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  1. #1
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    The Almighty 1000 Frames Per Second

    Hello,
    I've been compiling kernels for my centos 4 boxes for quite some time now. I've modified the kernel frequency as high as 3000hz(possibly 4k). None of which created a suitable environment for these game servers, and will not run the game higher than 666 - 750 FPS. Pretty Much 666fps is the stable and concurrent level. People ask me why I need 1000fps, because the server stability and registration are amazing, but that is besides the point. Now I come to you guys in help on how to reach this goal? The frequency of kernel play a large role in how the game server outputs its frames. I've tried all types of machines, and even a 2000hz FreeBSD machine, and was still unable to achieve anything higher. I've seen and play on a 1000fps source linux server before, however it was a competing company.
    Is there a difference in schedulers or something. NUMA operation that effects it. I've notice that processor frequency drivers doesn't affect FPS what so ever. I've basically stripped the kernel bare.
    Now is there any heavily modified kernels that were able to achieve this? Does it depend on how many physical CPU's you have? Or is it a limitation of the source engine. I highly doubt the limitation because I've seen and played on 1000fps. So Where am I going wrong? Can anyone shed a light onto this subject?
    Thanks
    Adam
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  2. #2
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    It's not the easiest thing to accomplish, I can tell you that
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  3. #3
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    Quote Originally Posted by avizzle
    It's not the easiest thing to accomplish, I can tell you that
    Mr.Summit Man, or Shall I say velocity man, instead of saying that, can you possibly shed some light on this subject?
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  4. #4
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    Are you just doing the hz value in the configuration file? or are you also editing source and modifying user_hz?
    Steven Ciaburri | Industry's Best Server Management - Rack911.com
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  5. #5
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    Modifying the param.h and the jiffies.h. I'm not sure if its specifically running at that given hz.
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  6. #6
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    What is the specs of the box?
    Steven Ciaburri | Industry's Best Server Management - Rack911.com
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  7. #7
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    Primarily dual Opteron 250s, 4GB of ECC, 2x73GB scsis, and 100mbps full duplex
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  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by NitOxYs
    Primarily dual Opteron 250s, 4GB of ECC, 2x73GB scsis, and 100mbps full duplex
    Give up now and make yourself a cocktail. Being frank - you have no chance of making a profit with 1K fps servers on that box.
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  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by JonBiloh
    Give up now and make yourself a cocktail. Being frank - you have no chance of making a profit with 1K fps servers on that box.
    No Chance, Who said I wanted to use this box on 1000fps servers? These are test servers before the big boys come to town. Don't assume unless you know what your talking about. AND specifically About 2-3 per box if I really assumed I wanted to do it on those servers.
    I will be getting some woodcrests soon enough, and I need to specifically know how.. I've tried on these test servers and no go. Stop commenting, and try to help me.. I came here for help, Not to be nasty or anything, I've tried alot of linux techs that can't help me, even engineers too.. Not sure where I'm going wrong here.
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  10. #10
    Woodcrests are good, your on the right path bud. We've been able to do it at Summit because we have some of the dragonfly dev team onboard.

    What about those Sabres?
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  11. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by JonBiloh
    Woodcrests are good, your on the right path bud. We've been able to do it at Summit because we have some of the dragonfly dev team onboard.

    What about those Sabres?
    I don't follow hockey as much as I have my plate full doing other things, but I think they are doing well. But I still need help, and were getting off topic here.
    Next-Generation Game Servers- www.NextGenServers.com - Play On. Fast, Reliable, Low ping, No Lag, full support servers. Providing Professional, Low Cost, but effective services to gamers like you. Providing the nextgen of gaming services.

  12. #12
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    I don't want to have dragonfly BSD installed ... How much is 1000fps worth to me.. Thats something I'd have to think about.
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  13. #13
    There is a high performance (500 FPS only) name about to drop from the scene. So you shouldn't need 1K to make a pretty penny.
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  14. #14
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    The fact that instead of helping to provide someone with a hand in trying to help attain this 1KFPS mark, instead there's hubris thrown around about how someone will never be able to attain - or make money off - 1KFPS servers.

    Please, no more trash on the subject, and if you're not willing to offer a hand, don't post.

    Anyway, I'm going to be doing some research, using CentOS 4.3 as a base, on the specific kernel tweaks involved, and will release my findings as I have found reproducible results.

    The fact is, these Linux-based high-fps servers sprang up recently in light of the 2.6 series of kernels, in particular post-2.6.17. A couple of contacts have given me reports on the fact they use these series kernels (but on different distributions - Debian and Gentoo, for example).

    Just off the top of my head, the first place I'd point to is the new CRQ scheduler and the soft real-time support that's started to come into the kernel. Which is strange, because that's some of the stuff that I've been theorizing for ages that's been happening, and why Windows servers were able to attain higher and generally stable FPS.

    However, something else I've been wondering about is not just how to attain a higher FPS, but what exact processes are involved during the data collection and what kinds of things happen in the Valve srcds_l processing phases. Because frankly, you can have all the FPS in the world, but if you pull the machine down during the processing phase (by feeding it fps/tic amounts of information gathered), it makes for a horrid experience unless you keep your restrictions rather lofty, in the ballpark of every dedicated server having a max of between 12 and 24 slots per logical CPU. (Which is why Jon's trying to say you'll never make money off this - It takes a godawful amount of power to pull off, although Jon certainly has no trouble with it)

    Armed with these sorts of theorems, and hopes that I can just walk my *** to Bellevue and ask the dedicated server coders myself about what's going on, we can go and try to figure out what exactly can be tweaked in the 2.6.17+ kernel series to meet the demands of these processes.

  15. #15
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    Actually, whether or not I need 1000 fps is what I need. I want to be able to have the ability to do so.
    There are many ways to make money off of it, but there very little room to spare anyway.
    I have ripped apart the 2.6.17 and 18 kernel compiled different machines, even dual core processors, and infact have not gotten anything higher, even with different binaries ran from startup.
    From the looks of the jiffies.h in the kernel source, user hz and kernel hz are mathematically related, divided by a number than times by say 100000. But here again, with the Higher frequency kernel the FPS are cut to that amount. Meaning there is a maximum theoretical hz for the process to run at. I have still yet to find the magical number.
    2000hz to 3000 hz, not much of a difference, different schedulers, scsi systems, dual core systems.. Weird.
    Next-Generation Game Servers- www.NextGenServers.com - Play On. Fast, Reliable, Low ping, No Lag, full support servers. Providing Professional, Low Cost, but effective services to gamers like you. Providing the nextgen of gaming services.

  16. #16
    I am running FreeBSD 6.1 on 64 bit (AMD64) with Linux_Base-rh-9. I have one problem though where my source server tickrate is capped to 60 tick. Is there a fix for that?

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