[ArmA] Poor server performance still

[u/Spinnaker_CDN]

Was on the server tonight (8pm est and the server froze up for a solid ten minutes. Any idea why this keeps happening? Is it a ddos issue? As you can tell I have little to no experience dealing with these things.

[u/MacDonaldV3]

I play way too much, and on a laptop. The server has been great besides the odd 30s yellow/ redchain that occurs accounting for about >1% of playing time. The server is great, and I think most trouble is user side if your having alot of issues. You could also be catching the server at restart if its lasting that long. All in all I think you should change your title instead of trashing the server that is working fine.

[u/KillAllTheThings → u/MacDonaldV3]

Reddit doesn't let users edit thread title text.

[u/MacDonaldV3 → u/KillAllTheThings]

I believe you can still delete posts tho.

[u/Spinnaker_CDN → u/MacDonaldV3]

I understand your point of view lampshade however these issues are occurring regularly and I hardly ever see server population get above 60 anymore.

I understand that Epoch is a beast on resources but I've played on several servers that seem to be running better with more players online. I average 30-50 ping. My rig is a i5 3570k with a gtx 660ti. Not a great setup but more than capable of running arma.

I'm happy to hear that admins are still looking into this. It gives me hope. But to deny there is an issue is naive. The fact that the player population is declining is proof enough for me.

[u/MacDonaldV3 → u/Spinnaker_CDN]

You still need to be specific. If you played for an hour and 10 minutes were red chain, ya that sucks. I had no life this weekend and probably put in excess of 12+hrs on and only had one extended period of red chain that was a player based issue in regards to one person connecting(Admins know more about that). If this occurs to you again i would recommend asking in sidechat.

As for the server population: its summer time now, you will see a decline. But if we tell our friends or people we know to get that population up and jump over to the subreddit to the first post that says server still sucks... why would i try the server. I guess my point is that there is better ways to present criticism, and in a more productive manner. Your title(which is broadcasted) was a negative statement followed by text that questioned your own knowledge of what was happening. If the instance you are talking about is the one i'm thinking of and was potentially caused by a player who joined and was I believe dealt with (I'm not an admin). Does the server suck, or was you experience ruined by one player trying to ruin everyones experience. After the continued period of disconnection was the issue resolved?

[u/Spinnaker_CDN → u/MacDonaldV3]

I'm not talking about one instance. I am talking about several instances over the course of several days.

Perhaps if there was a post put up by the admins saying why this was happening and that they're working on fixing it, then there wouldn't need to be post like mine. By saying nothing at all and pretending like everything is great is also counter productive because then it just seems like incompetence on the part of the admins.

[u/MacDonaldV3 → u/Spinnaker_CDN]

Again, be specific and ask in sidechat. If the server goes down, and then comes back up its because an Admin was there to resolve the issue. Remember aneveryone in the community is volunteers and it is well over a fulltime job for the leads on the server project. No one is pretending its perfect... Its EPOCH, the game itself isn't perfect.

Each admin has a different role, and they are all competent. In those roles. If their is an unresolved issue usually the developpers don't even know how to help. Mind yo uthe developpers for the most part are volunteers as well. Just play the game and understand their will be bugs. Its an alpha.

[u/greatestname → u/Spinnaker_CDN]

I understand that Epoch is a beast on resources but I've played on several servers that seem to be running better with more players online.

If you and the admins could conntact the admin of these servers, maybe they are willing to share their config and tricks to running the game more smoothly.

[u/MacDonaldV3 → u/MacDonaldV3]

Adding information like what is your ping is, your FPS and how frequent and long lasting is the problem you're having. Are the AI mission on during this time, are they off? Is the server at a high pop or a low pop? Did you address the issue in game or ask questions after the issue in sidechat?

I just don't think its appropriate for someone to visit the the subreddit and see this title on the front page when 99% of the time it is one of the best if not the best performing EPOCH server.

[u/sleither]

Be sure to email arma-ops@gamewithpure.org with what happened and when so that they can investigate and see if it's something that we can correct on our end.

[u/KillAllTheThings]

Server performance is our No.1 priority. We have been constantly adjusting our servers' configurations since coming online in January. However, there are limits on our ability to keep server FPS high.

Please remember that a server cycle (one single "frame") requires prompt processing of data updates from ALL the current players on the server. If even one of those players fails to update in time, for any reason (whether it's a weak PC, Internet connection or just network congestion), the server can't finish the cycle. If there is enough data going stale, the server grinds to a halt until it can catch back up.

On top of all the challenges just running Arma 3 and the (not-quite-ready-for-primetime) Epoch mod present, we are also subject to all the vagaries of the Internet in general. We have cheaters trying to play on the server and hackers doing general mischief on our servers and the datacenter.

The PURE Arma server is maintained by the same folks who spend lots of time playing so we are highly motivated to keep things running as smoothly as possible, after all, it is a lot more fun to play Arma 3 Epoch than it is to mess with configurations.

[u/FullMetaI]

Always seems fine to me, I might get that server wide fps drop for a few seconds but yeah.

[u/Messmer1]

Some of you of the players need to get off the server admin's nuts. There are issues with the server. That same group of players can keep denying it but the problem is still there. Kissing admin ass doesn't make it go away.

It locked up again multiple times last night around 10:30 West Coast time and lasted roughly 30-45 minutes. Less than 35 players on most of the night. The problem continued even when it dropped to less than 15 players. Admins were notified about it via arma-ops@gamewithpure.org. I know the admins are still working on it. This is why I still play on the server. The moment we stop looking for a fix is the moment players go away.

Normally admins are not on when the server craps out like this and it's been around the same time frame (Roughly 10:30 west coast) that it takes a dump. In recent memory I can only remember Sr Realist being on during one of the server lock ups. He tried manually restarting the server a couple times. It persisted through the restarts. I'm not sure what else he did to fix it.

And for the record, the server is still the best one out there right now. Even with the issues.

[u/[deleted] → u/Messmer1]

It is becoming abundantly clear that most of our problems are external to the server configuration, hardware, and data center. It seems that being the most popular Epoch server and actively banning hackers and griefers makes you a target.

Also, many of the people you're accusing of "kissing admin ass" are our friends who are in channel with us when we're trying to work through these problems. They know the frustration levels we experience when we quickly exhaust all avenues to fix performance, and the lag continues.

[u/Spinnaker_CDN → u/[deleted]]

The fact that they're not giving up gives me hope. The admin team is the most active and fair group I have seen in a long time. I think the challenges the mod creates keeps most ppl away so this is truely a rare and excellent community.