Server Performance

[Blizz127]

Hi all, I currently have a game server hosted by a sever company but I have a question maybe you can answer. ZTHe server seems to be "bouncy" IE the players bounce around and it seems like its lag but its not. I feel this might be a performance issue with config and i was hoping someone can help me out. thanks!

this is my startup
server DM-Deck?game=UTGame.UTDeathmatch?GameMode=0?MaxPlayer s=24?TimeLimit=30?GoalScore=50?NumPublicConnection s=24?NumOpenPublicConnections=24?AdminPassword=gxx x?numplay=0?ServerDescription=06600007900008400003 20000700000820000690000690000320000680001010000970 00116000104000109000097000116000099000104000032000 10700010500010800010800012200011100011000010100003 30000320000760000970001030000320001020001140001010 00101000032000097000110000100000032000108000111000 119000032000112000105000110000103000033000 -multihome=8.2.122.152 -port 7777 -unattended -login=xxx -password=xxx -log=GameServers.log

[~{MFD}~Mordred]

sounds like the mahcine is biting more than it can chew. I noticed the UT servers get as much as 256 MB RAM out of a machine when the server itself is idle... imagine the usage when it's kicking. Pair this with a machine from a host that's probably used to host other games/applications/web sites and you got... yup, you guessed it, bad laggy servers.

[Dubious]

Its REALLY difficult to speculate as to the cause of this. But ...

1. Server CPU: You may be hosted on a server that has many other games running on it. There may be times (especially when a server changes maps) that the CPU spikes really high on the server, creating lag for everyone else who is hosted on that same CPU.

2. RAM: One UT3 server takes *about* 250megs of RAM. This doesnt change much based on # of players, but it changes a bit depending on the size of the map. I noticed that there appears to be a memory leak occurring as well, but this should only be noticed by very popular servers (12 players for 8+ hours straight) but for good measure the server process should probably be monitored closely and restarted if it starts eating memory. Any server that starts running out of physical RAM is going to start swapping to virtual RAM (hard drive) which is much slower and can cause lag.

3. Network: It could be congestion, packet loss, etc. Lots of things. Without extensive troubleshooting its hard to say.

My suggestion - while playing on the server, open a console and type 'stat net'. This should show your network stats (including ping) in the corner. Watch this when the server becomes "bouncy" to determine if its a network problem thats causing the lag.