Server tickrate Options

[MonkeyFiend]

I'm going to start tinkering with the server tickrate, in the region of 75-85 @ 50 slots. This all requires server restarts so will do it when the server is empty (or crashes). If the servers can run a bit smoother than thats great. It also gives us some potentioal for a minor increase in slots if we can get them to run less laggy

Once I've had an experiment with the best setups, will post back for a members vote on any permanent changes (moreso for slot changes rather than tickrate changes)

[Sneeky]

That's all fine and dandy with me

[HackedPenguin]

I didn't understand a shit about your post Monkey :8
As long as it makes the servers run smoother, then go ahead and do whatever you wish

[TurboMidget]

Could you give a short explanation though? I'm kinda curious as to what tickrate is and how it works and I'm sure others would like to know as well

[AsDeR]

Do you need to delete the carnage server for those tickrate increases? If not, instead of tweaking the archer server, why not put a password on carnage and experiment and restart it all you want while letting the archer server be up?
It might not be the better time to start reseting the archer server when we have competition.

[Meowric]

It shouldn't need yo be changed

[MonkeyFiend]

Don't need to delete the server, just is a config change which people won't notice (it might make the server perform better or worse though)

Tickrate is basically the number of times the server updates the world eg where every player is etc, per second. So higher the better generally. Chivalry defaults at 33 ticks per second. The sm servers run at 60 ticks per second. At 66 ticks the max achievable fps is 300, at 100 ticks it's 600.
There's a fai bit of difference between 30 ticks and 60 ticks but less gains between 60 to 100. The problem arise that while higher ticks can allow better fps it's also more server processing and bandwidth required, so there is a fine balance between increasing tickrate while ensuring the server can cope with the extra processing without lagging.

There are plenty of other reasons why high tick isn't good such as poor laggy connections from clients eg 1 returN command every 10 milliseconds per client on a 100 tick server, often the buffered data is queued to thvalue of 50-75ms based on client to server latency so this is where the net code optimisation of guessing likely values of client side data comes in.
Chivalry is good at this compared to most fps games because in something like bf you can spray bullets around 360 degrees. Predicting the future trajectories of arcing weapons like swords is much easier. Initially looking at the server having moved on 10 ms plus data latency of say 20 ms to client transfer time. There also some latency compensation built into the net code.

The final bit is is the server prioritises it's set fps target over frame processing, so when under heavy load eg a 60 slot melee it will drop frames in order to maintain target fps, so some warping will occur.

In summary we'll try stick tick rates of 60 up to a max of 100 (more realistically 85) and see how the servers and majority of clients performs .

[Meowric]

[Muk]

So their 54 slot server having a tick rate of 120 is largely pointless because the difference is negligible if not making things slightly worse?

[AsDeR]

Why is this on the Public Discussion forum?

[TurboMidget]

Because initially it was an announcement that the carnie server might be facing crashes, downtime etc. It has turned into a neat little lesson about internet stuff though. Thanks for the explanation, monkey

[MonkeyFiend]

didn't think there was anything in it for clan eyes only, but figured if there were any drastic gains or losses in server performance and general public wanted to pipe up, they could see it here.

there's a bit of weird fanaticism (often related to CS server high tickrates) that higher tick = better. Even quite a few game server hosts advertise this as the truth is somewhat more complicated and not good for sales or server advertising

Also while KnH's 54 slot is listed as 120 tick, as far as I can tell it's currently at 75 tick, with the 32 slot at 235 ticks, unless things have changed recently

[MonkeyFiend]

btw is now set to 85 ticks

[HackedPenguin]

Well, the pings in Limited archer were somewhat high today, could it be because of the tickrate?

[AsDeR]

You are giving KnH information to improve their server too

[MonkeyFiend]

Well, the pings in Limited archer were somewhat high today, could it be because of the tickrate?

nope, box are physically separate and in different datacentres so shouldn't be affecting each other at all :s

[HackedPenguin]

nope, box are physically separate and in different datacentres so shouldn't be affecting each other at all :s

Wait, did you change the tickrate in Carnage? Just Carnage, no Limited Archer?

[MonkeyFiend]

Wait, did you change the tickrate in Carnage? Just Carnage, no Limited Archer?

a complex scientific selection method*
*carnage happened to be empty and limited archer full at the time and the change needed a restart

[Muk]

what are you trying to tell us? stop talking about complex science.

[MonkeyFiend]

hehe

btw have booted the 7 people who were occupying the limited archer server, applied the higher tickrate and restarted it