requested How to limit number of maps (select some and skip others) that dcs updater brings along with initial installation?

[XCNuse]

It's not even that we need the ability to delete maps....

 

Whoever is in charge of how servers works just needs to understand that .... servers have literally ZERO use of the giant textures.

Like... why does the F14 coremods folder need to be 14GB? Why does South America need to be over 40GB? Syria is over 30GB.

Meanwhile, Nevada, Caucasus, and Normandy are < 10GB

 

The F-14 alone is literally 70% of the ENTIRE Coremods folder.... WHY?

For what purpose does dediservers need all these massive space wasting textures in its build, when it's literally not even displaying graphics?

 

 

This isn't about maps, this is about lack of proper builds.

[Rudel_chw]

1 hour ago, XCNuse said:

For what purpose does dediservers need all these massive space wasting textures in its build, when it's literally not even displaying graphics?

 

You are new here, so you have not experienced the evolution that DCS has had in order to support multiplayer combat, in the beginning DCS included the MP code inside the DCS Sim, people that wanted to do MP with friends started DCS on every machine and one of them hosted the MP mission and acted as "server".

Soon, people started to leave their PC powered all day, with DCS operating as "server" so that your friends could connect whenever thay wanted. The problem was when the owner of the "server" wanted to play something elso or do somo Campaign in SP, his friends couldn't connect anymore.

To solve this many people started to build a PC just to act as Server, they leaved the machine ON all the time and used their other main PC for gaming as usual. The big problem was that this "server" PC needed separate licenses for its terrains and other assets, in addition to having to met at least the minimum DCS specs in order to run, ie, they needed a GPU which is no easy to come by on a commercial Server hosting.

Then ED bent itself backward to please the MP crowd and presented a "cut-down" version of DCS, to operate solely as server .. this version did not need a graphics card, so it could run on commercial hostings, and on top of that ED included free licenses for all terrains, Combined Arms, Supercarrier and WW2 assets, all free.

 

Now ... to comply with your desire to reduce HDD foorprint, ED would no longer do with just a "cut-down" version .. now they would need a true special purpose DCS server version .. a product that is currently free ... would you invest resources on such a new version?  

 

[71st_AH Rob]

1 hour ago, Rudel_chw said:

Now ... to comply with your desire to reduce HDD foorprint, ED would no longer do with just a "cut-down" version .. now they would need a true special purpose DCS server version .. a product that is currently free ... would you invest resources on such a new version?  

This has been the real problem since the beginning. We don't have a real dedicated server, just a cut down client that doesn't display graphics. It only works on Windows 10 or 11 so you either run it on a Win 10 machine in your basement like I do or you pay premium hosting fees. Add on to that the ballooning size of the installation and it really is going to be unaffordable.

It is in EDs best interest to provide a proper,easy to access and  use solution. Ideally a proper Windows and a Linux server that customers can deploy either on the server in the basement or on a hosting service. The ultimate solution would also see ED setting up its own hosting service on its own hardware, hosting "Official" servers and turn key "customer" servers, particularly when we hopefully get to the point where you can fly from map to map.

Why would it be in EDs interest to invest resources in a free true dserver application? Well when it is too expensive and too unwieldy for customers to run an expensive server for a game, it's online presence will die and the free advertising that goes along with this will be gone too. The only online presence you will have will be two to four people playing a coop on a peer to peer network with all the warts showing.

I think it would be a great investment in the future of DCS for ED to develop a proper low overhead dserver.

[XCNuse]

12 hours ago, Rudel_chw said:

 

You are new here, so you have not experienced the evolution that DCS has had in order to support multiplayer combat, in the beginning DCS included the MP code inside the DCS Sim, people that wanted to do MP with friends started DCS on every machine and one of them hosted the MP mission and acted as "server".

Soon, people started to leave their PC powered all day, with DCS operating as "server" so that your friends could connect whenever thay wanted. The problem was when the owner of the "server" wanted to play something elso or do somo Campaign in SP, his friends couldn't connect anymore.

To solve this many people started to build a PC just to act as Server, they leaved the machine ON all the time and used their other main PC for gaming as usual. The big problem was that this "server" PC needed separate licenses for its terrains and other assets, in addition to having to met at least the minimum DCS specs in order to run, ie, they needed a GPU which is no easy to come by on a commercial Server hosting.

Then ED bent itself backward to please the MP crowd and presented a "cut-down" version of DCS, to operate solely as server .. this version did not need a graphics card, so it could run on commercial hostings, and on top of that ED included free licenses for all terrains, Combined Arms, Supercarrier and WW2 assets, all free.

 

Now ... to comply with your desire to reduce HDD foorprint, ED would no longer do with just a "cut-down" version .. now they would need a true special purpose DCS server version .. a product that is currently free ... would you invest resources on such a new version?  

 

Rudel; no offense but... I've been around here longer than you might think, I'm hardly "new" around here.

I just don't spam every thread I can find, despite not having a clue what the topic is.

 

And clearly... you don't have a clue what the topic is or how this works; as you've clarified in your final sentence about how much would need a rework. But the reality is, your "stuck in the past" prior to dediserver support is bogus and has no context here.... Just because that's how it had to be done back then doesn't mean that's how it should be going forward, that's stupid.

Meanwhile, it seems rather odd that every other video game company that has mass multiplayer and custom dediserver support seems to be able to handle this stuff just fine

 

ED has had relatively solid updates, and actually makes running a dediserver.... quite easy, practically more easy than any other game I've ever hosted before to be quite frank.

That said.... it doesn't mean that they should continue to go down this rabbit hole of not doing things the right way. Which would specifically be: the unoptimized, non-future-proof way.

 

 

If DCS gets to the point where dediserver owners have to start shutting down their servers, because all of the stupid textures that aren't even being used by a server have to be stored on their drives and it ends up being over 1TB with maps like SA, Kola, Syria, Australia, Sinai....

It's ED's best interest to make the playerbase happy, and optimize things where and how they can always. Otherwise, they're cutting out their own customerbase for... quite literally something that every normal gaming company does.... regardless of whether the customerbase even exists or not....

[HC_Official]

On 12/22/2022 at 3:01 PM, Rudel_chw said:

 

You are new here, so you have not experienced the evolution that DCS has had in order to support multiplayer combat, in the beginning DCS included the MP code inside the DCS Sim, people that wanted to do MP with friends started DCS on every machine and one of them hosted the MP mission and acted as "server".

Soon, people started to leave their PC powered all day, with DCS operating as "server" so that your friends could connect whenever thay wanted. The problem was when the owner of the "server" wanted to play something elso or do somo Campaign in SP, his friends couldn't connect anymore.

To solve this many people started to build a PC just to act as Server, they leaved the machine ON all the time and used their other main PC for gaming as usual. The big problem was that this "server" PC needed separate licenses for its terrains and other assets, in addition to having to met at least the minimum DCS specs in order to run, ie, they needed a GPU which is no easy to come by on a commercial Server hosting.

Then ED bent itself backward to please the MP crowd and presented a "cut-down" version of DCS, to operate solely as server .. this version did not need a graphics card, so it could run on commercial hostings, and on top of that ED included free licenses for all terrains, Combined Arms, Supercarrier and WW2 assets, all free.

 

Now ... to comply with your desire to reduce HDD foorprint, ED would no longer do with just a "cut-down" version .. now they would need a true special purpose DCS server version .. a product that is currently free ... would you invest resources on such a new version?  

 

@Rudel_chw  Are you currently hosting a dedicated server ?

Edited December 25, 2022 by HC_Official

[astazou]

Guys, there is a temporary solution if you have an old HDD/SSD somewhere in your house.

Working like a charm for me.

Solution shared by Robert de Vries on the ED's Discord, thank you again if you read me Robert de Vries!

[kaltokri]

I know how to use it, but it doesn't change to total amount of disk space.

My server is a virtual one. So it doesn't help me. But thx for sharing. Maybe it helps other people with physical servers and limited SSD space.

Edited December 29, 2022 by kaltokri

[XCNuse]

9 hours ago, astazou said:

Guys, there is a temporary solution if you have an old HDD/SSD somewhere in your house.

 

 

Working like a charm for me.

Solution shared by Robert de Vries on the ED's Discord, thank you again if you read me Robert de Vries!

I've never gotten to this stage; but does it handle updating without... intervention?

ie: if you go to update, does it attempt to reinstall for that example, Falklands on that original drive? Or does it properly update the new location's files?

 

I'm still with Kaltokri here though; for starters... the maps don't need to be that large for dediservers. Otherwise, we need the ability to not be forced to install these files if the sizes are just going to increase every time a map increases.

 

I get storage is "cheap"... but cheap isn't free; and for many, storage isn't accessible either.

[astazou]

1 hour ago, XCNuse said:

I've never gotten to this stage; but does it handle updating without... intervention?

ie: if you go to update, does it attempt to reinstall for that example, Falklands on that original drive? Or does it properly update the new location's files?

 

I'm still with Kaltokri here though; for starters... the maps don't need to be that large for dediservers. Otherwise, we need the ability to not be forced to install these files if the sizes are just going to increase every time a map increases.

 

I get storage is "cheap"... but cheap isn't free; and for many, storage isn't accessible either.

According to players doing that for their client DCS, no problem with updates.
if I've a problem at the next update, I'll tell you (if no message, it means it's good )

And yes, that's why I saied "if you have an old SSD/HDD". The solution isn't perfect and isn't possible for everyone, I know, but it still interesting enough to be shared.
In my case, I use a HDD from my first laptop, 2007, 15 years old, it's 120Go, not a lot, but enough to make my server working again. So I formated it and I pluged it to my server

[=475FG= Dawger]

On 12/29/2022 at 6:02 AM, astazou said:

Guys, there is a temporary solution if you have an old HDD/SSD somewhere in your house.

Working like a charm for me.

Solution shared by Robert de Vries on the ED's Discord, thank you again if you read me Robert de Vries!

I posted that solution 14 months ago in this thread although I didn't provide specifics on how to do it.

I haven't bothered to update my personal server in several months now as I find DCS to be less and less attractive as an entertainment option and this is illustrative of why (partially, in any case).

 

Everything takes at least a year and usually much more to resolve, with some issues outstanding for nearly a decade now.

Some issues are introduced to resolve an imaginary problem and destroy the value of a paid module (F-5 horribly unrealistic structural failure modeling) with no recourse.

I am at the point where I am afraid to purchase an ED produced module for fear it may have issues that remain unresolved for the rest of my life or may get an "upgrade" like the F-5.

I am sticking to third party modules but I don't think a third party MP server module is in the cards.

I don't mean to imply that third party developers are perfect. They certainly are not, failing to provide some very basic things like access to autostart macros and they have their own issues with bug fixes but I am reasonably certain they will not cut their own throats with ill advised "updates".

Edited December 30, 2022 by =475FG= Dawger

[HC_Official]

still no movement on this ?

[NineLine]

Testing is going on right now. Most likely it wont require an update but rather just a new updater. I just tested the initial install and you are able to install with selected maps or no maps, same is going for the server install. We should be seeing it soon. 

[HC_Official]

12 hours ago, NineLine said:

Testing is going on right now. Most likely it wont require an update but rather just a new updater. I just tested the initial install and you are able to install with selected maps or no maps, same is going for the server install. We should be seeing it soon. 

Can you please tell me IF this new updater can run un-attended without user input ? As in first run we select what maps we want, then after that the updater requires no user input and will just update?

So myself I use the updater as part of a batch file with

dcs.exe --quiet update

And maybe this would be a great time to also introduce this wanted feature "Give the dcs server executable a different name that the "client" exe

  eg

normal DCS install == dcs.exe

dedicated server DCS install == dcs_server.exe

 

 

[CptSnafu]

that sounds promising, thanks a lot because we don't have any effordable option to run our squad servers without that feature

[NineLine]

On 1/25/2023 at 11:30 PM, HC_Official said:

Can you please tell me IF this new updater can run un-attended without user input ? As in first run we select what maps we want, then after that the updater requires no user input and will just update?

So myself I use the updater as part of a batch file with

dcs.exe --quiet update

And maybe this would be a great time to also introduce this wanted feature "Give the dcs server executable a different name that the "client" exe

  eg

normal DCS install == dcs.exe

dedicated server DCS install == dcs_server.exe

 

 

From the dev responsible:
"this is exactly what the new dedicated server installer does. It allows to select maps to install. After the initial installation guys will have to use the command line to add/remove maps, though. No MM in the dedicated server for now."

[ColinM9991]

I've just discovered this thread - very interesting stuff.

There were some comments on previous pages regarding a proper dedicated server, that isn't just a headless client acting as a server, but I assume this is outside of the scope of this request and far far down the road?

 

Nonetheless, I've scripted and used scheduled events to make my Windows Server instance completely autonomous, so much so that, if it weren't for DCS demanding UAC, I could go months or years without ever having to remotely connect to the physical box. Having a proper unattended installation and update process, as @HC_Officialmentioned in their last response, would be amazing and a step in the right direction.

1 hour ago, NineLine said:

No MM in the dedicated server for now

Just to clarify on one point, what is "MM"?

[rob10]

24 minutes ago, ColinM9991 said:

Just to clarify on one point, what is "MM"?

"Map Manager"?  In context of the requiring command line to add/remove maps I am assuming this means no GUI to check/uncheck etc (i.e. a map manager)

[okopanja]

7 hours ago, NineLine said:

From the dev responsible:
"this is exactly what the new dedicated server installer does. It allows to select maps to install. After the initial installation guys will have to use the command line to add/remove maps, though. No MM in the dedicated server for now."

Those are great news.

If you can get hold of him again I have two more questions:

- any chance of server not having any GUI? (e.g. pure console in order to try to create docker container)

- multithreading on server?

[kaltokri]

Good news!

Command line tool will be enoght. Everyone who is able to install and configure a server should be familiar with cmd, too.

Also I think SkateZilla will add a button in his new tool for sure.

Is there an ETA for the command line tool?

[Hotdognz]

This is welcome news indeed, we can finally dump Marianas, Normandy, PG, Nevada from our map install.....cant wait

 

[EvMstein]

fingers crossed*

[IRRE_Biluf]

On 1/25/2023 at 7:39 PM, NineLine said:

Testing is going on right now. Most likely it wont require an update but rather just a new updater. I just tested the initial install and you are able to install with selected maps or no maps, same is going for the server install. We should be seeing it soon. 

Will we see this before the incoming maps Normandy 2 and Sinai ?

[HC_Official]

20 hours ago, IRRE_Biluf said:

Will we see this before the incoming maps Normandy 2 and Sinai ?

lord only knows, but I hope it is sometime soon

I just also noticed that for some weird reason the dedicated server install ............... has lots of files for su-25T and TF-51D, why one earth would it need these ?

[Ignition]

with the new maps I'm sure we can say goodbye to many dedicated servers. We have 3 in our community and only 1 is going to be able to keep going.

It's getting really crazy.

[HC_Official]

new patch released but still this is not implemented