How many static zones?

[cavedude]

PEQ is running P4 3.2GHz HT with 2GB of RAM on Gentoo.

We are running 93 zones total, 20 dynamic 73 static. Average number of players is between 60-120 during peak hours, and no lower than 30 during non-peak hours.

Current constant load with 32 players on is: 9.29, 12.60, 17.43, with spikes in the mid 20s. Though, normally at peak hours the constant load is closer to 24-30, with spikes into the upper 40s/lower 50s. This includes times when the two largest guilds on the server are raiding.

We currently have 250MB of memory free, but I have found that free memory fluctuates a ton of PEQ. There are even times when we are below 50MB free, though the CPU load seems to be the most important factor when determining server performance. Overall, in-game performance is terrific on PEQ and the two hints I can give other server ops are:

1. Remove the -pg option from zone's and eqlaunch's makefile. It makes a HUGE difference in regards to CPU load.

2. Get as much bandwidth as you can afford, there is no such thing as "enough"

Overall, I feel I could probably get another 20 or 30 static zones out of PEQ before it approaches its limit, keeping in mind the growing player base.

Hope this helps.

[herold]

Originally Posted by cavedude

1. Remove the -pg option from zone's and eqlaunch's makefile. It makes a HUGE difference in regards to CPU load.

woot ... thanks Cave ... but what is this "-pg"? And where do I remove this from?

[paaco]

For a windows Comparison, which really isn't very good. On an Athlon 2200 with 1 gig of ram on Windows 2k3 Server Enterprise Edition I was booting 30 zones with no prob. I honestly don't remember the ram usage as it's been a while. But it in no way lagged players or the server that I could tell. I also never had over 14 people on at once. But like I said it never ran out of ram booting the zones.

If you are going to be running a server on Windows I would highly recommend you strip a windows 2003 install down as much as possible and use it. It uses about 200 less ram than Windows xp, and I don't believe I ever had a crash on it. Although it was relatively clean. All I had on it was my compiler prog and the eqemu server.

[cavedude]

Originally Posted by herold

woot ... thanks Cave ... but what is this "-pg"? And where do I remove this from?

I'm sorry, I should have mentioned that option only applies if you are running Linux. If you are using Linux, go to the zone and eqlaunch source folders, and open each makefile with a text editor. Do a search for -pg and remove it from both. Save the file, and compile. PEQ noticed a 80% drop in CPU load after I did that.

I do recommend Linux over Windows for larger servers. Much of the code was written with *nix in mind, and so therefore is a bit more functional and a lot more stable. Smaller servers can easily use both, however. I keep a Windows based internal server and a Linux based one here that mimics PEQ as well as it can. I am surprised by the number of functions that work on Linux but don't on Windows.

Some further notes, PEQ's installation of Gentoo does not have a gui, it is bash prompt only. That is one of the secrets to its low load, especially considering the PEQ website/forums and all the devel tools run on the same box.

I did also want to touch base on memory usage a bit more. I have noticed the individual zones use minimal memory (between 10MB and less than 1MB) It's MySQL that chews up the most memory, especially when zones are being loaded. PEQ still runs MySQL 4.0, though my one Linux box shows similar results (on a much smaller scale mind you) with MySQL 5. Again, you also need to keep in mind the website, forums, and development tools all tap into MySQL as well, so there is a bit of extra load there as well.

CPU usage is mainly chewed up by the individual zones (MySQL only uses CPU when a dynamic zone is booting) During that phase, I will also see eqlaunch appear on top as well. But a more detailed breakdown of zone usage is as follows:

Unbooted dynamic zones or static zones with no players on: 0.1%

Booted dynamic or static zones with a couple of players on, minimal activity: 0.1% to no more than 1%

Same situation with a hunt going on : < 1% to 2% - 3%

Heavily populated zone with minimal activity: (On PEQ, PoK has seen 35-40 players): 1% - 7%

Heavily populated zone with hunting going on: 2%-3% to 10%

Heavily populated raid: Fluctuates a ton, average seems to be 17% with much higher spikes (sometimes 50%+), and occasional drops to allow a zone to boot. Interesting thing to note, PEQ has two raiding guilds. When they raid at the same time in two separate zones, one zone will hang at around 17%, and the other will stay steady at 10%. Every now and again, they flip. In-game performance seems to be mostly smooth for both guilds. I am not sure if this load balancing is a function of Gentoo, EQEmu, or both.