[REL] dedicated server for Windows with no GPU
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Yes, they help a lot. Compare LP_NUM_THREADS=1 to LP_NUM_THREADS=2 in the .bat file. Ideally you should have LP_NUM_THREADS set to the amount of cores assigned.
You may want to switch the ondemand cpufreq governor to performance. Even with 4 CPU cores Falcon uses about 200% CPU so it won’t affect the heat level.
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Looks like it worked:
I’ve tried setting 4 cpus but I guess win7 professional doesn’t support more than 2 (which I already had configured in the kvm machine).
I’ve setup a very simple TE with a tanker and an escort, so would 16fps suffice for hosting?
How do I exit the 3d world? Hitting ESC doesn’t seem to work, sorry if this is a stupid question.
Thanks for your work Sthalik, this could really improve BMS hosting a lot!
Uwe
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Hit escape then e.
15 is very barely enough. Give it margin.
In virt-manager you can set CPU topology to cores, not recognizing real cores as separate CPUs.
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I’ll try your virt-manager suggestion tomorrow. FPS was a bit better using a “real” rdp connection from my win7 gaming box, averaging around 22 fps.
I tried a test flight with a single AI plane in lead using a 10,000 bw setting on the server, we were able to fly close formation during a CAP without any glitch of sorts. I’ll try a more complex TE next.
The BMS server crashed on the “leaving a/c” screen. (the good news is that ESC “e” worked as advertised this time ;))
all the best, Uwe
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tested the server in windows 8.1. Tried a couple of flights and noticed some odd things (maybe i need to RTFM not sure…)
Firstly, after a ramp start the NWS would not activate (i had to abort mission and the NWS worked for the next mission so definitely a bug of some sort).
I was getting freezes on egress (the screen and sound would freeze for about 1 - 1.5 sec). Happened every couple of mins.
The autopilot stop working on egress, not faults nothing.
These are some strange issues and i’m not sure if it’s related to the server because i never had them before.
Server stats - around 27% CPU on a quad core i7, around 66+fps in 3d world.
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What kind of flight / mission would you recommend for the server to “join”?
All the best, Uwe
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I was getting freezes on egress (the screen and sound would freeze for about 1 - 1.5 sec). Happened every couple of mins.
Networking issues or otherwise server getting lagged. If you’re connecting remotely to the server screen, try having the BMS window minimized or otherwise not visible, or just disconnect the session for the flight’s duration.
The BMS server crashed on the “leaving a/c” screen. (the good news is that ESC “e” worked as advertised this time ;))
Then send me the .txt crashlog AND the minidump.
sh
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I’ll try your virt-manager suggestion tomorrow. FPS was a bit better using a “real” rdp connection from my win7 gaming box, averaging around 22 fps.
Since you’re having that bad FPS you can compare the new build - https://www.dropbox.com/s/4ivyryqu1rl34pu/falcon-bms-windows-dedicated-server-20151125.7z and see if there’s any improvement.
Additionally the new build shows no performance decrease with anisotropic filtering and mipmapping in 3D at all, for me at least. You can compare the decrease, if any, in both the old and new build.
[…] I hope you’ll get some proper feedback from the devs and that some measures can be implemented that make BMS and your DLL work together in the best way possible.
They don’t have to do anything. F4 code is complex enough that an external solution is necessary in the first place. Otherwise it’d all work from 2D.
Firstly, after a ramp start the NWS would not activate (i had to abort mission and the NWS worked for the next mission so definitely a bug of some sort)
I don’t touch anything other than 3D stuff so this is more involved.
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Shtalik, you’re the man. I changed the libvirt-config today and now I get around 40fps using a single-socket, 4 core CPU:
Let me know if you want me to try the new build irregardless.
All the best, Uwe
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Brilliant idea…
I was also looking for a GPU emulation but not enough gifted to acheive that
Thank you!
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Shtalik, you’re the man. I changed the libvirt-config today and now I get around 40fps using a single-socket, 4 core CPU:
Let me know if you want me to try the new build irregardless.
All the best, Uwe
Try it regardless. My mipmapping/anisotropic filtering FPS difference isn’t significant enough. Do you get an fps boost compared to the old version?
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FWIW I think qemu will have GPU emulation / throughput in the upcoming version (of course that doesn’t make much sense with headless servers, but I thought it might be worth mentioning)
@shtalik: I’ll try the new DLL version over the weekend and report back.
Cheers, Uwe
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I’m not getting the hud data (fps, cpu) with the new dll version anymore.
Cheers, Uwe
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Another interesting observation: I get around 8 additional fps when minimizing the rdp client (29 instead of 21). CPU load on four cores never exceeds 50% it seems. I’ll try starting a campaign next and see how / if it works then.
Cheers, Uwe
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I have now started a test campaign (“Iron Fortress”) on “Recruit” level, and it looks like the CentOS server isn’t even throwing a sweat:
top - 14:29:22 up 10 days, 3:17, 1 user, load average: 0.07, 0.12, 0.15
Tasks: 300 total, 1 running, 299 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
Cpu(s): 32.2%us, 6.2%sy, 0.0%ni, 61.6%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st
Mem: 16329948k total, 13661768k used, 2668180k free, 403324k buffers
Swap: 8388604k total, 15912k used, 8372692k free, 7348792k cachedI’m seeing around 35fps when connecting via rdesktop using the “older” DLL version.
Cheers, Uwe
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I have now started a test campaign (“Iron Fortress”) on “Recruit” level, and it looks like the CentOS server isn’t even throwing a sweat:
top - 14:29:22 up 10 days, 3:17, 1 user, load average: 0.07, 0.12, 0.15
Tasks: 300 total, 1 running, 299 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
Cpu(s): 32.2%us, 6.2%sy, 0.0%ni, 61.6%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st
Mem: 16329948k total, 13661768k used, 2668180k free, 403324k buffers
Swap: 8388604k total, 15912k used, 8372692k free, 7348792k cachedI’m seeing around 35fps when connecting via rdesktop using the “older” DLL version.
Cheers, Uwe
Hi,
Can you summarise everything that you did to get it running on Linux?
thanks in advance
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I set up a win7 instance using KVM / qemu and use that to run BMS, so it’s not running in Wine if you mean that.
I’ll provide more details if needed.
Question about IVC: The docs claim 2934 / 2935 are sufficient to host BMS incl. IVC, but folks apparently cannot connect to the ivc server…. while the bms server works fine. Weird…
Cheers, Uwe
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Ivc server runs on 9987-9989 ports by default. You’ll have to open these as well Uwe.
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I think the docs need to be amended then, quoting from page 81 of the BMS 4.33 manual:
“ BMS needs UDP ports 2934 and 2935 to be opened.
IVC does not need any ports opened anymore.”Cheers, Uwe
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I think the docs need to be amended then, quoting from page 81 of the BMS 4.33 manual:
“ BMS needs UDP ports 2934 and 2935 to be opened.
IVC does not need any ports opened anymore.”Cheers, Uwe
I does say that. But elsewhere, iirc, it says the HOST needs IVC ports open (9987 - 9989).
Edit:
Port numbers are not specified:
…. The IVC server can now … be configured to use any three adjacent UDP ports.
And,
14.5.4 Using the Voice Server Program
….
If you run the server exe on a system that is behind a NAT router you will have to forward the 3 ports above to the LAN address of the system running the server exe. The code uses only UDP so there is no need to forward TCP. Failure to forward the ports will render the server accessible to LAN clients only. Assuming that you have correctly set up port forwarding, tell your prospective flying partners the WAN IP of your NAT router and tell them to use that as the voice server IP address
… As mentioned above the server uses three UDP IP ports with well-known defaults.