MTA SA and lots of players

[Arran]

Recently the server I run (CIT CnR/RP Project | cit-project.net) had an explosion of player count where we are hitting 128/128 players daily, which is nice. However this success has its downsides.

The server has a 100mbps connection and 99% of that traffic is from the MTA server. When there are this many players which seems to be all day and night now network usage average ranges between 25% to 35%, so thats 25mbps constant lets say.

25 / 8 = 3.125mb a second

3.125 * 60 = 187.5mb a minute

187.5 * 60 = 11,250mb (11.2gb) an hour

11250 * 24 = 270,000mb (270gb) a day

270000 * 28 = 7,560,000 (7.5tb) a month

Are my calculations wrong, or is something wrong with MTA's bandwidth usage? The server only gets 5TB usage a month then limited to 10mbps for rest of the month, so yeah 7.5tb a month is gonna cause problems for us and any other popular servers which haven't bothered to complain about it yet.

I doubt that its our scripts being rubbish because efficiency is something I always think about. I'll list the current server side elements to give a better idea of whats going on:

122 players (90% of them are in Los Santos)

12 peds

207 vehicles

550 markers

3128 pickups (99% of them are for houses)

134 colshapes

882 objects

212 blips

54 radar areas

Some optimizations to our gamemode could be made indeed, but I'm sure that won't impact much on an incredible 7.5tb predicted bandwidth usage a month and as well this bandwidth usage the CPU (dual core 2.8ghz) is being used between 60%-80% constantly and if I open performance monitor it ends up using 100% and freezing the server for a while.

Apart from some optimizations to our gamemode, what else could actually be done? The main purpose of this topic is to inform the MTA team that we are having big problems and would appreciate it if some optimizations to MTA could be done as stated on the MTA roadmap (Eg: http://bugs.mtasa.com/view.php?id=5743 and http://bugs.mtasa.com/view.php?id=5169) for example to reduce the network and CPU usage of an MTA server with many players.

The only thing that we can do would be to spend more on a better server and mask the underlying problem by covering it in an expensive CPU and a higher bandwidth limit. I would personally rather give that money to MTA if they could get the CPU/network usage under control and this would also be in their interest, if they want to have lots of busy servers like a certain something I need not mention.

If major optimizations could be done that would end this crisis I would be willing to give a thankyou present to the developer(s) involved of lets say £50 as that would have been a setup fee for a new server which I'm hoping wont be need.

I am very grateful that even 128 players can be achieved I am aware that people worked very hard for years to make this possible and if MTA SA was #4 mod of the year 2010 we can finish the job and get it that well deserved mod of the year 2011.

If there is ANYTHING I can do to help, let me know. Well, apart from fixing it myself as I imagine it would take a long time to learn how.

[Arran]

Ok using the new nightly ccw made I have taken various screenshots of packet/cpu usage over the day at different player counts. Notice how 120 players using way more than double that of what 60 players use.

http://cit-project.net/performance/cpubw.png

[Oz.]

We had this same problem last year and the year before, we were hitting 128 players every day, often for hours, and were chewing up something in the order of 4-5TB a month, so no need to feel alone. We had to negotiate a sponsorship arrangement with our service provider (advertising) to help pay for the costs associated with that amount of traffic. We were able to make small improvements in bandwidth usage with resource optimisations, but those steps forward were generally completely overrun by ever-increasing popularity of the server.

It'd be great if something could be done about that, but likewise we were simply appreciative of the quality of gameplay possible with MTA and didn't really want to complain about it. Although sadly, if the same network usage remains for the 250+ player capacity in MTA 1.1, no one will be able to afford to reach that number. Server operating costs would be astronomical. But hey, there's over 700 MTA servers, but the big 5 (Valhalla, SAES, DKR, CIT, German Vio) account for about 15% of the players. Maybe we just need to spread the love

[Arran]

ccw's great work @ http://code.google.com/p/mtasa-blue/sou ... ail?r=2636 has fixed the problem, and earlier than I expected! I was amazed that something which could save so much network usage (around halved) not require a netcode change and have to wait for 1.1, absolutely great. I owe you.

[diegofkda]

Another problem of having many players on a server is the lag.

Today my server reached 100 players (Game-Monitor sucks so it doesn't display it) and I had an impossible lag, obviously yes, there were 100 peds (players), something that solo San Andreas can't support it.

Having 128 players on a host, obviously it lags a lot, there are 128 peds, and something like 70 players of them have a vehicle (on Freeroam server), player obviously will lag (it will not lag on modern computer I guess) the player is downloading many information; the player downloads information of 128 players every "..ping.." m.s.

For example, on my server it takes 200 m.s. on move the player info to server, and 200 ms giving the info to another player.

We all know player info is a little info, that cannot reach 1 kb... but if I calculate 128 x 1 kb we will obtain 128 kb downloading to 128 players... isn't that so much? it isn't a major bug (it cannot be fixed as I know).

Well this is my information because, I tried to spawn 100 peds with skin selector on my old 512 RAM computer and I couldn't, GTASA crashed. I tried to go to MTA, go to a 128 players server with a slow internet and I was downloading something nearly to 100 kb every 1000 m.s. (it was my ping).

Sounds a bit obviously no? but sometimes people forgot it and say "WTF WHAT A UNSTABLE MODIFICATION".

[eAi]

If you want your server to support hundreds of players, you're going to need to design your resources with that in mind. Most things, if not optimised properly will increase bandwidth and CPU exponentially if you're not careful.

How much RAM you have shouldn't matter to GTA - it might make it run slower, but it should never make it crash (unless your hard drive is completely full too).

If GTA crashes, report the crash and it may well get fixed.

[diegofkda]

If you want your server to support hundreds of players, you're going to need to design your resources with that in mind. Most things, if not optimised properly will increase bandwidth and CPU exponentially if you're not careful.

How much RAM you have shouldn't matter to GTA - it might make it run slower, but it should never make it crash (unless your hard drive is completely full too).

If GTA crashes, report the crash and it may well get fixed.

Players always get crash / GTA freezes with server real cars... it's an engine bug.

[TAPL]

If you want your server to support hundreds of players, you're going to need to design your resources with that in mind. Most things, if not optimised properly will increase bandwidth and CPU exponentially if you're not careful.

How much RAM you have shouldn't matter to GTA - it might make it run slower, but it should never make it crash (unless your hard drive is completely full too).

If GTA crashes, report the crash and it may well get fixed.

Players always get crash / GTA freezes with server real cars... it's an engine bug.

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