Where are the Multiplayer players?

[Dutchy93]

ASUS K55VD

Intel Core i7-3610QM CPU 2.3GHz

6GB RAM

64 bit system

NVidia GeForce 610M 2 GB RAM.

750 GB HDD

 

McAffee antivirus

Teamspeak 3

or Skype

 

I don't have an SDD but if this is the cause then I wonder: Why don't I have trouble in offline mode?

In there I can practically stick my nose in my enemy's tailpipe without problems.

And that is on a AI and script heavy mission.

And on top of that, my system is barely 6 months old. You might expect that this should count for something.

[FLANKERATOR]

ASUS K55VD

Intel Core i7-3610QM CPU 2.3GHz

6GB RAM

64 bit system

NVidia GeForce 610M 2 GB RAM.

750 GB HDD

 

McAffee antivirus

Teamspeak 3

or Skype

 

I don't have an SDD but if this is the cause then I wonder: Why don't I have trouble in offline mode?

In there I can practically stick my nose in my enemy's tailpipe without problems.

And that is on a AI and script heavy mission.

And on top of that, my system is barely 6 months old. You might expect that this should count for something.

 

Your system is supposed to run DCS hands down.

SSD is not the ultimate solution for the online lack of stability, it does help though the root of the problem is obviously somewhere else and most likely in the game code.

[karambiatos]

Your system is supposed to run DCS hands down.

SSD is not the ultimate solution for the online lack of stability, it does help though the root of the problem is obviously somewhere else and most likely in the game code.

 

well that GPU isnt powerful.

 

http://community.futuremark.com/hardware/gpu/NVIDIA+GeForce+GT+610/compare

[Vedexent]

If the system is having next to no problems in single player, and it's having no stability problems in multiplayer when you are the server (you might experiment with that if you have not), then it might be a networking issue.

 

What kind of connection, speed (up and down), latency, and reliability is your connection?

 

How many machines are sharing that connection in your home, and what are they doing? Do you have anything streaming video like YouTube or NetFlix? Do you have a VOIP phone? Do you run a torrent program (for open source software images, and public domain material, of course).

 

I have a new, decent, but not spectacular gaming system (i5 4670, 8Gb RAM, Gigabyte Nvidia GTX geoforce 670 2 Gb of RAM, and a pretty normal commodity non-SSD hard drive in my system) but I have a very good network connection for my area (50Mbps down/ 10Mps up, unlimited traffic, very consistent throughput, excellent latency), and I have zero problems with Multiplayer on other machines, and I've only had problems being the server when I've tried to do 20 other things while other people are using my server and switching back and forth to DCS World.

 

It's true that traffic is modest on our server, usually only a handful of people and we've peaked at a dozen. I keep missions rotating reloading every 3 hours, and I'll typically restart the whole server first thing in the morning when no one is flying.

 

It could be that your system is fine and network capacity, consistency, or saturation issues, are clobbering your connections.

[Vedexent]

Well said ENO, bottom line is that this is still the best COMBAT SIM out there!

 

And let's remember the adage: "be careful what you ask for, you might get it!"

 

I'm sure that enough money, resources, developers, and time would be thrown into DCS World to fix all the issues and make is a fully stable, bug free platform if EA bought ED :P

 

Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease.

Edited November 17, 2013 by Vedexent
typoo

[sslechta]

ASUS K55VD

Intel Core i7-3610QM CPU 2.3GHz

6GB RAM

64 bit system

NVidia GeForce 610M 2 GB RAM.

750 GB HDD

 

I've found in multiplayer mode that DCS.exe tends to exhibit memory leak behavior. I too had 6 gig ram and the game would crash occasionally when jumping into an aircraft. I started watching memory usage in resource monitor and sure enough, DCS.exe would take all available ram. I upgraded from 6 gig to 10 gig and my problems went away. In single player mode this never happened.

[Vedexent]

I've found in multiplayer mode that DCS.exe tends to exhibit memory leak behavior.

 

Light bulb!

 

Now this makes perfect sense. If DCS World is written in C++ - and I seem to recall that at least part of it it - then yes, there could definitely be memory leaks.

 

Throwing more RAM at the problem would make the OS run better, but not the program. I suspect - as I'm a *nix guy and don't really know the internals of Windows - that you might be putting enough memory in to have some left over when all the allocated memory area for DCS world is "leaked away". DCS World would still be "broken", but it wouldn't take down Windows down with it.

 

If DCS World is "leaky" it means that restarting, or rebooting, might be the only cure (short of the dev team plugging the leaks, of course).

 

This would be true of Servers (probably more so) as well as people using the software to "just play".

 

It may be that servers not only need to rotate missions every X hours, but do a full system reboot - or risk stability issues.

 

Not ideal. I wonder if one could throw a system monitor in there with the logic: "If no one has been on the server for X minutes and the server has been up for Y minutes OR the server has been up for Z minutes, regardless of current activity, reboot Windows" - and have DCS World auto setup as a server?

 

But ... can you setup DCS World to automatically connect as an MP server and launch a mission on startup?

[ENO]

It barely matters Vex... I restart the server just about daily and few missions last that long without crashing anyway.

 

Skate was in the server with us last night and he and I both crashed while everyone else (7-8 others) was fine- he looked at his resource monitor and DCS was using something like 16gigs of RAM after only about an hour of flying. I think by the time he'd screenshotted it it was down to 12-13. Meanwhile the server stayed up through that. A bit earlier, 5 out of 9 guys got kicked out wholesale without crash logs. Oh yes, and of course the server crashed twice on top of all that.

 

Anyway- not to be negative but not my favourite DCS night last night... not by a long shot.

[sslechta]

Yeah I agree with Eno.... On the VA server we set the mission (not DCS.exe) to restart every 2 and a half hours and most of the time DCS.exe crashes before that time is hit.

[Dutchy93]

I've only got 8 Mb download and maybe 1 or 1.5 mb up. But I am working on it. As far as Ping is concerned I only connect to servers with no more than 100 ping.

I don't think that is the major issue. I can run Planetside 2 without problems.

And that game is HEAVY on your internet.

You connect with 2000 people on 1 server and no lag ey XD.

 

But I am working on improving this.

[Vedexent]

Maybe I shouldn't jinx it, but I don't see crashes more than once every 2-3 days, and that's usually when I'm trying to heavily use the system for other things on top of running the server.

 

True, we're operating under modest player loads, and with missions specifically designed not to be "crash bait" - extensive use of triggers, etc.

[Frostie]

Maybe I shouldn't jinx it, but I don't see crashes more than once every 2-3 days, and that's usually when I'm trying to heavily use the system for other things on top of running the server.

 

True, we're operating under modest player loads, and with missions specifically designed not to be "crash bait" - extensive use of triggers, etc.

This only happens if your server is not populated too often which yours is, the majority of the time it's at 1/18. The VA server never has 1/48 players it is always at least 15/48 to 30+/48. The constant population is what causes the crashes.

 

You will servers on the lobby with uptime of 100+ hours this is because the lack of players.

[sslechta]

This only happens if your server is not populated too often which yours is, the majority of the time it's at 1/18. The VA server never has 1/48 players it is always at least 15/48 to 30+/48. The constant population is what causes the crashes.

 

 

Completely agree.

[Vedexent]

This only happens if your server is not populated too often which yours is, the majority of the time it's at 1/18. The VA server never has 1/48 players it is always at least 15/48 to 30+/48. The constant population is what causes the crashes.

 

You will servers on the lobby with up time of 100+ hours this is because the lack of players.

 

So ... if you know that over allocating the number of slots is what crashes your server, why do you still do it?

 

Drop the max number of slots, crash less often, provide a better experience (i.e. one where you don't get halfway through a mission and it craps out).

 

It's like the very old joke: A: "The server crashes when I do this.", B: "Then don't do that".

 

Fewer crashes = less frustration = more people playing MP. Given that we're not saturating the capacity of public servers, even if they cap out at a dozen players each, we're fine - we just spread the population out a bit.

 

----

 

Edit: and "You" might not be VA; So far as I know VA could be rock steady and never crash - but there are servers out there, clearly, which are crashing.

Edited November 17, 2013 by Vedexent

[sslechta]

I don't think folks that visit our server would like that solution Vedexent. Being shut out would not encourage repeat visitors at all. Everytime I've seen a crash there has been at least 10 players on. DCS World should be able to handle that with ease and it did on versions before about 1.2.4.

 

Bottom line is ED needs to get multiplayer working better across the board. Whatever the problem is, it is more noticeable with more players.

[Frostie]

So ... if you know that over allocating the number of slots is what crashes your server, why do you still do it?

 

Drop the max number of slots, crash less often, provide a better experience (i.e. one where you don't get halfway through a mission and it craps out).

 

It's like the very old joke: A: "The server crashes when I do this.", B: "Then don't do that".

 

Fewer crashes = less frustration = more people playing MP. Given that we're not saturating the capacity of public servers, even if they cap out at a dozen players each, we're fine - we just spread the population out a bit.

Actual amount is not the issue beyond 12+, the amount when at its limit is related to lag. A server that can host 30+ players without lag would still crash if it was populated with a 16 player limit. It is the duration it is populated with a high amount that causes the issue, 3 or 4 hours of 16 players will usually crash depending on the mission.

 

A mission designed for 12 players, there are plenty of those so why not push the boundaries.

[ENO]

I don't think his point is the numbers as much as the consistency of activity. I run 15 slots and if the server consistently has 4-5 throughout the normal times I generally crash once a night. When it sits empty (paused on empty) I have no crashes at all as one would expect.

 

Anyway we all know that mp stability is lacking- there's no sense in sitting here nitpicking over it. Sometimes it's mission issues that we have largely addressed by stripping missions of basically anything remotely suspect. Other times its cant connect to master server issues... And rarely have I ever seen evidence of a server side hardware fault (though extremely frequently it's client side hardware fault).

 

It doesn't help that we killed the weekly updates by burning the Internet down each time they were released because our individual priorities weren't getting enough attention.

 

Anyway- on topic none of this has helped the community thrive. Releasing it to the Steam membership should have helped and maybe it did on the SP side of things- who knows... But hopefully they fill in these gaps so we can get back to raving about how awesome it is instead of wincing every time we log in to see if we will make it through a whole mission.

[sslechta]

+1 ENO.

[Boberro]

One of the silent things happening is that the multiplayer crowd is slowly backing off. The crashes and bugs have been going on for a very long time and little has been done about it. They seem to fix it and within a couple of patches they break it. It's a shame but people will tend to migrate to what works.

 

Edge will be worse IMO because it will be a new platform supported by the same programmers.

I plan to hang in there but haven't been playing nearly as much lately.

 

That is right.

Personally I put DCS off since 1.2.6 and its problems with MP, poor FPS and so on.

Waiting for 1.2.7 only, as I don't have faith that any 1.2.6 patch will correct it properly.

 

I remember gold times, FC 1, day after day 30 people always on 169th, on special events IIRC even 100 people at one time :cry:. Then 169th ripped off, plenty people moved to 104th, FC 2 came and there were less folks to play but still playable and nice ^^.

Then we have FC 3 (DCS:W) and many problems... less people to participate.

[Vedexent]

Firstly, I agree 100% that the server layer needs to be fixed, or - ideally - a stable stand alone server application needs to be found.

 

Actual amount is not the issue beyond 12+, the amount when at its limit is related to lag. A server that can host 30+ players without lag would still crash if it was populated with a 16 player limit. It is the duration it is populated with a high amount that causes the issue, 3 or 4 hours of 16 players will usually crash depending on the mission.

 

However you want to measure it, it's clear that we can set servers to accept loads that they can't sustain - whether that's 12 player/hours, or a total player lag of X microseconds, or however you want to slice it.

 

A mission designed for 12 players, there are plenty of those so why not push the boundaries.

 

Um ... because the server crashes?

 

I don't think folks that visit our server would like that solution Vedexent. Being shut out would not encourage repeat visitors at all.

 

However, playing 20 minutes of a mission and having it crash and having to start over from the beginning does not encourage repeat visitors at all, either.

 

----

 

I'm beginning to be concerned this might be an "bragging rights" thing in squadrons: "We are squadron X, we have Y people on our server at all times therefore we are fantastic ... oops it crashed", and person #32 - who was new to DCS World MP - gets frustrated, throws in the towel, stops playing MP, the number of MP players overall goes down. Rinse, repeat often enough, and we get threads in the forum like Where are the Multiplayer players?

 

In the end, people will do with their servers what they want - and that's their right.

 

I'm just concerned that a combination of "well, it should work this way, so I'm going to push it to where I think it should work (oops it crashed)" and "we're number 1 because we can cram X people onto an (unstable) server!" could be degrading the MP experience in general for new players - and we have a ton of those thanks to Steam (whether or not you think that's a good thing).

 

Take my argument with a grain of salt, if you will, since I don't seem to be affected directly by the problem.

[Frostie]

It is taken with a grain of salt, done the 16 player route crashed just the same. Having enjoyed times in servers with 60+players from days of yore and so much wanting them back. Playing in a mixed A2A, A2G server populated with so few players is dull, so many names are known by so many others in the community from FC2, they crave the scene that was set from the original series. New guys may not understand what was once before so making it lite might seem the right choice, trust me it ain't. There are several servers that try and accommodate a lot of players and all do successfully for a few hours of fun. It's all we have and any less won't do.

 

You'd be so very wrong about the bragging rights, server admins communicate freely and share their thoughts on how to run a server best they can. What works and what doesn't, rest assured if someone in this community found a cure all pill they'd share it for all to use i'm pretty sure of it. It's all in the name of the communities wishes for having what we're used to anything less just isn't worth it.

[ENO]

Yeah I don't buy into the bragging rights either- If they have the missions (AI light) and the hardware to support the capacity and the admin support to keep things rolling they do... With the amount of AI I have in most of my missions I'm limited to 15 as I've seen each person gobbling up 1meg per second. I don't host missions that everyone wants to play and cater to a smaller market... that's fine- but I'm still unstable. (lol)

 

But I don't think I've ever seen someone in here thumping their chest about the number of guys are on their server like it's some sort of competition. There was a comment up there, I admit, kind of looked like that... but I don't think that was the intention- in fact I'm quite certain of it. I'm completely +1 in that the community of servers I've ever dealt with has been the very first people to help when you're having stability issues or questions about running a server.

 

If you're able to keep your server running a few days at a time then that's great- others can't. The times I'm able to keep things afloat longer than a couple days generally my client counts have been pretty low.

 

I mean- frick... I still get guys who can't stay connected for more than 10 minutes because they don't have their LAN setting applied... I can't even IMAGINE how many gave up MP in frustration based on that alone. The fact it's not a stock setting is still completely ludicrous.

 

I look over my logs... connected, disconnected. Connected... joined A-10... took off, disconnected. connected, joined, took off... disconnected. Then never to be seen again- probably thinking "This stupid server is crap I'm going somewhere else" and unless someone catches him in the middle of it and is able to say "is your speed setting set to LAN," then that's one more enthusiast out the door.

[Frostie]

Yes Eno, I certainly don't mean that 12 player missions etc. are a bad thing, it's a player set that is very different to the ones that run for 30 players. Missions such as run on the Firehouse are usually much more in depth A2G exercises for the purists of DCS, having the availability of variety was my point.

[winchesterdelta1]

37 players where on the server today. Was fun. But could not enjoy it for long. Joined probably pretty late so it crashed pretty soon for me.

[Pman]

Hey Guys,

 

Our server exhibits the same pattern as ENO and Frostie describe, if we ever have a quiet period (>5 but <16) pilots then the server stays up fine and cycles its missions, if we have consistently more than 20 people in there then it does crash.

 

There really isnt alot we can do about it, lowering the player limit to 12 people defeats the purpose of the VA server, to bring as many people together as possible.

 

In 1.2.4 we had regularly over 30 people in the server and zero crashes, its something thats been done to the game to introduce these errors.

 

We have a system on the VA server now where if it crashes it will auto recovery in about 3 minutes (Frostie did you get that working for you by the way?)

 

Most of our regular pilots know this and go make a coffee for 3 minutes if it crashes then come straight back :)

 

Pman