Dedicated server

[hein22]

Hello people. I just started in the world of dedicated servers and came across two doubts. 1- If I host the server in the same PC I use to fly, will it make any difference performance wise? 2- Can I install the dedicated server in an external USB hard drive and run it from there on a notebook for example? 3- In a separate pc with the dedicated server running, does it have to be as powerful as the dcs webpage says? I found that strange.

Edited March 30, 2020 by hein22

[LASooner]

I can answer 1, yes, running a server on the same machine is noticeable performance improvement, because all the mission and AI processing is done on a different thread. I do it all the time.

[hein22]

Thanks, I did some testings and yes you are indeed right. I wonder about the second thing. I'd love to do it.

[MAXsenna]

I can answer 1, yes, running a server on the same machine is noticeable performance improvement, because all the mission and AI processing is done on a different thread. I do it all the time.

Performance improvement?

Now I am intrigued!

 

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[Shiwaz]

I can answer 1, yes, running a server on the same machine is noticeable performance improvement, because all the mission and AI processing is done on a different thread. I do it all the time.

 

Hmmm... I was thinking about putting up a dedicated server to "outsource" these tasks entirely from my desktop, but since DCS is single core, running server on the same machine (different core) to improve performance would make sense.

 

Thanks for this insight!

[MAXsenna]

Hmmm... I was thinking about putting up a dedicated server to "outsource" these tasks entirely from my desktop, but since DCS is single core, running server on the same machine (different core) to improve performance would make sense.

 

 

 

Thanks for this insight!

Me too. Just didn't know this would work!

This is damn cool info!

Anybody knows if it'll run in a WM?

 

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[hein22]

Me too. Just didn't know this would work!

This is damn cool info!

Anybody knows if it'll run in a WM?

 

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I don't see any reason why it would not. Good idea. Does anybody know how to exactly determine which core DCS uses and what core the dedicated server uses? When I run DCS with Afterburner all 6 cores are jumping up and down doing stuff so it is impossible for me to know which one is the one in use by DCS. I am wondering this to determine if indeed DCS and dedicated server use different threads.

[Maverick87Shaka]

I don't see any reason why it would not. Good idea. Does anybody know how to exactly determine which core DCS uses and what core the dedicated server uses? When I run DCS with Afterburner all 6 cores are jumping up and down doing stuff so it is impossible for me to know which one is the one in use by DCS. I am wondering this to determine if indeed DCS and dedicated server use different threads.

I can confirm dedicated server works on VM infrastructure, I have tested on VB, WM, Citrix and PM . I've tested also on cloud VM like MS Azure cloud that I don't know which virtualization technologies they use. All of them are good ;) :thumbup:

 

To be sure that your game run on specific thread/core and dedicate server others, you have to manually select on windows what is called "core affinity" ( Task Manager => Details => Right click on process => Set affinity )

 

 

The only "side effect" of this method is that you have to repeat this step manually every time you start game and server.

 

Should be possible to assign core affinity creating custom .bat launch file, but never works for me. :cry:

[hein22]

I can confirm dedicated server works on VM infrastructure, I have tested on VB, WM, Citrix and PM . I've tested also on cloud VM like MS Azure cloud that I don't know which virtualization technologies they use. All of them are good ;) :thumbup:

 

To be sure that your game run on specific thread/core and dedicate server others, you have to manually select on windows what is called "core affinity" ( Task Manager => Details => Right click on process => Set affinity )

 

 

The only "side effect" of this method is that you have to repeat this step manually every time you start game and server.

 

Should be possible to assign core affinity creating custom .bat launch file, but never works for me. :cry:

 

Well, others have said that they use different ones with apparent knowledge, so I'll pass on the core affinity thing as it has brought hell and misery to me before.

[Maverick87Shaka]

Well, others have said that they use different ones with apparent knowledge, so I'll pass on the core affinity thing as it has brought hell and misery to me before.

Uhm, theoretically an operating system should be able to assign new task to the "most unused" cores, but we're talking on windows that it is much busier to try spy your data than do operating system stuff.

It's well proved that manually select core affinity ( for non multi thread task of course ) has a better performance result than leave Windows try to do its job. It's also known that sometimes windows try to switch task between core/thread, and it's not really an efficient way when you know you're doing two different things at all like gaming and hosting, gaming and streaming etc..... :thumbup:

[MAXsenna]

I don't see any reason why it would not. Good idea. Does anybody know how to exactly determine which core DCS uses and what core the dedicated server uses? When I run DCS with Afterburner all 6 cores are jumping up and down doing stuff so it is impossible for me to know which one is the one in use by DCS. I am wondering this to determine if indeed DCS and dedicated server use different threads.

Yeah. Was a silly question. It should absolutely work.

 

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[MAXsenna]

I can confirm dedicated server works on VM infrastructure, I have tested on VB, WM, Citrix and PM . I've tested also on cloud VM like MS Azure cloud that I don't know which virtualization technologies they use. All of them are good ;)

 

To be sure that your game run on specific thread/core and dedicate server others, you have to manually select on windows what is called "core affinity" ( Task Manager => Details => Right click on process => Set affinity )

 

 

The only "side effect" of this method is that you have to repeat this step manually every time you start game and server.

 

Should be possible to assign core affinity creating custom .bat launch file, but never works for me. :cry:

Azure is MS and will of course use Hyper-V.

 

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[MAXsenna]

I sort of asked, because I will run it in my Hyper-V cluster for redundancy, when I get it back online.

Gonna test this first, and other cool features os the portability, whatever your hyper-visor is.

And then "affinity" shouldn't be an issue at all.

 

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[xvx45]

Here the part of powershell that I use to set affinity :

$target = "DCS.openbeta_server"

$process = Get-Process | Where-Object { $_.MainWindowTitle -eq $target }

$AFprocess = Get-Process -Id $process.Id; $AFprocess.ProcessorAffinity=1

Where $target equal the instance name that you want to define. Here I force CPU0

[xvx45]

Here my complete code to start server and restart in case of crash, powershell (I'm not a dev so I know that the code can be optimized ;))

Start-Process -FilePath "C:\Program Files\Eagle Dynamics\DCS World OpenBeta\bin\DCS.exe" -ArgumentList "--server --norender" -WorkingDirectory "C:\Program Files\Eagle Dynamics\DCS World OpenBeta\bin"

start-sleep -s 60

$target = "DCS.openbeta_server"

$process = Get-Process | Where-Object { $_.MainWindowTitle -eq $target }

$AFprocess = Get-Process -Id $process.Id; $AFprocess.ProcessorAffinity=1

while ($true) {

while (!($process)) {

$process = Get-Process | Where-Object { $_.MainWindowTitle -eq $target }

start-sleep -s 5

}

if ($process) {

Write-Host "Instance $target OK"

$process.WaitForExit()

start-sleep -s 2

$process = Get-Process | Where-Object { $_.MainWindowTitle -eq $target }

Write-Host "Instance $target KO - Restart"

Start-Process -FilePath "C:\Program Files\Eagle Dynamics\DCS World OpenBeta\bin\DCS.exe" -ArgumentList "--server --norender" -WorkingDirectory "C:\Program Files\Eagle Dynamics\DCS World OpenBeta\bin"

start-sleep -s 60

$process = Get-Process | Where-Object { $_.MainWindowTitle -eq $target }

$AFprocess = Get-Process -Id $process.Id; $AFprocess.ProcessorAffinity=1

}

}

Of course you have to change ArgumentList and $target according your server configuration

Edited April 2, 2020 by xvx45

[Singinly]

It is great that you managed to create a dedicated server. I too wanted to make one, about three years ago but I could not finish that task. The problem was that my computer did not meet with the requirements of hosting and maintaining such a server. So I went to some specialist in informatics in my city, and they suggested me that I should buy RDP. I did as was said and tried again to create this kind of server and it worked. So I am also happy for you that you also found a way to create this server, now you can play a lot of games with your friends which will be more funny.

Edited June 7, 2021 by Singinly

[gulshannegi]

Dedicated servers are used by those clients who want to host their own websites or VPS. With a Dedicated server, you get the ultimate power to generate multiples of small physical servers/VPS for your clients. You get the full root access in your own hand. You can experience High quality, reliability, high performance, and easy to customize things from WHM(root).

You get the capability to go far beyond the resource limitations found in shared hosting. You can upgrade your server anytime. Whereas if we talk about a Normal server or you can say VPS[Virtual Private Server] is very much similar to dedicated server in terms of specifications. The only difference is you get access to limited resources. Suppose if your server is getting heavy traffic you just can’t upgrade your server. For that you need to buy VPS with advance and high capacity resources and transfer the data in your old VPS. Though you have full access of your private server but still you have to dependent on the Root Server i.e Dedicated server. @Singinly RDP stands for remote desktop protocol. It belongs to Microsoft (So it will only work with Windows computers) You have to install the program (there are many) on each computer and as long as you have the password and both computers are connected to the internet, you can use the other computer remotely. There is no “country code” Each session gives you a new code. It looks something like this. This is how my old boss would spy on us through the security cameras. you can check here for the RDP Server

Edited November 22, 2021 by gulshannegi