24/7 Falcon Online CO-OP server
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Nobody seems to be bringing this issue up. What the hell is this CS P2P bullcrap about? What did you guys do to Falcon? Worked well enough in 4.32 and now it seems like things are really messed up.
There does seem to be a difference in the large FvF events with regard to server stability. However, the myth that 4.32 was some panacea is simply false. It was a fairly regular occurrence that FO events crashed and/or required server resets using 4.32. There may have been other causes than what is suspected now …. user issues, variation caused by different campaigns/theaters, etc., but crashes and delays nonetheless.
OTOH, in 4.33.1, we’re hosting 12, 16 and up to 20 clients on a regular basis in un-modified theaters and/or campaigns. Occasional ‘BMS Glitches’, but no server crashes. However, the running time is limited; it’s not a 24/7 scenario.
One thing that needs done is to raise the minimum client bandwidth to 1024 as recommended in the manuals and on this forum. I’m sure there are other things to consider, and much more technical, but if you allow basically random connections below 1024 client BW, all the rest is for naught.
set g_nForceMinClientBwSetting 1024 // Allows the MP host to specify a minimum client bandwidth setting (default 0=no value forced)
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As evidenced by the cancellation of the most recent online event after less than 36 hours?
Somewhere here on the forum a bms dev already told that there could be some issues with higher client numbers. IMO the experience on the FO server is more or less a confirmation.
There does seem to be a difference in the large FvF events with regard to server stability. However, the myth that 4.32 was some panacea is simply false. It was a fairly regular occurrence that FO events crashed and/or required server resets using 4.32. There may have been other causes than what is suspected now …. user issues, variation caused by different campaigns/theaters, etc., but crashes and delays nonetheless.
OTOH, in 4.33.1, we’re hosting 12, 16 and up to 20 clients on a regular basis in un-modified theaters and/or campaigns. Occasional ‘BMS Glitches’, but no server crashes. However, the running time is limited; it’s not a 24/7 scenario.
One thing that needs done is to raise the minimum client bandwidth to 1024 as recommended in the manuals and on this forum. I’m sure there are other things to consider, and much more technical, but if you allow basically random connections below 1024 client BW, all the rest is for naught.
4.32 wasn’t perfect but it was pretty stable arround 30-40 clients. Also on the FO server 1024 is set as minimum requirement.
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Somewhere here on the forum a bms dev already told that there could be some issues with higher client numbers. IMO the experience on the FO server is more or less a confirmation.
4.32 wasn’t perfect but it was pretty stable arround 30-40 clients. Also on the FO server 1024 is set as minimum requirement.
Yes, the client allowance and the 24/7 nature of the FvF events is clearly different than ‘typical’ wing-based events.
Did not realize the BW requirement was upgraded (didn’t see it in recent BfB posts). However, there were a large number of people posting Speedtest results well below a 1 Mb/s upload during or just prior to BfB. That, along with this statement, it’s not clear whether a BW setting is ‘enforceable’ (strictly within BMS).
@Aphex@FO:
There is also the issue with users who don’t have the required bandwidth but connect regardless. ….
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Falcon 4.0 is the best flight military flight simulator ever made and the Benchmark Sim’s team have continued Falcon’s glorious tradition with the 4.32/33 patches; I really hope the Benchmark team can find a way solve these issues within the Multi-player code so that every Falcon user can enjoy participating flying in a theater campaign with 40 or so virtual pilots. I have being flying falcon now for nearly a decade and the experiences I have had flying the Falcon Online BMS 4.32 campaigns have been exceptional/magical and as close to virtual aerial warfare on a large scale as I have ever dared to dream! If the 4.33 patch can realize its multi-player potential I fully expect to exceed my expectations as to what is possible for a military flight simulator.
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Falcon 4.0 is the best flight military flight simulator ever made and the Benchmark Sim’s team have continued Falcon’s glorious tradition with the 4.32/33 patches; I really hope the Benchmark team can find a way solve these issues within the Multi-player code so that every Falcon user can enjoy participating flying in a theater campaign with 40 or so virtual pilots. I have being flying falcon now for nearly a decade and the experiences I have had flying the Falcon Online BMS 4.32 campaigns have been exceptional/magical and as close to virtual aerial warfare on a large scale as I have ever dared to dream! If the 4.33 patch can realize its multi-player potential I fully expect to exceed my expectations as to what is possible for a military flight simulator.
Same here! There is no other Sim in the world that can provide me such a level of emotions like Falcon BMS, therefore I will wait patiently for another updates without any complaining, cause those guys did all of this possible for us - working for free with passion.
Take your time BMS team, you will always have some faithful Falcon maniacs on your side. -
+1
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There will be more specifics to say about this but please keep in mind that we made a trade-off decision in releasing 4.33.1 that specifically concerns MP games with scale of 10’s of players. The BMS team is aware of some specific scaling issues that can result in uneven gameplay and game code crash (CTD) events. Obviously this is less than ideal. However, we chose to release anyway knowing that a very significant portion of the community would get enjoyment and stable results out of 4.33.1 as it stands now, even if some of the larger-server-ops folks might experience frustration.
We’ve actually learned quite a bit and found some new avenues for exploration quite recently. Those investigations will continue and with luck will bear fruit in due course. We did not feel close enough to meaningful changes to address stability and scaling issues, as yet, so as to warrant holding up 4.33.1 from release. The things I’m referring too are inherent in 4.33 as well, btw, it’s not newly introduced issues per se.
We did make a couple of point fixes for issues (for example the g_bSkipAggregationBWCheck fix which we believe will help with ghost flights and the like) but more significant changes to address what we have learned will need to wait a while yet.
Now, please understand that I’m not going to try and get into more details or respond to questions here. Others more familiar with the issues will start separate thread(s) to share what we know and what we think we know and what we think are best-known-methods for improving your chances of stable MP experiences with larger population MP games.
For now, I just wanted to let you know that this is a concern for the team and to temper any frustration you might have coming if you are at some point bitten by these kinds of issues: in that regard, please know that we are aware and working on solutions.
Does update 2 improve some things regarding this issue?
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Happy new years guys first off, now i light of recent release of the Update 3 for Falcon BMS, Falcon Online will run a big test server on the January 8th. The server will go online on 1600 GMT.
The server will be hosted in the Battle For Balkans 1.3.1 which is available in the download section. Please also note that since there is no data base changes so the theaters that work on 4.33.2 will work on 4.33.3.
Everybody is invited to fly, this has to be a combined community effort if we as a community want to enjoy this sim. So again i urge everybody to participate in this one day event. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Danguard for his work on the theater also Begriffen for hosting the server and BMS team for there hard work on this 18 years old sim.
If you have any question feel free to contact any staff member on the Team Speak or the FO forum.
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Great news. Hope the major bugs plaguing massive multiplayer campaigns have been resolved.
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Happy new years guys first off, now i light of recent release of the Update 3 for Falcon BMS, Falcon Online will run a big test server on the January 8th. The server will go online on 1600 GMT.
The server will be hosted in the Battle For Balkans 1.3.1 which is available in the download section. Please also note that since there is no data base changes so the theaters that work on 4.33.2 will work on 4.33.3.
Everybody is invited to fly, this has to be a combined community effort if we as a community want to enjoy this sim. So again i urge everybody to participate in this one day event. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Danguard for his work on the theater also Begriffen for hosting the server and BMS team for there hard work on this 18 years old sim.
If you have any question feel free to contact any staff member on the Team Speak or the FO forum.
I want to 2nd habu’s comments - it’s outstanding to hear that the multiplayer issues are being worked out. I always had faith in FO and the hard work your team has devoted. You are the heroes of our community - keep up the good work.
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Great news. Hope the major bugs plaguing massive multiplayer campaigns have been resolved.
I dont see any change in the changelog for that, besides those “major bugs” have not been reliably reproduced on standard config / network environment (many >20 players sessions have been done without a glitch in U2 so far) so they will be hard to solve.
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I dont see any change in the changelog for that, besides those “major bugs” have not been reliably reproduced on standard config / network environment (many >20 players sessions have been done without a glitch in U2 so far) so they will be hard to solve.
Besides the various bugfixes, the changes in Update 3 are a direct consequence of feedback we got from some bigger MP sessions. Hence we hope that you find the changes adding some “comfort” or “sanity” for MP events –- and yes, we know that there is still plenty of room for improvement!
= Confused.
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I dont see any change in the changelog for that, besides those “major bugs” have not been reliably reproduced on standard config / network environment (many >20 players sessions have been done without a glitch in U2 so far) so they will be hard to solve.
Not sure what your talking about but U2 was a disaster for the an MP 24/7 servers. Me and Bad Boy tested his Korea TvT and the KTO with almost 20 guys and the server didn’t last more then an 1/2 hour. Further more i have tested the Korea KTO and BfB 1.3.1 with 47 guys in 3 sessions and the server didn’t last more then 45 mins each time.
Not sure how you were running U2 with 20 guys stable. I have yet to see that. Now for the U3 like i posted before we are about to find out next weekend on the 8th. I will post a full result here, hopefully we can achieve the same parity as we had in 4.32 when it come to MP.
Again everybody is welcome to fly in this event. If you have any further question about the event please PM me or ask any Admin on the Team Speak.
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= Confused.
Dunc was referring to clock stuff
Anyway the massive MP games issues are related with CTD , unfortunately not easily reproducible / traceable, no CTD fixes in this U3 so nothing new to expect
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Very disappointing to read but not totally unexpected after Habu’s unfortunate use of the words “major bugs”.
Not very diplomatic or helpful.
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now i light of recent release of the Update 3 for Falcon BMS, Falcon Online will run a big test server on the January 8th.
You will probably (for sure) not see any changes with Update3 (But we are still working hard on the SA3 and B1B. :D).
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Very disappointing to read but not totally unexpected after Habu’s unfortunate use of the words “major bugs”.
Not very diplomatic or helpful.
Why not helpful ?
I am just saying don’t expect any improvements in that area , sorry if you don’t find that helpfull
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BMS team members have been involved in 20+ MP test in the last 2 months and it showed a good stability so far but under some restrictions and discipline of the users and squadrons…
And I was hosting one of them…
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Waiting on a LSO….
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BMS team members have been involved in 20+ MP test in the last 2 months and it showed a good stability so far but under some restrictions and discipline of the users and squadrons…
And I was hosting one of them…
Nice.
Default korea campaign ?