Upgrade Advice for CS:S Server

[stealthrs]

Ok guys, I run a 64-player CS:S server with a Athlon 64 FX-55 on a Asus A8V Deluxe (v. 2.0) K8T800 Pro (with 2GB Dual-Channel PC3200 RAM).

With 64 players on with a 45 server tickrate, and a maxrate of 25000... I'm seeing 85% processor usage.. My question is, what processor do I look at upgrading to? CS:S is NOT multi-threaded, so I can't use two processors, gotta leave it to one..

My goal is to knock the server usage down back into the 60's... What processor do you recommend me getting for my rig? Will my mobo run it? I'm using Gentoo Linux.

 

[stealthrs]

My goal is to up the server tickrate 50 or maybe even 66 for smoother gameplay.

If I up the server tickrate only to 50, I'll just take off all our bandwidth caps.. 50 and 66 will be night and day... I went up about 15-25% just increasing the tickrate from 33 to 45!

 

[SonicIce]

i have no sense of scale on this subject and would like to know too. you'd think an FX-55 could hold up, or why would they code the game to handle up to 64 players if a $1000 CPU couldn't cut it? im guessing 45 players is a pretty decent load.

btw whats wrong with 85% usage? you arent using the pc while the server is running, right? you may as well use all that speed you payed for. thats like buying a huge hard drive and being afraid to fill it up so you delete things.

 

[stealthrs]

Well I did an extreme conditions test on it (rate 35000 for everyone on the server, cl_cmdrate and cl_updaterate 45, and tickrate 45).. and i spiked to 96%. At that point, people jittered at spawn (signs of the server being maxed)..

So it won't hit that problem, i've knocked the maxrate down to 25000... It has an OC3 connection, so I'm dying to use up all I can to get performance out of it... I'm thinking a minimum rate of 25000 and a maximum around 50000

I can have a packed server with 64 on, and it'll run fine w/ a 33 tick (65% tops usage)... but It's worlds smoother with a higher tick, that's what I'm aiming for... Low usage, high tick... That way there's no ping spikes of any sort and people get smooth gameplay.

 

[1Dark1Sharigan1]

Overclock that FX-55 . . . you could get an FX-57 but it's essentially just 200 Mhz faster . . . won't net much difference unless you overclock. The FX-55 is already one of the best single-core CPU's out there, the only one better right now is the FX-57 which isn't really worth the upgrade . . .

 

[stealthrs]

Can I go double-core? Any benefits of going double core if I'm only running the OS and the server on it?

By the way, don't bash Valve for coding the game for 64 if a $1000 proc can't do the job... It can do the job and then some, but I'm upping some values in the game that really push the processor to its limits...

What's a good, safe overclock I can do? voltage and what speed can I get out of it?

 

[Mogadon]

If you got a lot of money floating around for another CPU that's gonna be around a grand, get some phase change cooling or something like that and o/c that thing to its limits. Other than that there really isn't another processor out there that you'd see a noticeable performance increase.

As you're only running the OS and the server I really don't know if you'd see much of an increase with dual core and you'd have to loose some clock speed too, though maybe someone more knowledgable than me can give some input on that.

 

[Viditor]

Originally posted by: stealthrs
Can I go double-core? Any benefits of going double core if I'm only running the OS and the server on it?

Have you checked to see what other threads are running?
The advantage to the DC in this case is that you can multitask...even if your main app is a single-threaded one.

 

[stealthrs]

That's what I'm kind of asking.. I'm not really multitasking am I? the OS doesn't take up much CPU at all.. It's pretty much purely the CS:S server..

Is it safe to say dual-core wouldn't be worth it if I found a single-core CPU with a faster clock speed? If that's the case I may be interested in overclocking, even if it is a server.

I think it's cooled quite nicely even though it has a stock HSF. It's racked but it has:

Three rear exhaust fans (one 3", two 1" fans)
Two front exhaust fans (both 3")
Three internal intake fans (came with the case, mounted on the midplane, 3")
One high velocity blower, near the side intake
CPU fan.

Last I heard it idles at 47F...

 

[1Dark1Sharigan1]

Originally posted by: stealthrs
Is it safe to say dual-core wouldn't be worth it if I found a single-core CPU with a faster clock speed? If that's the case I may be interested in overclocking, even if it is a server.

Last I heard it idles at 47F...

For single-threaded tasks and if not multitasking then yes . . .

47F idle?! That's like 8C!! Or did you mean 47C idle?

 

[phaxmohdem]

I believe that the CS:S server IS multithreaded. Wouldn't a new thread be spawned for every user connected to the server? Other groups & clans around the internet run their CS:S servers on Dual Opteron boxes for maximum performance. My bet is that a 4800+ would do you quite well. Also 2GB or more of RAM would probably be advisable for your tasks.

 

[Ronin]

HLDS, in any form, is not multithreaded, so you won't see a benefit on a X2/P4D/SMP type of setup, unless you're running multiple servers.

 

[stealthrs]

It's not Multithreaded.. That's why we strayed from getting dual Opterons... No performance gain, plus the Fx-55 had the highest clock speed of all the processors out by AMD.. thus.. less CPU. I wish it were multhreaded..

Plus it turns out we could have 2 boxes instead of just 1 in the server room, that really helped us... the box before the FX-55 is a dual processor AMD MP 2600+ that runs a 32-player server of ours on one proc.. and our fasthttp server, ftp, web, mail, statistics, etc server on the other proc

 

[phaxmohdem]

Well then, I'd say your screwed Only options I can see is:
- Overclocking (which is not good in a Server environment, where stability is usually paramount)
- Upgrade to an FX-57 (Seems like a waste of $$ for 200 extra MHz)
- Wait until the new FX 60 comes around @ 3.0gHz (1H 2006 hopefully)

Are you sure that the CPU is your bottleneck? If its not holding solid at 100%, then it almost sounds like a bandwidth, RAM, other problem. I know you said you're on an OC3 so that should suffice, what kind of NIC is in your system? Are you 100% positive its the CPU holding you back from doing whatever it is you do?

 

[stealthrs]

Oh yes, it's Celsius, lol

 

[stealthrs]

Yup 100% positive... The settings we have set for the server are high end settings that'll definitely push the FX-55 near it's edge..

It'll no longer hit over 90% since I capped the maxrate to 25000.. I may actually bump it back up to 30000 since it reached 96% only when I forced 60 players rates to 30000... Since that will almost never happen (unless I do it again), it'll be fine if it's at 30000.

Anyways, I'm rambling... It's the CPU. 64-players takes a lot of CPU, but 64-players at our settings takes a even heftier CPU.

Looks like I can wait for the 3.0ghz or maybe even faster... I'd love to grab a 3.2ghz.

 

[phaxmohdem]

Was also just randomly thinking..... is the servers OS 64 bit? Is there a 64 bit version of the server software youre running?

 

[stealthrs]

TMK it's 64-bit. So yes... I have a shell, is there a sure way to find out? Running Linux.

 

[stealthrs]

P.S. Come and drop by.. cs64.mad-seumas.net is the IP.

If anyone here ever needs a server to scrimmage on, IM me on AIM and I can hook you up with our 32-player. I can probably push the tickrate on it up for you if there's only a set ammount of people

 

[phaxmohdem]

Originally posted by: stealthrs
TMK it's 64-bit. So yes... I have a shell, is there a sure way to find out? Running Linux.

I really don't know, I'm just throwing out ideas... 64 bit would give your system's cpu and RAM more room to breathe..

For the record is your Linux OS a 64 bit distro? Is your CS:S server running w/ 64 bit extensions/plugins?

Found this on the net,not sure if its relevant to your cause though:

We have released an update to Admin Mod, version 2.50.60. This one isn't packed with new features but mostly little changes and additions. We bring you three new scripting functions which might come in handy, cvar_exists(), get_timer() and valid_mapex(), and a math library of fixed point math functions like power, sqrt, exp, log, cos, etc. in math.inc. Two small exploits got fixed and the MySQL version has a new mysql_port cvar to specify the port of your MySQL server should it differ from default.

Thanks to Felix, the plugin_CS got an overhaul, so make sure you update your copy. It can now delete previously saved map and server defaults and has team- and playerspecific restrictions implemented. On the Windows side the new, improved installer is integrated which we already linked to in other news. Especially for you listenserver users is the possibility to use 127.0.0.1 as the loopback address in your users.ini file.

As the above doesn't amount to much, here is the real reason we didn't want to keep you longer from getting this new version: we are now AMD64 compatible. Yes, that's right. Admin Mod now has an AMD64 version for the growing number of Athlon64 and Opteron server owners. Note, that the binary format of the compiled Admin Mod scripts does also differ from the 32bit counterpart. That means that you will need to compile plugins for 64bit servers seperately. We provide a new compiler, sc64, for that purpose. But if you make use of the "compile" and "compile_all" scripts, you should not have to worry about that. By default these scripts will compile for the platform that they are run on. That means that if you run compile_all on a 32bit machine, you will get 32bit .amx files in the binaries directory. If you run it on an AMD64 Linux server, you get 64bit .amx64 files in the binaries directory.
But if you want to cross-compile, i.e. you want to compile plugins on a 32 bit machine (Linux or Windows) to use on a 64bit server, you will have to tell the compile_all script so. You do that by adding the -64 switch to the commandline to get 64bit binaries and the -32 switch to explicitely request 32bit binaries.

As usual the Changelog can be found next to the files and has more details

Found it at: http://www.adminmod.org/

 

[stealthrs]

btw the IP is cs64.mad-seumas.net if you guys wnat to drop by.

 

[trueimage]

I'm not really knowledgeable about this sort of stuff (gaming servers) but here are some ideas...

Are you sure the CPU is the bottleneck? My first idea would be to look at the amount of RAM and the hard disk speed? 15k scsi drives in raid? maybe post a full system spec...

Without doing the research myself, I can't beleive there wouldn't be code for this that took advantage of HyperThreading, Dual Core or multi processor. doen't make a lot of sense. Doesn't sound like you have a budget limit, have you thought about going intel? or looked at the benches, is the AMD FX series performing the fastest on the tasks you require?

I know every gamer is gonna say AMD and I'm building an AND rig and getting rid of this p4 stuff as I type this, but they perform differently in different situations. Maybe going intel, getting a bigger L2 cache and DDR2 memory would help in this specific case. Maybe its more or faster ram. maybe is hard disk access times. Since the CPU is not 100% it might be something else...

 

[Crism]

My clan runs a Dual Xeon 3.06GHz from a company we rent from. Run's beautifully with about 3-5 games on it at 33 tic or so with rates at 25000.

 

[stealthrs]

guys... it's the processor... It won't use 100%, only because I refuse to set a tick high enough that'll do that. It's not multi-threaded.... I think VALVe was contracted out to slowly introduce more graphics and hardware intensive updates on top of making it single threaded... They're basically in bed with a few hardware companies.. they're stupid ******.

 

[trueimage]

so did you find a solution?