are a lot of publicly released scripts that use this and just about all the public play missions, Dom, I&A etc run these commands fairly often making those type of missions unplayable on Altis especially with high player numbers

I would first follow the dedicated server tutorial in the stickies section at the top of this forum. (It takes a while to go through, but it does work) http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?147537-Tutorial-How-to-run-ArmA3-on-a-dedicated-server&p=2314052&viewfull=1#post2314052 It advises to prove your server by using BIS default missions before you add any custom missions or addons. Once you have done all that and still have the same issue. We would need to start looking at hardware specs and server o/s issues. On the surface, it does appear to be a hardware or o/s based issue, but we would need more information to better advise If you are still stuck, i would recommend pasting the following info into a pastebin link and then pointing to it from this thread 1) Bandwidth settings (ArmA3.cfg) 2) Hardware specs 3) O/S 4) What other apps games are you running on it 5) Where is is sited, Home, data center and what is your bandwidth throughput, eg Up and down) 6) Command line params (Start up line) 7) Any oddball .rpt entries (Dont list every one, there will be hundreds) 8) Config_Vanilla.cfg (or whatever you have named it (Hide the password and admin login) If you provide all this information, it will give us a good overview of your setup and we can recommend from there.

The game engine is capable of simulating reasonably closely a hell of a lot of triple A titles out there. Especially anything based in the air or on the ground. With it's extensive command library you can create a vast array of user interfaces and scripted systems. It is unbelievably moddable, which is probably why it has endured for so many years. It does have a steep learning curve both to play and edit, afterall, it's not your typical first person shooter, it is actually a simulator and a version of which is used by the military. So with gifted scripting skills, a good modelling and texture team, the level to which you can take this engine way supassses anything you are seeing right now. Even without the modellers and texture artists, the scope is massive. Only the imagination limits you. The arma engine is best utilised at company sized level with AI/humans led by good group leaders with a good command and control system. This is what it was built for, unfortunately the public game types, due to difficulties in communications and a small minority of impatient public players fail to show you what the game can be like. You need to get yourself into a community and away from wastelands to find this style of gameplay where all 40, 60 or however many players there are on the map are being coordinated properly by a good mission commander and all players are disciplined enough to play there role. (A machine gunner should be carrying a machine gun. A sniper should not be shooting at anything that moves. Emptying you mag in a couple of minutes is not the way that role should be played. Typically in a lot of public play missions everyone is allowed to carry a sniper rifle and an AT weapon. In this scenario you are only likely to find small pockets of teamwork but mostly solo play. You can do that offline, so why bother to come online and do that?

This is mission specific and shopuld be directed to the user missions section. ArmA is not just about wastelands and other typical Public style missions. There is a hell of a lot more to it and you wont find that on those style of servers

Thanks for this bug report. I've seen a post about it somewhere else. I've updated the initial post and added this to the Known Issues section

ArmA3 is cpu intensive You will need a good quad core I7 or Xeon equivalent to run multiple instances (Not sure if an I5 would cope with your requirements) and ideally situated in a data centre so you don't have any bandwidth issues We have a dual Xeon X5570's (Getting a bit old now) and this has no problems running multiple A3 / A2 servers for 2 communities at the same time, plus Teamspeak and a b unch of other apps and whatever other games we feel like hosting. I have no idea how many playable slots you could get away with for a simple pvp server (More than a coop that's for sure) I feel (and am sure some will disagree), that if you are running missions with AI, such as a coop, you need to cap the player slots to somewhere around 40-50. We would expect improvements in the networking systems via future official patches, so i would suspect, the performance we are seeing at the moment will be improved in the future. Hope that helps

Am glad to hear we are doing things correctly. Big thanks to Sparky, Stealthy GetCarter and the other admins who have worked really hard to tighten the discipline up in a public gaming environment and also thanks to all the new players who follow their directions. Hearing feedback like this really makes you feel the effort is worth it.

follow the guidelines in the first post of this thread...... Specifically the port forwarding section http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?147537-Tutorial-How-to-run-ArmA3-on-a-dedicated-server

I've been running the DEV branch since the release of the Alpha It has been a bumpy ride since then. There has been lots of patches that have broken all the custom made missions, mainly due to required classname changes or modifcations to Stratis. This I expected and worked through the issues to maintain a busy server \ community with playable missions. Today's patch however, quite frankly takes the p**s. To release a patch, knowing that a commonly known command such as "Addweapon" is broken is simply unprofessional and should never happen. Just about every public play mission is now broken, this includes any missions that have kit scripts, vehicle cargo scripts, ammo crate scripts, VAS, some revive scripted systems such as BTC's This is not how in my opinion, you should be treating your Beta DEV branch testers, especially if you want unpaid testers to help you. Please do not repeat this error. Either Delay the release Allow a rollback option This should simply not have happened.

Hi GToF I am sure this will be welcomed by a lot of folks who run their own servers. You might want to create a thread on this when it supports English. It will increase your feedback and the replies wont get lost in the content of this thread. My little bit of feeback If you havent, I would add a password and login so you can have different levels of login. e.g. 1) Root admin (Access to all functionality) 2) Game admin (so they can start/stop the server and add or remove a password... but cannot change any of the important fields that can screw things up Good work :-)

Todays DEV patch, as usual, breaks stuff. Only this time I cant fix it Type: Public Beta Branch: Development Version: 0.75.108541 None of our custom missions load on the server. (It simply kicks the admin back to the mission selection screen) There are no rpt errors for the missions (No classname changes etc) -showscripterrors isnt throwing anything up None of the usual works, e.g Depbo the mission Open it in the client MP editor Save it Preview it re-open in the Mp editor Save it as MpMissions upload to the server and test I can run a selection of our missions on the client just fine, but as soon as I attempt loading them on the server, it fails Everything was fine before the patch. Has anyone found a fix for it, to save me having to wait for tomorrows patch