ID:181477
 
Im mainly interested in being able to:

A) Run small multiplayer games
B) Including BYOND type games
C) Websites

I have been looking around for a service, but there are so many options out there that I cant get thru to an answer.

Im gonna use BYOND as an example for what I want to be able to achieve.

I want to be able to have one active(action/rpg) world running, with 200-300 people and be lag-free.

Just an estimate, but If you guys can tell me about some of your experiences and your specs and service providers? I seen some worlds with 90-120 people and are running very well.

I dont want to go out there and buy a super quad xenon with X amount of RAM if I wont need it...yet. =D



Thank you for your time and help.

~David
I wouldn't exactly call 300 players on a non optimised networking protocol (with underlying TCP) with full server-sided computing a 'small multi player game'.

In your position, I'd re-evaluate the need for a dedicated server and consider a virtual private server instead. You're likely to get away with far less expanses on a comparable result. In which case, ATP Host would seem like a viable alternative.
In response to Schnitzelnagler
One customer doesent seem to like it, it lags at 40 clients. The game shows the server at very high usage with just that amount of people in it, execiding even 100% with just over 40.

Im currently asking for more information on the specific package he got. But for the time being, ATPHost is not an alternative.

Any more help is greatly appreciated.

~David
In response to 2DExtremeProductions
Writing a game that already lacks with a single player on any computer you run it is rather simple. Which is likely why it does happen this often ;)

So, if ATP Host isn't a valid solution for you, I fear you'd have to provide some sort of specifications on what you want.
In response to Schnitzelnagler
Schnitzelnagler wrote:
So, if ATP Host isn't a valid solution for you, I fear you'd have to provide some sort of specifications on what you want.

Its not working for 'this' customer that im trying to get more information from. I joined his game, I play it, he posted on his site about looking for a better host because his current host(ATPHost) is not good enough. It lags when 35+ clients are online. Right now as I type this, there are 33 clients online, and the server usage is around 45%. When this hits 45 clients, usage is hitting 100% and BYOND! <.<

I replyed to his message asking for more info, as I checked out ATPHost and they have a few 'packages' that they offer. And I asked which package is he using. No reply yet. Im just measuring/estimating what would I need to run what I specefied in my main post above.

Which ultimately, its what you have asked me, and the answer that I am looking for.

Using BYOND as an example, id like to be able to have 100's of clients, lets say 300, playing an Action/RPG type game with no lag.

I have stopped looking but mainly because I have nothing to point me to what I need, I dont want to be paying $180 a month when I could be paying far less and get the functionality that I am looking for.

Anyone with knowledge on topic, specs, services that are tried and proven, anything to help me. Please add to this topic, as me and possibly others can learn from and use for their future developments.

~David
In response to 2DExtremeProductions
2DExtremeProductions wrote:
Using BYOND as an example, id like to be able to have 100's of clients, lets say 300, playing an Action/RPG type game with no lag.

This is not possible, not even on a LAN, with BYOND.

This has almost nothing to do with hosting and everything to do with BYOND, its networking protocol, people writing games that don't scale well, etc.
In response to 2DExtremeProductions
2DExtremeProductions wrote:
Right now as I type this, there are 33 clients online, and the server usage is around 45%. When this hits 45 clients, usage is hitting 100% and BYOND! <.<

That is some odd scaling (33 -> 45%, 45 -> 100%), which would hint at the fact that the problem is not the amount of players on-line, but rather something else the world tries to do that is bogging it down.


2DExtremeProductions wrote:
Im just measuring/estimating what would I need to run what I specefied in my main post above.

Which ultimately, its what you have asked me, and the answer that I am looking for.

Not really. You see, the resource usage for a game that has a simple say verb would likely differ from a game that dynamically calculates graphics server sided each tick, with a tick_lag setting of 0.1 and no caching. Which is why I asked what server specifications you were looking for. The problem is, you do not know either, but without profiling your game, nobody can tell you. Similar to how you can not tell how fast that car can go. Right, you'd have to know the type of car for getting that information.


2DExtremeProductions wrote:
Using BYOND as an example, id like to be able to have 100's of clients, lets say 300, playing an Action/RPG type game with no lag.

As I noted, I doubt that you know what these figures mean. You're dealing with a non optimised networking protocol that bases on TCP. Even worse, you're on a software that handles everything completely server-sided (unless you're using JavaScript for some things in your game, which few people do).


2DExtremeProductions wrote:
I dont want to be paying $180 a month when I could be paying far less and get the functionality that I am looking for.

Which is why you'd need to provide the specifications I asked for.
In response to Schnitzelnagler
Schnitzelnagler wrote:
Which is why you'd need to provide the specifications I asked for.

By specifications, what do you mean exacly?

~David
In response to Alathon
Alathon wrote:
This has almost nothing to do with hosting and everything to do with BYOND, its networking protocol, people writing games that don't scale well, etc.

I did think BYOND is part of the problem, cause of how massive the increases were by just a few more people.

How do you go about resolving/improving this? You said ''writing games that don't scale well'', Any tips on writting games that scale well?

~David
In response to 2DExtremeProductions
Well, generally when looking to rent a server, you'd consider location, carriers, peers, bandwidth, transfer, RAM, CPU allocation, disc I/O and space, virtualisation, operating system, access restrictions, price and service. So these should suffice for now.
In response to Schnitzelnagler
Schnitzelnagler wrote:
Well, generally when looking to rent a server, you'd consider location, carriers, peers, bandwidth, transfer, RAM, CPU allocation, disc I/O and space, virtualisation, operating system, access restrictions, price and service. So these should suffice for now.

I understand those but isnt that what im asking for? What specs are needed to run a BYOND world with a good amount of players on it with none or relatively low amount of lag.

I could put done a high amount in there but the fact is that I dont know what I need exacly. Im asking for experiences from others and what they have, so that I can estimate what I need.

Whats the point of have a dual xeon quad with 8+gbs of RAM on 100mbps connection if I could use far less hardware to do the same job. And hence save money. But as you put out, ill try to make some specifications, even tho it really doesent answer my question.

Location? Somewhere in the states.
Carriers? Not sure. Does it matter?
Peers? Please explain this.
Bandwidth? Probably capped to keep costs down, 3,000GB?
Transfer? Must be fast, atleast 100MBps
RAM? What ever is needed, and more. 2GB+
CPU Allocation? Not sure what you mean by allocation.
Disc I/O? No clue,help here.
Space? 250GB should be more than enough.
Virtualisation? It would be nice, but I dont see a need atm.
OS? Windows preferred, Linux passable.
Access restrictions? 1-3, no plans for anyone else but me.
Price? I seen the prices, $30-$200+, depends on what I need.
Service? What do you mean exacly?

~David
In response to 2DExtremeProductions
2DExtremeProductions wrote:
Alathon wrote:
This has almost nothing to do with hosting and everything to do with BYOND, its networking protocol, people writing games that don't scale well, etc.
How do you go about resolving/improving this?

You don't. Any BYOND game, almost irrespective of what the programmer has done, will show signs of lag with a certain amount of players. From what you're saying, that suggests it begins happening around the 30-40 person mark.

You can certainly do things wrong and make it worse, but you can't make it any better. Even a game with a map and just players will lag visibly with 30-50 players around. The system simply isn't built to handle it.
In response to 2DExtremeProductions
As the official ATP Host dude-you-need-to-speak-to, I'm just going to step in here for a second and say that if a game is only handling 35-45 players, it is almost certain fault of the game. We've had users hit 120+ players on games like REO2 and one of the popular duel monster games (sorry, I'm not up to date with all the names, I believe it's DMG? The one that was pulled from the hub after a cease and desist and then re-released under a new name) as well as games like FFL (I think it was FFL, one of those Final Fanasy games, anyway).

Some users who tend to enjoy (and therefore host) Anime games note that our servers, the same ones which handle over a hundred players, can't handle more than a couple dozen and that games crash, or similar problems. This is simply because Anime games tend to be more poorly written and, as Schnitzelnagler has said, this means they don't scale to many players very well.

I'm not sure what kind of game you're making or what your level of programming experience is, but do know that the problem most likely being referred to by 'this customer' is shoddy game making, not a poor server. Also, our packages listed are simply the most common available, we can custom build packages around specific needs (something I do need to mention on the site- my bad).
In response to Airjoe
I should mention that when I said 'fault of BYOND', I mean this in the sense that lagless FPS games and Action games simply aren't BYONDs forte. And by lagless I literally mean lagless, not 'jagged movement here and there'. YMMV
In response to Alathon
Alathon wrote:
Even a game with a map and just players will lag visibly with 30-50 players around. The system simply isn't built to handle it.

I dont want to question your experience, but there are some games, mainly anime based that are running very well at 80+ clients. Do they just have a much better host? Something is different thats for sure. One, being a mod too. Runs better, and with twice the amount of clients then the other 'mods'.

My first view was that they just had a much better host/server than the rest. It must count for something?
In response to Airjoe
Airjoe wrote:
As the official ATP Host dude-you-need-to-speak-to, I'm just going to step in here for a second and say that if a game is only handling 35-45 players, it is almost certain fault of the game.

And how would I evade this fault?


We've had users hit 120+ players on games like REO2

Custom 'package'? Or one of the ones you openly offer? May you give that information?


I'm not sure what kind of game you're making

Design stage. But it can be classified as Action/RPG.

or what your level of programming experience is

Just beggining. Time is an issue at the moment.


but do know that the problem most likely being referred to by 'this customer' is shoddy game making, not a poor server.

I am currently(when I can) reading all the acticles I can find on the dev site. Can you give a quickie on what ''shoddy game making'' is using BYOND as your dev platform?


~David

In response to 2DExtremeProductions
I think it depends on what you're doing, and how. A lot of Anime games tend to have fairly simplistic but fun features, which don't particularly tax the CPU and don't use expensive (but much nicer) 4.0 UI work.

Falacy's Heroes United for example I think manages 100 ~ 200 players to a server "okay" (haven't been on in ages). He however has his own VPS and doesn't need to share. I suspect he's spent a long time refining his code for performance too.

I feel you're perhaps under-quoting a little there, Alathon.
In response to 2DExtremeProductions
2DExtremeProductions wrote:
And how would I evade this fault?

By programming your game to be efficient and robuts. Most developers on BYOND don't understand the fundamentals of computer programming. You might start looking into Big O, for example. Additionally, this book on Algorithms is excellent, but I'd be willing to be less than one percent of all BYOND developers can comprehend whats going on. This isn't meant to be insulting, of course; it's simply that BYOND is seen as an "easy" developing platform, and while it's true you can make a game very quickly, the likelihood of that game being able to perform well is not very great in this community. That said, you don't need to be a computer science genius to make a game that can support many players, but BYOND is not the fastest platform to begin with and making mistakes like excessive nested loops, poor understanding of recursion versus iteration, lack of properly designed data structures, and so on will be detrimental to a game- this is true in any language, and especially true for BYOND.

We've had users hit 120+ players on games like REO2

Custom 'package'? Or one of the ones you openly offer? May you give that information?

This is our highest standard package, the Phi package.




Just beggining. Time is an issue at the moment.

Again, not to be condescending or insulting, but it is quite likely your first few ventures will not scale well. If you're just entering the world of programming- and we're glad you are- there's a lot of knowledge to be attained. BYOND has some great tutorials, but they tend to be geared towards BYOND itself and the DM language, not to programming concepts.

I am currently(when I can) reading all the acticles I can find on the dev site. Can you give a quickie on what ''shoddy game making'' is using BYOND as your dev platform?

What I mean is that a good portion of BYOND games are made by new developers who don't understand some of the basic concepts outlined above. Furthermore, many BYOND games are based upon other BYOND games' source, whether allowed or stolen, and this leads to less learning and poorer performance. To put it in shoddy automotive terms, imagine you had a car that only got ten miles per gallon: you might be able to tweak the engi and the fuel intake and whatever else, but you're going to have a hard time increasing the efficiency of the vehicle. Sometimes it's better to start over and build a new car. By the same token, if you have no clue how to build a car, you're not going to end up with a reliable vehicle, are you?

To further explain, I'll link you to this comment thread which shows how the creator of the "best game on BYOND" is a really terrible programmer.
In response to Stephen001
Stephen001 wrote:
Falacy's Heroes United for example I think manages 100 ~ 200 players to a server "okay" (haven't been on in ages). He however has his own VPS and doesn't need to share. I suspect he's spent a long time refining his code for performance too.

As far as I know, Falacy doesn't run a VPS but a couple hundred dollar dedicated server for all of his games. That said, he could probably get away with running in a decent VPS, but it's his prerogative to blow money away ;]

In response to Stephen001
Stephen001 wrote:
I feel you're perhaps under-quoting a little there, Alathon.

I don't think I am; lagfree means lagfree. If we go by the BYOND 'standard' for what people consider lagfree, then its everything better than unplayable. But thats really not the meaning at all.

If its not running at 10FPS with smoothe movement and immediate response to interface actions, its lagging. If characters around you are 'skipping' or jumping, or moving in chunks, then its lagging.

If you just want something that runs 'okay', then yes, its entirely possible. Rereading the OP post, it strikes me that the OP says that he's seen 'some worlds that run okay'. In which case I guess we in fact are talking 'BYOND lagfree'. My bad.

To address the part about optimization, splitting the game into many sub-worlds that communicate is a solid thing to do. Network traffic increases fairly quickly per player, even *if* you do things right. However, unless link() gets fixed that isn't feasible. So right now standard programming common sense just applies.
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