CPU RAM HDD needs and ideas

[BitMaster]

Hey,

 

for a few weeks I am having those 3 free Dell Optiplexes now, each one had 2GB RAM DDR2 400, Core2Duo E7400 2.8GHz and 80GB HD, onboard Intel Q43

VGA and in general are very good & quiet desktop mates as they dont produce lots of noise and heat, usually :)

 

I managed to make one for my wife with 6GB that "happens" to be next to my laptop I use for flying DCS. I installed DCS 1.2.6 & 1.2.7 openbeta, created a new account on DCS to be able to login twice and off my journey went.

 

My cable has 32/2 Mbit up/down and seems to be ok for at least around 8 players, I never had more so I don't know whats the limit on 2Mbit Upload.

 

The CPU, which I was afraid of to be too small, fights it's way through the missions with about 45-50% load. Not bad for an E7400 !

 

The RAM is CLEARLY ( and that's why I am writing this ! ) TOO LITTLE.

 

6GB will kick you out for server time out ping sooner than you think once the DCS goes beyond 4.5GB RAM usage in Task Manager, starting to swap to HD and thus causing a lag neither the client nor the server can take resulting in a disconnect. Maybe a SSD would help, but you cant substitute cubic inches nor RAM in the long run.

 

Some missions run with 6GB, most bigger ones don't.

 

On next occasion I am gonna put another 2 or 4 GB in it and see if that is enough. It should be from what I expect. 8GB is minimum for any mission if the machine has nothing else open. with things like Firefox with 12 tabs you easily need another 2-4GB just for random open progs if one works this way on ded. servers.

 

The harddrive seems to be OK with 80GB if you dont put much else on it.

Whenever money allows this thing is gonna go SSD with 120GB Sata2 drive.

Sufficient to overcome those long loading times that dont need to be, my Apple MBP loads in a few seconds, this 5400 rpm platter sqeeks for like a minute LoL.

 

RDP, VNC and screensaver issues:

There are many issues ! The GUI tends to fold together to a mere fraction of its size when either screensaver ( when I forget to change powermode to high perf. ) or screen OFF kick in. When running DCS screen is on ALWAYS ON, no screenssaver, no blank, no nada ! that at least fixed that trigger causing the GUI to be unusable.

Remote Access sems to cause the same, depending or not depending on what you use. Since there are dozens of versions of RDP alone out there, it either haunts your setup or not. RealVNC, tightVNC.... and many others..

 

HECK.a SIMPLE OPENSSL CONSOLE LOGIN (WITH PUTTY) IS ALL IT NEEEDS.

Terminal/Shell access, console commands..all you will ever need.

It would open the way for programmers to create GUIs to control servers etc.. like with any other great game out there.

 

Meanwhile I only use physical access with Keyband and mouse native on that machine and gave up any RDP,VNC etc.. . It just doesn always work and sometimes causes this folded GUI :(

 

I use the autoexec.cfg file for setting max fps to 30 and disabled 3d rendering. This just plain works and the Q43 Chipset is no hurdle.

Though I noticed that when in F10 view and having only an e7400 it

does matter at what kind of map you look when you also have an eye on your CPU meter, there is a clear link with 10% CPU usage up or down and the map type you have active in F10. Percentage varies if you have a different speed CPU and may make no difference if you have power to spare.

 

The next thing I am looking into is ways to control the server remotely and/or autonomously.

 

I hope one day DCS has a proper dedicated server module, optimized by then for SMP and multi-threading. If possible by time and money, make it native linux too ! This saves many bucks every month for Clans that rent servers and makes it much much more stable and less likely effected by stupid windows environment changes.

I remember the days when Battlefield 1942 and BF2 had their ded. servers for win and linux. We ran 2 ded. server for 120-150 € per month each for years and when we had to change to windows at some point when they did not support linux anymore, things went south with stability and stupid issues that were not present in many years of linux hosted BF ranked servers.

 

We had most times 64 max players on our servers, few had that many, and that's when it differs. Who works with servers knows what I mean, who doesnt has to belief it or not, thats just what I felt after 4 years managing 2-3 Servers at various data centers for a hell of a money per month. Linux game servers run better. I am still amazed what Clans can achieve and keep up over years. Our BF clan is now 10 years old, still alive tho I dont play this game anymore, but they still run servers and pay, pay more since they also need to pay a windows server fee every month on top, the linux server offers usually skip this 10-30 € fee usually, MONTHLY ! Many reasons to consider Linux early in the game if you decide to make a module that deserves the term DEDICATED SERVER.

 

 

Enuff of those words, back into the cockpit and trying another round of Two Pin HedgeHog, the mission that killed the 6GB machine LoL.

 

Bit

[Rhinox]

I think you misunderstand a little that cpu- and ram-usage values. Cpu-load 45-50% means one core is working on max (yes, DCS is still pretty much single-core app, with exception of sound running on 2nd thread). I'm pretty sure if you display per core/thread cpu-load, you will see one running closely to 100%, while the other is nearly 0. That makes an average ~50%.

 

And concerning RAM, *every* modern OS (yes, including Windows) goes by the rule: Any useful using of RAM is better than not using it at all. If not required by running processes, it will be used for disk-cache and input/output buffers (the longer is OS running, the more of free RAM is used for this). Of course if necessary, this memory is freed when needed. So look into "Available" value in TaskManager, not "Free".

 

BTW, with 2Mbit upload, I think reasonable max is 8 players (depends on complexity of mission). If you have much more players, some of them might loose connectivity. But not because server-ram...

[BitMaster]

I think you misunderstand a little that cpu- and ram-usage values. Cpu-load 45-50% means one core is working on max (yes, DCS is still pretty much single-core app, with exception of sound running on 2nd thread). I'm pretty sure if you display per core/thread cpu-load, you will see one running closely to 100%, while the other is nearly 0. That makes an average ~50%.

 

-- I am looking at 1 graph per core with both cores around 40-50%.

Both cores are utilized. This E7400 does not have HT.

 

And concerning RAM, *every* modern OS (yes, including Windows) goes by the rule: Any useful using of RAM is better than not using it at all. If not required by running processes, it will be used for disk-cache and input/output buffers (the longer is OS running, the more of free RAM is used for this). Of course if necessary, this memory is freed when needed. So look into "Available" value in TaskManager, not "Free".

 

--- not with windows as much as you would like. All my other systems have 16 to 32 GB RAM and Windows on my laptop ( all have 16GB ) hardly ever uses this RAM during normal work. With 32 GB systems this is even worse but ment to be. Linux doesnt by default use all its RAM, maybe the desktop distros most users know seem to do, more dedicated systems like high end firewalls or embedded linux's tend to deal with this a bit differently. In general, yes, linux and OS X does make use of your RAM by caching and trying to keep data as long as possible in RAM. The only reason for me to have 16GB in my laptops and desktops is VMware to prepare servers. In servers you need as much as you need, Backupservers with Dedup i.e. need about 1GB RAM per TB Storage in Deduplication ( for their SQL database doing the dedup...). Backup-Servers with 32GB RAM are not seldom, RAM is cheaper than non-dedup HD prices.

I deal alot with RAM usage professionally, and DCS does need more than 6GB on big missions, there are no big hungry RAM processes and/or services that I can spare on this sleek install Win7-64. I am not moaning about this, hell no, just a statement for others who seek info about putting a rig together.

If it would say, NEEDS 16GB, would be fine with me. It gets what it needs.

 

 

 

BTW, with 2Mbit upload, I think reasonable max is 8 players (depends on complexity of mission). If you have much more players, some of them might loose connectivity. But not because server-ram...

 

-- Yep, I guess I need access to a data centre server for 10+ players

 

Check Six

Bit

[BitMaster]

Hey,

 

I found another 2 2GB modules and are now running DCS Server with 8GB RAM and none of the previous crashes has reoccured.

 

I really think, below 8GB you have to be cautious on what mission you load to not run into heavy HD swapping / offloading RAM to HD.

 

Actually, running a RAM-hungry mission in SP will just do the same on 6GB, crash !

 

Maybe, it should say 8+ GB on recommended specs, 6GB for standard/included missions, 8+ GB for community created missions with lots

of action etc..

 

 

Bit