any (dis)advantages of using dedi over self-hosted?

[twistking]

We recently tested the dedicated server tool for hosting MP and while setup was easy, we did not see any differences in performance (my missions are very light to not overburden weak clients, so the server overhead from AI and networking seems to be minimal).

I did hoewever get a game crash on my client (doesn't have to be related to hosting from dedi of course). I also missed the option to pause and resume mission by keyboard that you have when self hosting. The only notable advantage of using dedi was the option to quickly restart a mission without restarting the server.

Some questions:
- Is hosting with dedicated considered as stable as self hosting (bugs, crashes, glitches), or is dedicated still somewhat WIP?
- I remember bug reports of AI behaving differently on dedi vs self hosted. Are these issues and inconsistencies fixed?
- If performance isn't a big concern, because of lightweight missions, what are advantages of using dedi for private CoOp?
- Is there a command to restart a mission when self hosting without terminating the game session and creating a new game (this was the only obvious advantage we found with dedi)?

Thanks.

[Maverick87Shaka]

Dedicated server doesn't require to buy module, that was a long waited feature for server admins that was forced to buy module also for server account.
Since we had server account with module, we've put in place for some time both dedicated server installation as well as full client setup hosting multiplayer server with just no render option. While at the beginning there was strange AI behavior and other things messed up on dedicated server, now it's reasonable "stable", and most of the bug that you may have, are common of the DCS Core rather than something related just to the dedicated server.
Personally I've now completely turned off old server using full client installation and we're just using the dedicated server for "production"

Some questions:
- Is hosting with dedicated considered as stable as self hosting (bugs, crashes, glitches), or is dedicated still somewhat WIP?
it's considered stable.
- I remember bug reports of AI behaving differently on dedi vs self hosted. Are these issues and inconsistencies fixed?
Fixed. they are now equally broken in terms of AI behavior
- If performance isn't a big concern, because of lightweight missions, what are advantages of using dedi for private CoOp?
Your client can crash or lags(hopefully not), and your friend can keep flying, and you can rejoin them.
- Is there a command to restart a mission when self hosting without terminating the game session and creating a new game (this was the only obvious advantage we found with dedi)?
With dedicated server you have the webGUI to manage all the stuff, you can restart the mission from there without reload the whole server

 

Edited December 28, 2023 by Maverick87Shaka

[twistking]

8 hours ago, Maverick87Shaka said:

Dedicated server doesn't require to buy module, that was a long waited feature for server admins that was forced to buy module also for server account.
Since we had server account with module, we've put in place for some time both dedicated server installation as well as full client setup hosting multiplayer server with just no render option. While at the beginning there was strange AI behavior and other things messed up on dedicated server, now it's reasonable "stable", and most of the bug that you may have, are common of the DCS Core rather than something related just to the dedicated server.
Personally we've now completely turned off old server using full client installation and we're just using the dedicated server for "production"

Some questions:
- Is hosting with dedicated considered as stable as self hosting (bugs, crashes, glitches), or is dedicated still somewhat WIP?
it's considered stable.
- I remember bug reports of AI behaving differently on dedi vs self hosted. Are these issues and inconsistencies fixed?
Fixed. they are now equally broken in terms of AI behavior
- If performance isn't a big concern, because of lightweight missions, what are advantages of using dedi for private CoOp?
Your client can crash or lags(hopefully not), and your friend can keep flying, and you can rejoin them.
- Is there a command to restart a mission when self hosting without terminating the game session and creating a new game (this was the only obvious advantage we found with dedi)?
With dedicated server you have the webGUI to manage all the stuff, you can restart the mission from there without reload the whole server

thanks for the reply. much appreciated!

so there is no way to restart missions when self-hosting, correct? i think the option to restart mission without restarting the whole session is very important, so it seems weird that you need the dedicated server to be able to do this.

[Maverick87Shaka]

26 minutes ago, twistking said:

thanks for the reply. much appreciated!

so there is no way to restart missions when self-hosting, correct? i think the option to restart mission without restarting the whole session is very important, so it seems weird that you need the dedicated server to be able to do this.

Sorry, I read the question to fast...

To restart mission on self hosted => Left Shift + R

[twistking]

12 minutes ago, Maverick87Shaka said:

Sorry, I read the question to fast...

To restart mission on self hosted => Left Shift + R

No Problem. Thanks a lot!!!

Another reason less for me to use dedicated then, but i guess it's still nice to have the options and it's indeed nice to have a (dedicated) host not being affected by clientside crashes.

Edited December 28, 2023 by twistking

[=475FG= Dawger]

54 minutes ago, twistking said:

thanks for the reply. much appreciated!

so there is no way to restart missions when self-hosting, correct? i think the option to restart mission without restarting the whole session is very important, so it seems weird that you need the dedicated server to be able to do this.

I used to host a dedicated server on a laptop in the same room as my playing machine. It was very nice to be able to pause a mission and come back hours or days later and pick up where we left off. 

[twistking]

43 minutes ago, =475FG= Dawger said:

I used to host a dedicated server on a laptop in the same room as my playing machine. It was very nice to be able to pause a mission and come back hours or days later and pick up where we left off. 

in this case client aircraft would still spawn at their initial position though, correct?
so if you pause server mid-mission and exit client, on reconnect client would be back at initial spawnpoint, or could client reconnect on last position mid-air?

[=475FG= Dawger]

3 hours ago, twistking said:

in this case client aircraft would still spawn at their initial position though, correct?
so if you pause server mid-mission and exit client, on reconnect client would be back at initial spawnpoint, or could client reconnect on last position mid-air?

You cannot disconnect the client and reconnect in mid air in DCS. We would fly complete sorties and then pause the mission with everyone on the ground.

I usually set the server to pause with no clients to make it happen automatically.

Edited December 28, 2023 by =475FG= Dawger

[twistking]

2 hours ago, =475FG= Dawger said:

You cannot disconnect the client and reconnect in mid air in DCS. We would fly complete sorties and then pause the mission with everyone on the ground.

I usually set the server to pause with no clients to make it happen automatically.

I see! Thx!

[Dangerzone]

Is there any benefit running with client version of DCS for the multi-thread benefit? (If I recall correctly, the dedicated server is still single thread, or did I miss a change in one of the releases)?

[twistking]

10 minutes ago, Dangerzone said:

Is there any benefit running with client version of DCS for the multi-thread benefit? (If I recall correctly, the dedicated server is still single thread, or did I miss a change in one of the releases)?

I would guess that the AI calculations and network parts are also on one thread when self-hosting from regular client. Or in other words: The actual hosting part is equally singlethreaded on both self hosted clients and dedicated servers.
That's just an educated guess though. I simply suspect that both client and dedi share parts of the same codebase and that both will benefit when ED eventually further improves multithreading for AI and networking...

Edited December 29, 2023 by twistking

[Maverick87Shaka]

8 hours ago, twistking said:

I would guess that the AI calculations and network parts are also on one thread when self-hosting from regular client. Or in other words: The actual hosting part is equally singlethreaded on both self hosted clients and dedicated servers.
That's just an educated guess though. I simply suspect that both client and dedi share parts of the same codebase and that both will benefit when ED eventually further improves multithreading for AI and networking...

 

It's correct, there are no benefits coming from a multi thread client acting as a server @Dangerzone