MP all clients get microstutter.
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Really hoping someone has seen this before…
We setup a new server (VDS, win 2012r2, headless libraries and virtual sound)
Server runs fine, copied config over from our old 4.33 2012r2 server (where everything works fine).
On new server, all clients get a microstutter every 62 seconds. These stutters are not synced so client 1 could say get a stutter at 07:10:02 and then the next stutter at 07:11:02 while client 2 could get one at 07:10:34 and then at 07:11:34. This leads us to believe it’s not the server that is freezing for some background task.
The microstutter is only milliseconds, but the loss of sound for that time really lets you know its there!
At my wits end with trying different things so just hoping someone knows the secret!
VDS: 4core, 4gig ram, tons of network. Server BW set to 40960. All the same settings that worked on our last server.
Thanks!
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I run a server, not just a peanut-gallery commentor… but I got a question for you…
BMS can be run from a headless virtual dedicated server? I was unaware of this being possible. I suppose I’ll have to do more research, but AFAIK the host of a BMS server is a jet sitting on the RAMP in a 3D cockpit, and something needs to process those polygons. If not a dedicated GPU, then a CPU with an integrated GPU, right? If I’m wrong, I’m happy to be wrong, and I’ll have to look into running BMS off our other server, which is a headless (non-virtual) dedicated server as well, and which is much more powerful than our non-headless BMS server.Have you monitored the CPU usage of the server once players are getting those stutters? Stutters would happen if the CPU was intermittently pinning at 100%
Plenty of smarter hosts here than myself, I hope some others reply here as well…
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Yes it can run in 3d mode without a graphics card
I have tested it with a vm on esxi and all was fine…but the new vds, mp clients get these stutters. CPU never reaches 100 percent, hovers around 50% and as mentioned, the stutters are 62 seconds apart for every client, but not at the same time.
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“Server runs fine, copied config over from our old 4.33 2012r2 server”
possible source of problem.
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Why do you say copying the config from the previous server could be a problem? The previous server was BMS 4.33.3 on Windows Server 2012r2 also running vanilla BMS KTO also.
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If you copied the entire config folder and all it’s files, there could be problems there… If by “the config” you mean you only copied over the “falcon bms.cfg”, then it might not be the problem…
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I run a server, not just a peanut-gallery commentor… but I got a question for you…
BMS can be run from a headless virtual dedicated server? I was unaware of this being possible. I suppose I’ll have to do more research, but AFAIK the host of a BMS server is a jet sitting on the RAMP in a 3D cockpit, and something needs to process those polygons. If not a dedicated GPU, then a CPU with an integrated GPU, right? If I’m wrong, I’m happy to be wrong, and I’ll have to look into running BMS off our other server, which is a headless (non-virtual) dedicated server as well, and which is much more powerful than our non-headless BMS server.Have you monitored the CPU usage of the server once players are getting those stutters? Stutters would happen if the CPU was intermittently pinning at 100%
Plenty of smarter hosts here than myself, I hope some others reply here as well…
What version of Server are you using? What HyperVisor? It makes a difference how the HyperVisor shares the graphics hardware, or virtually creates one. Server 2012r2 and 16 had some huge improvements to Hyper-V WRT DirectX. I know vSphere has some decent support too, but not sure about the free VMWare hypervisors.
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Really hoping someone has seen this before…
We setup a new server (VDS, win 2012r2, headless libraries and virtual sound)
Server runs fine, copied config over from our old 4.33 2012r2 server (where everything works fine).
On new server, all clients get a microstutter every 62 seconds. These stutters are not synced so client 1 could say get a stutter at 07:10:02 and then the next stutter at 07:11:02 while client 2 could get one at 07:10:34 and then at 07:11:34. This leads us to believe it’s not the server that is freezing for some background task.
The microstutter is only milliseconds, but the loss of sound for that time really lets you know its there!
At my wits end with trying different things so just hoping someone knows the secret!
VDS: 4core, 4gig ram, tons of network. Server BW set to 40960. All the same settings that worked on our last server.
Thanks!
Any other infrastructure changes from Server (Old) to Server (New)? One for One swap in place? Or new location? New Switch? New Hardware? Anything different? This does not sound like a server problem to me.
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Yes it can run in 3d mode without a graphics card
You can also run it in 2D without the server entering the 3D, just enable this option in the server’s falcon bms.cfg:
set g_bServer 0 // This option puts FalconBMS into Multiplayer Server mode. A server mode session can't enter the 3D worldYes, I know there are many advising against this, but we are running a now 15 long day campaign on our server and no major issues or inconsistencies were reported.
But more important is to ensure you have these configuration options enabled:set g_bServerHostAll 1 // The server has the full CPU load and bandwidth traffic of all aggregated and deaggregated units set g_bClientServerConnection 1 // Forces CS connection, 0 allows P2PIn fact, if even one of your players in P2P mode does not have enough bandwidth he can compromise MP experience for all the other ones.
I can’t tell for sure this is your problem, but give it a try. -
If you copied the entire config folder and all it’s files, there could be problems there… If by “the config” you mean you only copied over the “falcon bms.cfg”, then it might not be the problem…
Oh ok, no it was just the individual cfg file which was copied over
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Guys sorry for the delayed response. Thank you all for your suggestions…we tried everything and finally just changed providers and all works perfectly. Either it was something wrong with the first providers network or something to do with the xen platform/drivers. the new provider uses KVM.
All is perfect in the world again!
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We decided it would be less of a headache to go with a different server provider rather than spending countless hours with their tech support trying to narrow down the problem which they probably wouldn’t have been able to resolve anyways. Moving to another server provider did resolve the problem and the server is now up and running without the need of a graphics card using the 3D libraries running at 150fps.
Shutout to sthalik and anyone else who helped create those DLLs.
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Stutter is typical due to network problems, that can be caused by network congestions and bad connectivity but low FPS as well.
It also runs better on Linux due to technical reasons. For that OS you don’t need to pay for a Windows license at the dedicated server provider, either.
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Hi Sthalik,
First I wanted to thank you for the 3d libs…they have been fantastic and we really appreciate the work you have done!
It was most likely network issues on the provider side, as we’ve not had this microstutter on the new provider. Both providers were showing 80 to 140FPS so I think we were good there.
I tried running the libraries on linux but it still kept showing 3d pit with low FPS so we moved to windows. It has been extremely stable and also helps as we have a few server admins and most are comfortable with windows so we stuck with it
Thank you again for your efforts!
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Don’t use the .dll’s on Linux. Build Wine from source code instead.
https://github.com/sthalik/wine-hackage/tree/wined3d-null
Let me emphasize that the branch name is wined3d-null.
