Hosting Multiplayer Server on a "dedicated" - Hanging Issues

[deadlyfishes]

Hello! Thanks to ED for pushing out some nice updates and features. I noticed the crashlog feature could be quite useful if your game actually crashes, however this is a completely different issue altogether;

 

Host Machine: Intel Core i5 6500, 16GB RAM DDR4, nVidia 1060 - Windows 10 Pro

Wired internet 500mbps up and down

Personal Machine: Intel Core i7 7700, 64GB RAM DDR4, nVidia Titan xP (Pascal) - Windows 10 Pro

Wired internet 500mbps up and down

 

I've attached a dxdiag for both of my machines.

 

I can host on my host machine a 25-30 player PvE server on 2.1 and 1.5.7, no issues.

 

Hosting on 1.5.8, just freeflight with 4 Harrier slots, all set to 'client' in their own group, after about 5-10 minutes the server just hangs forever.

 

There is NO CRASH, and it will still stay active. Sometimes every few seconds things come back for about 0.5 seconds and then go back to it's hung state.

 

Things start going back to normal when all but the host is left.

 

This makes things unplayable.

 

HOWEVER,

I can host on my PERSONAL MACHINE, a pretty involved dynamic mission, for hours, no problem.

 

On my host machine, I have some special settings to run as a "dedicated" better;

- sound card disabled

- Render3d off

- maxfps 15

- all graphics settings turned to lowest or OFF

 

 

I also tried running with maxfps to 180 and render3d to on and still had the same issues.

 

--- AFTER FURTHER TESTING WHILE WRITING THIS ---

 

The server did not hang and lock-up when I had the sound card or sound deviced ENABLED. Previously, I did NOT need the sound card to work to host 1.5.7 or 2.1, it seems it is absolutely neccesary.

 

My guess is that possibly the DRM is related to this?

 

This is VERY important to let the online community know of this, because we want very minimal hardware and software resources when hosting, and if ED is working towards a dedicated server, then this may be a step back.

 

So just note:

 

Anyone who wants to host a 1.5.8 OpenBeta dedicated server on a very low resource and lightweight setup, you absolutely need the sound card running with a device selected.

 

I personally use Windows RDP, and you MUST have "AUDIO PLAY ON REMOTE COMPUTER" from the machine that is remoting into the server.

 

ATTACHED:

Personal Machine DXDiag - WORKS! But using this as a dedicated is not ideal.

Host Machine DXDiag - Without soundcard - HANGS AND LOCKS UP, NO CRASHLOG

Host Machine DXDiag - Wth soundcard - WORKS!

 

Hope you server hosters find this useful!

 

--UPDATE AFTER POSTING THIS

 

My "Through The Inferno" server for 1.5.8 has been up all night, had successful auto-restarts when they were supposed to and we saw about 30-40 clients last night. No issues, good performance reported.

 

graphics.lua settings in root dcs install config folder

fps 15

3d render false

 

The mission is EXTREMELY heavy with dynamic spawning missions for A2A, A2G and Anti-ship, PvE only. There are even large 100+ ground unit missions that unlock as players work through smaller objectives.

 

--forum admins/mods please move this into multiplayer section instead of game performance, if you feel it's necessary. Sorry again!

DxDiag-HOST MACHINE-no monitor and no sound card.txt

DxDiag-with monitor and sound card enabled.txt

DxDiag-Personal.txt

Edited December 2, 2017 by deadlyfishes

[Johnny_Rico]

Thanks for posting this

 

Which version of windows are you using on the dedicated server machine ?

 

Because most server versions of windows do not have the audio system enabled

[Samoht]

It's good that you might have found a root cause to this problem. Hosting Open Beta for Aerobatics Online, I ran into the exact same issues you're describing. I run on several 2U headless servers, none of which have sound cards, but all have low power NVidia video cards. I was completely unsuccessful in getting Open Beta to run without long hangs. I thought it might be GPU related, but maybe it's not...?

[deadlyfishes]

Thanks for posting this

 

Which version of windows are you using on the dedicated server machine ?

 

Because most server versions of windows do not have the audio system enabled

 

Windows 10 Pro, there was also another machine a friend loaned me to use remotely, it was Windows Server 2012 R2, had the same issue but the audio was disabled like before.

 

I need to do more testing, and try render 3d off, because I've got it running well with render 3d on.

 

It's good that you might have found a root cause to this problem. Hosting Open Beta for Aerobatics Online, I ran into the exact same issues you're describing. I run on several 2U headless servers, none of which have sound cards, but all have low power NVidia video cards. I was completely unsuccessful in getting Open Beta to run without long hangs. I thought it might be GPU related, but maybe it's not...?

 

You don't need a soundcard, but you might need to make sure the audio icon doesn't have that RED X on it at the very least, and to ensure the DXDIAG report doesn't say there is a problem with your audio, I think the latest patch requires it to be running this time around.

 

I need to do more testing, and try render 3d off, because I've got it running well with render 3d on.

Edited December 2, 2017 by deadlyfishes

[emiliospam]

That fixed it!

Thanks for this!

[Johnny_Rico]

Damn, I had to do the same thing to get 1.5.8 working

 

ED can you remove the sound device requirement please, not many if any

proper servers will have a soiund card

Windows server by default will not NO audio device enabled