Timeout when zoning

[John Adams]

FNW, what's in the Zone debug logs is slightly confusing then:

[10.30. - 16:14:00] [ZONE__INIT] Loading server configuration..
[10.30. - 16:14:00] [ZONE__INIT] Log settings loaded from log.ini
[10.30. - 16:14:00] [ZONE__INIT] Connecting to MySQL...
[10.30. - 16:14:00] [ZONE__INIT] CURRENT_ZONE_VERSION: EQEMu 0.7.0
[10.30. - 16:14:00] [ZONE__INIT] Log settings loaded from ./log.ini
[10.30. - 16:14:00] [ZONE__INIT] Mapping Incoming Opcodes
[10.30. - 16:14:00] [ZONE__INIT] Loading Variables
[10.30. - 16:14:00] [ZONE__INIT] Loading zone names
[10.30. - 16:14:06] [ZONE__INIT] Loading items
[10.30. - 16:14:06] [ZONE__INIT] Loading npc faction lists
[10.30. - 16:14:06] [ZONE__INIT] Loading loot tables
[10.30. - 16:14:06] [ZONE__INIT] Loading guilds
[10.30. - 16:14:06] [ZONE__INIT] Loading factions
[10.30. - 16:14:06] [ZONE__INIT] Loading titles
[10.30. - 16:14:06] [ZONE__INIT] Loading AA effects
[10.30. - 16:14:06] [ZONE__INIT] Loading swarm spells
[10.30. - 16:14:06] [ZONE__INIT] Loading tributes
[10.30. - 16:14:06] [ZONE__INIT] Loading corpse timers
[10.30. - 16:14:06] [ZONE__INIT] Loading commands

This looks like the Items and Loot Tables are loaded into each zone -- tho the memory usage makes me think differently. Wouldn't zone mob loot table be unique to that zone only? Maybe this is getting off topic. Sorry.

[cbodmer]

World does load items into shared memory, but I don't think it does loottables and lootdrops, that wouldn't make much sense. I am not sure what the items are the zone is loading...

-Chris

[cbodmer]

Looking through the code, I was wrong. Seems like everything the zone needs is coming via shared memory. However I am not sure whether everything is actually preloaded by world or whether loot data is preloaded on first use.

-Chris

[Angelox]

Also, it probably would be a good idea to look for ways to speed up your MySQL server, I still think the further we enhance the zones, slower loading times are unavoidable - If you stop and think, most people have it all in one machine; Client , server, MySql, etc. And probably peak usage for MySQL is during zone-loading, as is for client and EqEmu.
I don't think differences are really that great; "autobootup_timeout(60000)", and "CLE_keepalive_timer(65000)", was way too high for me, but I kept the number, because I like the extra "buffer" time.
I think if FNW can figure out a way to include a setting in the eqemu_config.xml file (as per cbodmer), so anyone could make this adjustment, would solve a lot. It probably would not be a bad idea to keep the default setting to something long like "autobootup_timeout(60000)", and "CLE_keepalive_timer(65000)", unless this somehow affects other performance.

[cbodmer]

FNW has already added this in as part of the server rules settings. Check out the latest release 878:

From common/ruletypes.h:

RULE_CATEGORY( World )
RULE_INT ( World, ZoneAutobootTimeoutMS, 60000 )
RULE_INT ( World, ClientKeepaliveTimeoutMS, 65000 )

Thanks a lot!!

One of the simplest MySQL optimizations is to have the database files on its own dedicated physical harddisk drive. In any case, the design of eqemu is very flexible and it works amazingly well right out of the box. Don't forget that on Live it often took more than 10 seconds to zone over as well during prime time.

-Chris

[sesmar]

If you watch the world and zone servers boot up with Debuging set to 5 and watch the output you will notice that the one thing that slows down the world server on start up it Loading the Items. At this point it is loading the items into shared memory. Now, if you watch a single zone server instance boot up it will breeze by the loading of the item, because they have already been loaded into shared memory, at it will sit on loading loot tables for a little while (depends on speed of server) then it will breeze by the rest and connect to the world server. Now if you load up a second zone server instance you will notice it will breeze by the loading loot tables part because they have already been loaded into shared memory.

Also LootTables are associated to an NPC so if they are not assigned to any NPC then they will not have any affect on the the load time of the zone (when zoning into a new zone) itself since NPCs are loaded based on spawn groups for the zone.

Now I still believe that we do not need lootgroups floating around that are not assigned to NPC's and cleaning these up are a good idea it is just a tedious process of find out if it should be deleted or needs to be assigned to an existing NPC.

[Angelox]

Originally Posted by sesmar

If you watch the world and zone servers boot up with Debuging set to 5 and watch the output you will notice that the one thing that slows down the world server on start up it Loading the Items. At this point it is loading the items into shared memory. Now, if you watch a single zone server instance boot up it will breeze by the loading of the item, because they have already been loaded into shared memory, at it will sit on loading loot tables for a little while (depends on speed of server) then it will breeze by the rest and connect to the world server. Now if you load up a second zone server instance you will notice it will breeze by the loading loot tables part because they have already been loaded into shared memory.

Also LootTables are associated to an NPC so if they are not assigned to any NPC then they will not have any affect on the the load time of the zone (when zoning into a new zone) itself since NPCs are loaded based on spawn groups for the zone.

Now I still believe that we do not need lootgroups floating around that are not assigned to NPC's and cleaning these up are a good idea it is just a tedious process of find out if it should be deleted or needs to be assigned to an existing NPC.

You're right - infact, I wouldn't do any "loot clean-ups" tell all the zones are out. A lot of these loot tables become attached to the npcs after you transefer data from Cavedude to the peq or ax_peg database. If you play you cards right, you will be able to take advantage of the "lost" loot tables in there (they are not a lot, but what's there is good and better than nothing).
Im also thinking that if you use a program like zephyr325's migrate tool, you'll be leaving a lot more stray data behind. The bestway to use the migrate tool would be to start a database from scratch (empty), then start merging stuff, optimizing as you go.