Is there anyway or is it me

[CoZ]

Of.....stopping PA from utilizing both processors on a dual xenon box when changing maps.

We have recently upgraded to a Dual Xenon Box, with 2GB ram running Win23K, using firedaemon 1.7 to run gameservers as services. I have used the functionality included with firedaemon to supposedly limit its use to one of the processors which seems to be fine until map change or start-up, when it takes all the allocated processor and some of the other.

Neither MOHAA or SH have this effect only PA from what i can see.......one of the reason for getting a dual Xenon box was to allow us to keep the lag spikes that PA causes thru normal operation and map changes, away from our other mohaa/sh servers... but with little success so far.

As its stands we are currently getting 2 - 5 second lag outs on our MOHAA and SH servers everytime PA changes map, which is becoming a big concern for us, in that even now with a new dual processor box, PA is effecting our other game servers.

Also is their no way of limiting the amount of processor that PA takes at map change or startup, ie stop it from taking 100% CPU., even if it adds a few seconds to load up.

It resource usage is really causing me some concern, if there is no solution then it may have to go, especially with the current MP crisis that MOHPA has, would be a shame.

Will EA be doing any further work on resource usage for this game in the upcoming patch?

Any ideas or suggestions greatfully recieved.

TIA

[ATRAIN]

I'm sure you have already done this, but make sure you have applied the patch to your server. And you might want to check out the following. GL

Dedicated Server CPU Utilization
=============================================
win_dedicated_sleep
This cvar has a default value of 1, and will be saved to server.cfg
whenever it is changed. The cvar specifies the number of milliseconds
that a dedicated server will completely relinquish control to the operating system each frame. Increasing the value of the cvar effectively reduces the CPU utilization of a MOHPA dedicated server process. Increase this cvar if you are running multiple instances of dedicated servers or other necessary processes on your CPU. Set this cvar to 0 if you want an instance of the MOHA dedicated server to use the CPU whenever it is available (100% utilization). A value of 0 can result in a slight performance increase,
especially on low spec machines with several connected users. Increasing this
cvar can result in a performance decrease. You may change this cvar at runtime
or at the command line; we recommend a range of 0 to 10 (integer only).


Those running a dedicated server may have noticed them getting a constant OS Exception error in console when the server is up and running with people in it. Well there's a fix!

This came from Evenbalance:

http://www.evenbalance.com/downloads/mohpa/pbsv.dll

Download the dll and replace your current pbsv.dll with this one. Next, rename your pbcl.dll to pbcl-backup.dll

Do when you server is not running, and then restart the ded server.

[CoZ]

Yeah tried some variations with that command, with no joy, however as mentioned the problem doesnt exisit during normal operation, just at map change an initial start up, map change naturally being the issue here.

TIA

[CoZ]

Any other ideas guys...especially if you have a successfully run dual processor system in keeping PA away from lagging your other game servers at PA map changes.

Also is PA HT aware or not...maybe a question for the MOHTEAM guys?

[CoZ]

well sure enough played on EA's official server last night here in europe and sure enough at each map change approx 20 mins, there is massive lag out, due to presumably map changes on the other PA server running on same box.

So that clears that up for me, it isnt our box, its the game, i hope this is under investigation/fix for 2nd patch!

[SNYPE]

We turned HT off on our clan servers. They are running much better now without it.

[CoZ]

As a member of the MOHTEAM are you able to say whether they are looking into resource usage still for patch 2, or do they consider it fixed in patch 1...which it clearly isnt?

Maybe as general point, is someone from the MOHTEAM able to give us list of the fixes being done for patch 2?