Server having issues?

[Bareth]

Was in dsk.

[Denizen]

Unfortunately its pretty hard to determine if its

1. the server
2. connections between you and server
3. your isp

If someone could post how to differentiate these it would be a great help.

I have noticed and posted elsewhere that Datarate.txt does have an effect even if you don't have it in your eq folder you can create it and it does seem to help. Set it to a very low number, say 2.0 if you keep crashing on zoning.

Just open up notepad. Put only 2.0 in the first line, and save it in your EQ folder as DataRate.txt.

What this does is make size of packets sent from server to client small.

If you box you also need to follow advice elsewhere on this forum on tweaking and boxing. Basically decreasing the load on your computer from handling multiple copies of eq.

[wormeye]

From my experience, and I play my main character to on a single computer (only).

If server based implemented function in a zone/quest active, the following happens:

if one player with his army (12+ toons, and healing automations) zones into and start moving, killing,
running macros (stick, automated buffs, automated assist and killing) ... i notice this on my single played main (instant).

Example: Umbral

i was for 80+ hours in zone, if am alone, i have no lags.
when Fenton loggs in and he logs around ~ 6-12 additionals characters, i dont notice any lag !
He is playing only one toon (like me, and not running with 12 toons around) - thats the difference to another people !

when someone else is in zone and running around with 6+ toons, healing automations, with all macroquest functions (stick, assist, kill, buffs, etc.)
i notice a lag, and for example, the killing of 20+ mobs takes double time for me (this is in HoH the same !)


server based function:
- HoH godly points
- Shadowhaven - Kill Tasks with (kill 10.000 mobs)
- Umbral - Kill 2000 mobs and Names
- ...


i never analysed the the server-emu-code, but i assume serverbased functions (for example, kill-task-updates) sending a lot pakets to ALL clients in zone.

Example: A 18 toon team controlled by one player (macroquest) killing 20 mobs in camp.

Killing 20 mobs in 20seconds -> Peak-Load for:

-- cpu (run-time interpreter of textbased scripts, update database, generating paktes to send out)
-- network each update, generates a single pakets that are sending out to ALL clients to get the update !

---> 20 updates x 18 toons = 360 pakets in 20sec to the client

hitting attack, assisting, casting spells etc. are the next peak-load of a paket storm !
i have no idea, but spell-damage, dot-damage, melee-damage are viewable for ALL clients thats let say 150-200 pakets for ALL clients !

and the other in zone, gets client updates pakets too !!!!
30 additional players in zone (when standing near) getting the paket storm too !

360 + 200 + 30x ?? pakets = ~600+ pakets in 20sec sending out (this is a/the lag !)
+ all normal zone-pakets

This is the game design (server/client) and not easy to change.

- if the cpu-load is a bottleneck, the serverhardware could be upgraded (easy task, if money doesnt care)
- serverbased functons - i have no idea, if the emu-code could be optimized
- network connection - depends on datacenter infrastructure - not easy to realize, except Lillu wants to move to another provider
- internet latency -> move near datacenter uplinks (joke)
- clients -> play less clients, use less macros, stand still in zone !

--
Nemen

[Vaion]

Nemen's post is pretty acurate for how a lot of the information is handled client vs server. While we have optimized as much as we possibly can, it is important to remember that there are something that just cannot be blocked from mass dumping packets/data between all clients and the server.

hitting attack, assisting, casting spells etc. are the next peak-load of a paket storm !
i have no idea, but spell-damage, dot-damage, melee-damage are viewable for ALL clients thats let say 150-200 pakets for ALL clients !

This can actually be helped by using ingame filters. If you have a filter set to block the information from spells, hits, etc. then it will not send the packets to your client. While not a huge help, it can at times assist with some latency issues for players.

[myboombox]

rathe mountains has been a dysnc nightmare for me since 1am est july 5th, still like that at 10 am est, 5k ping upon zoning one toon in

[Nilbus]

On the note of filters. I noticed that spell dmg filter for mine only seems broken. The only things that work shows all or none
Not sure if that is a server side issue or just client being funky.

[Sian]

same for me Nil. It's all or nothing. That's why I can't see my nuke dmg on my wizard, without seeing others too (proc and such).

[Denizen]

This seems like a very useful discussion. I think most of us want to work with THF to help reduce lag. I'm wondering about a couple of things:

1. Would more instances help reduce lag...at least compartmentalize it?

2. I do box 3 groups most of the time. Strangely I start getting lag in an instance if just one other character joins. I'm wondering if there is, for some strange reason a greater load on things if they come from other IPs?

3. I use ServerFilter=1. I'm wondering if there might be an even more global client side way of opting out from packets at the expense of information. Some way of having alts "opt out" of packet updates on just about everything but their current focus.

4. Perhaps to get more people to use built in filters have the default update from THFdownloader have Serverfilter=1 and if possible set all folks filters for all information below OOC set to off. Folks who want them could turn them on, but this would become the default option on THF.

4. Every time there is a holiday event seems like lag issues abound, on the idea above about instances, might it be possible to:

a. have some instances like Moarburgerz start in guild halls, adventurers camps and other places so as to spread out the lag or

b. have a quest for a clicky item to start the quest anywhere... like the Charm of the Queen.

[Denizen]

I know there is something I am missing about lag. The following two points puzzle me:

1. I generally have no lag in DSK (1 & 2) of Fear even with several guildy groups and all automatons up. These are complex zones with lots of NPCs but for some reason they are a breath of fresh air compared to HoH lag.

2. The amount of information from the server to client is not large. Even with 18 characters up I peak out at 4-5 mbps. In comparison watching a low res streaming video can burn 11-12 mbps.

So putting these to things together...some zones have less lag than others, even very complex ones, and the amount of information shouldn't overload standard DSL connections. So why do some zones have such persistent lag problems?

[Noren]

I know there is something I am missing about lag. The following two points puzzle me:

1. I generally have no lag in DSK (1 & 2) of Fear even with several guildy groups and all automatons up. These are complex zones with lots of NPCs but for some reason they are a breath of fresh air compared to HoH lag.

2. The amount of information from the server to client is not large. Even with 18 characters up I peak out at 4-5 mbps. In comparison watching a low res streaming video can burn 11-12 mbps.

So putting these to things together...some zones have less lag than others, even very complex ones, and the amount of information shouldn't overload standard DSL connections. So why do some zones have such persistent lag problems?

1. The lag experienced in a zone is always due to some kind of bottleneck. Determining if it's client, network, or server related is the real battle. For me, running a tracert www.thehiddenforest.org reveals that I experience about 46ms latency between me and New York. From there, the network makes a hop over the Atlantic to Europe, finally stopping in Hungary picking up another ~130ms latency. I usually play in the 170-180ms latency range and it is really fine for most scenarios. When does it lag?

[latency]
i. lots of chat spam from melee/spells of nearby players and my filters are disabled (client is accepting all spam)

[server]
ii. database-heavy server operations like evolving items and loot generation

2. Regarding your i/o to the server, Rafe... your numbers are astronomically high! I experience these numbers:

[Idle Upstream]
Min: 83 Bytes per second
Max: 104 Bytes per second

[Idle Downstream]
Min: 702 Bytes per second
Max: 910 Bytes per second

[Combat Upstream]
Min: 93 Bytes per second
Max 136 Bytes per second

[Combat Downstream]
Min: 1010 Bytes per second
Max: 2400 Bytes per second

Overall, the worst case scenario of one character that I saw in the guild hall (remote instance, I know) is thus 19.81 kbps traffic passing between the server and myself in a given second, which is 356.63 kbps for an 18-box team. Rafe idk how you got that high, but I use ~7% of the bandwidth you posted, even with an 18 box team in combat.