Operation "Blue Flag" - 24/7 PvP Campaign - ROUND 9

[Thrud]

With the current template, it would need much more available parking slots in the airbases to have both all Red & Blue aircraft.

 

Greg

 

to be clear, Greg, we are talking about AC types not amounts.

[Tj1376]

 

Mistral may be have to be removed next as when that was added was when the lag started to show.

 

Thanks for the reports :)

 

There were no issues in previous rounds with them. Why would that module stand out vs all the others? There were in before the Viggen, if I recall.

 

We all just have to keep in mind that "Correlation does not imply causation" with this issue and others being addressed in this thread.

 

Thrud- I can tell you that everytime you and Hollywood spawned in a Mistral tonight that the server took a good 1.5 second "pause."

 

I agree- I dont remember it doing this in the last testing rounds, but I can promise you that everytime you guys spawned in we all got hit hard with the lag. :(

 

TJ

[Hollywood126]

Thrud- I can tell you that everytime you and Hollywood spawned in a Mistral tonight that the server took a good 1.5 second "pause."

 

I agree- I dont remember it doing this in the last testing rounds, but I can promise you that everytime you guys spawned in we all got hit hard with the lag. :(

 

TJ

 

I haven't been on the server in almost 5 days...

[Thrud]

I flew the mistral once all night. Check my stats.

 

Correlation does not imply causation

[Tj1376]

I haven't been on the server in almost 5 days...

 

I have a track that shows TWB Hollywood on the server tonight...

 

Im watching the TacView show you on the Server...

 

TJ

Edited July 6, 2017 by Tj1376

[Tj1376]

I flew the mistral once all night. Check my stats.

 

Correlation does not imply causation

 

I dunno what to tell you... It happened once right after the other, right after Hollywood joined. I checked the scoreboard and saw you both in the Mistral. Hollywood had JUST joined the server.

 

I do have an awesome track of a 2 TWB M2k's (Octavio and Ewertsp) merging with two lone wolf RedFors (myself and Harrrvey.) A fun little merge that I might throw up on YouTube tomorrow. It was some fun back and forth until I got Octavio and then Ewertsp got me and Harrvey (with a GUNS GUNS GUNS kill no less!)

 

TJ

[Hollywood126]

I have a track that shows TWB Hollywood on the server tonight...

 

Im watching the TacView show you on the Server...

 

TJ

 

You're right, today is the first time I've been on in days, and you want to know what I flew? An F5. Not once did I touch a Mistral, so I don't understand why you're getting so defensive about " you were on the server too...I saw it with my own eye lazoors."

[Tj1376]

You're right, today is the first time I've been on in days, and you want to know what I flew? An F5. Not once did I touch a Mistral, so I don't understand why you're getting so defensive about " you were on the server too...I saw it with my own eye lazoors."

 

Why would you suddenly backtrack your story?

 

TJ

[Hollywood126]

Why would you suddenly backtrack your story?

 

TJ

 

What does it matter when I got on? The point is I wasn't in a Gazelle...at all...ever...

[Dino Might]

Cripes. Who cares guys?

 

Sounds like we need to do some testing. I can help once I have internet tomorrow. Have someone popping in and out of mistrals and see if we can get a strong correlation to imply that is causing the issue. Doesnt seem difficult to check.

[Ciribob]

I'm not sure why you guys are arguing about it...

 

There wasn't lag until a certain point then there was.

 

Changes were made, that's causation

 

There were many changes, one was adding mistral gazelle, but there were many others too.

 

When we have time, likely this weekend I'll roll back either to older mission or make changes to the current one based on an older mission.

 

I'm not trying to be a dick and take away a favourite aircraft, I'm trying to solve the lag...

 

Old BF had severe lag, that's why we decided to rewrite and redesign.

 

DL should now definitely be off, how is the lag looking with high player count? If it's already sorted, we're good :)

 

 

Sent from my ONEPLUS A3003 using Tapatalk

Edited July 6, 2017 by Ciribob

[Ciribob]

For Transparency / Interest

 

Here are some logs that I've just pulled from BlueFlag (times in seconds with milliseconds shown)

 

EWR Logs

 

EWR Unit Active And alive Gudauta

EWR Unit Active And alive Mozdok

EWR Unit Active And alive Sukhumi

EWR Unit Active And alive Novorossiysk

EWR Unit Active And alive Kobuleti

EWR Unit Active And alive Krasnodar Center

EWR Unit Active And alive Vaziani

EWR Unit Active And alive Mineralnye Vody

EWR Unit Active And alive Kutaisi

EWR Unit Active And alive Anapa

EWR Unit Active And alive Beslan

EWR Unit Active And alive Nalchik

EWR Unit Active And alive Senaki

EWR Unit Active And alive Batumi

EWR Unit Active And alive Maykop

EWR Unit Active And alive Tbilisi

 

EWR Loop elapsed time: 0.005

 

Everything Else

 

Linked Fuel elapsed time: 0.001 - updates Fuel at linked bases to fuel depot

 

Main Loop elapsed time: 0.001 - updates timers, does capture logic

 

BFStatus Saving elapsed time: 0.069

 

Most of these actions are staggered so as not to collide and most are relatively rare.

 

The slowest method BStatus (which saves everything about BF to disk) is called once every 5 minutes unless a unit is destroyed. It still completes within 69ms so isn't too slow :)

 

Basically the scripting is now as efficient as can be, so its unit count, unit type & slots to work on (i.e. dcs stuff, not scripts)

Edited July 6, 2017 by Ciribob

[microvax]

For Transparency / Interest

 

Here are some logs that I've just pulled from BlueFlag (times in seconds with milliseconds shown)

 

EWR Logs

 

EWR Unit Active And alive Gudauta

EWR Unit Active And alive Mozdok

EWR Unit Active And alive Sukhumi

EWR Unit Active And alive Novorossiysk

EWR Unit Active And alive Kobuleti

EWR Unit Active And alive Krasnodar Center

EWR Unit Active And alive Vaziani

EWR Unit Active And alive Mineralnye Vody

EWR Unit Active And alive Kutaisi

EWR Unit Active And alive Anapa

EWR Unit Active And alive Beslan

EWR Unit Active And alive Nalchik

EWR Unit Active And alive Senaki

EWR Unit Active And alive Batumi

EWR Unit Active And alive Maykop

EWR Unit Active And alive Tbilisi

 

EWR Loop elapsed time: 0.005

 

Everything Else

 

Linked Fuel elapsed time: 0.001 - updates Fuel at linked bases to fuel depot

 

Main Loop elapsed time: 0.001 - updates timers, does capture logic

 

BFStatus Saving elapsed time: 0.069

 

Most of these actions are staggered so as not to collide and most are relatively rare.

 

The slowest method BStatus (which saves everything about BF to disk) is called once every 5 minutes unless a unit is destroyed. It still completes within 69ms so isn't too slow :)

 

Basically the scripting is now as efficient as can be, so its unit count, unit type & slots to work on (i.e. dcs stuff, not scripts)

 

Noice optimisations !

 

How long does a JTAC unit search take just for comparison ?

[Tj1376]

I'm not trying to be a dick and take away a favourite aircraft, I'm trying to solve the lag...

 

Old BF had severe lag, that's why we decided to rewrite and redesign.

 

DL should now definitely be off, how is the lag looking with high player count? If it's already sorted, we're good :)

 

Sent from my ONEPLUS A3003 using Tapatalk

 

 

DL is definitely off. Lag persists. We only had 14-16 people on last night. It was a pretty even 7v7 for the two hours I was on.

 

As I was saying- when some folks did or didn't spawn in a mistral (because we didn't play in five days. Oh, except last night. And we never flew the mistral. Oh except for last night.) we were hit with this 1.5 second long pause. It's almost like when a new model spawns in after a server restart, but it would do it every time someone would slot into a mistral.

 

How'd we know it was the mistral? My fellow air quakers and I would use the scoreboard to check who was flying what when we would either get shot down or shoot others down. My guys had just shot an enemy m2k down and I had just looked at the scoreboard to see who just died and who was in what. I relayed who was just killed and then the lag hit. I asked if others had it. All four people on our TS channel confirmed they felt it. My teammate brought up the Mistral issue on spawn and I took a peak back at the scoreboard to see that two mistrals had just been slotted into the server.

 

About the lag: I will say that besides these two distinct pauses, lag was overall good last night. We had a couple really good merges and no one was complaining about warping or jitters.

 

TJ

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[M0ltar]

DL is definitely off. Lag persists. We only had 14-16 people on last night. It was a pretty even 7v7 for the two hours I was on.

 

As I was saying- when some folks did or didn't spawn in a mistral (because we didn't play in five days. Oh, except last night. And we never flew the mistral. Oh except for last night.) we were hit with this 1.5 second long pause. It's almost like when a new model spawns in after a server restart, but it would do it every time someone would slot into a mistral.

 

How'd we know it was the mistral? My fellow air quakers and I would use the scoreboard to check who was flying what when we would either get shot down or shoot others down. My guys had just shot an enemy m2k down and I had just looked at the scoreboard to see who just died and who was in what. I relayed who was just killed and then the lag hit. I asked if others had it. All four people on our TS channel confirmed they felt it. My teammate brought up the Mistral issue on spawn and I took a peak back at the scoreboard to see that two mistrals had just been slotted into the server.

 

About the lag: I will say that besides these two distinct pauses, lag was overall good last night. We had a couple really good merges and no one was complaining about warping or jitters.

 

TJ

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

This was happening to Rage and I early yesterday morning. The primary aircraft being flow and spawned in we Mistral and Huey's.

 

Again guys, I don't think anyone, including TJ and myself want the issue to be the Mistral. It's just worth looking into as, like ciribob said, it was one of the latest changes. The lag that happens only lasts for a small bit and then disappears. We're in the testing rounds so I think it worth it to remove the Mistral just to see what happens. I'd say this even if it was the Flanker or the A10. We just need to figure it out as the lag is poop.

[M0ltar]

For Transparency / Interest

 

Here are some logs that I've just pulled from BlueFlag (times in seconds with milliseconds shown)

 

EWR Logs

 

EWR Unit Active And alive Gudauta

EWR Unit Active And alive Mozdok

EWR Unit Active And alive Sukhumi

EWR Unit Active And alive Novorossiysk

EWR Unit Active And alive Kobuleti

EWR Unit Active And alive Krasnodar Center

EWR Unit Active And alive Vaziani

EWR Unit Active And alive Mineralnye Vody

EWR Unit Active And alive Kutaisi

EWR Unit Active And alive Anapa

EWR Unit Active And alive Beslan

EWR Unit Active And alive Nalchik

EWR Unit Active And alive Senaki

EWR Unit Active And alive Batumi

EWR Unit Active And alive Maykop

EWR Unit Active And alive Tbilisi

 

EWR Loop elapsed time: 0.005

 

Everything Else

 

Linked Fuel elapsed time: 0.001 - updates Fuel at linked bases to fuel depot

 

Main Loop elapsed time: 0.001 - updates timers, does capture logic

 

BFStatus Saving elapsed time: 0.069

 

Most of these actions are staggered so as not to collide and most are relatively rare.

 

The slowest method BStatus (which saves everything about BF to disk) is called once every 5 minutes unless a unit is destroyed. It still completes within 69ms so isn't too slow :)

 

Basically the scripting is now as efficient as can be, so its unit count, unit type & slots to work on (i.e. dcs stuff, not scripts)

Very nicely done! The changes you've made are amazing! You have no idea how much I appreciate everything you and the other guys do for this server. Blue Flag is by far the best multiplayer environment and your guys continued work and dedication is nothing short of incredible.

[mia389]

What does it matter when I got on? The point is I wasn't in a Gazelle...at all...ever...

 

Yes you did. I have the track to prove it. Why lie? You might not of flown it, but you joined the slot.

 

TJ is correct. The server pauses when someone joins Mistral. Very easy to duplicate. Have friend jump in mistral. This is a pause, but not sure if it causes lag or not. The hawk did the same thing when it was in BF.

 

IMHO the mistral is not the cause of the lag. I still think unit count may be the problem. When people disconnect and connect their side needs to sync up with server side. With thousands of units in the mission that is alot of syncing to be done. I know all the ME units are not all active at one time but client side still needs to find that out through the syncing process. At the time of adding DL and gazelles we also populated more airfields and farps. I think we have gone over the limit of units. What that number is, is anyones guess.

 

I also really don't think its any scripting causing the lag. The lag would be more consistent if so. There are many MP missions out there with gazelles and DL that don't have the lag BF has. I have not seen any missions with the unit count even close to what BF has. I hope in the future we can find that magic number.

 

Here is an idea of just how big BF really is.

Looking at the popular Bison on 104th. It has a total of 19,000 lines in the mission script, compared to BF's 180,599.

Edited July 6, 2017 by mia389

[Ciribob]

Noice optimisations !

 

How long does a JTAC unit search take just for comparison ?

 

JTAC uses very similar search code as EWR so take the number above, divide by EWR count and then times by number of active and searching JTACs. Bugger all is basically the answer :D

 

Once a JTAC has found a target it doesnt search any more either to reduce load / processing (as there is no need until target is dead)

 

TJ is correct. The server pauses when someone joins Mistral. Very easy to duplicate. Have friend jump in mistral. This is a pause, but not sure if it causes lag or not. The hawk did the same thing when it was in BF

 

Thats a spawn lag, that can be worked around a little by adding an AI Mistral (as well as all other playable aircraft) to the server, which we'll do. This means that the model is already loaded server side. When the server first loads a model - it'll lag everyone as its in effect paused while loading the model.

 

For clients, you'll probably get lag for the first time you see a mistral (or any other aircraft) as you'll have to load the model for it but it should be a one time thing once loaded.

 

Hopefully adding AI one will solve it :)

 

The lag we're more interested in is constant jitter on an obvious cycle (i.e every minute). Spawns of any type will always lag a little. Until DCS is multithreaded (which is being worked on! https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=3147153&postcount=24 ) this will always be the case.

 

From the sounds of it (ignoring spawn lag) its looking a little better then?

 

When I have some time i'll try to see if the mistral lag is every spawn, rather than just the first as that definitely shouldn't be the case (as model is loaded after the first spawn)

[M0ltar]

JTAC uses very similar search code as EWR so take the number above, divide by EWR count and then times by number of active and searching JTACs. Bugger all is basically the answer :D

 

Once a JTAC has found a target it doesnt search any more either to reduce load / processing (as there is no need until target is dead)

 

 

 

Thats a spawn lag, that can be worked around a little by adding an AI Mistral (as well as all other playable aircraft) to the server, which we'll do. This means that the model is already loaded server side. When the server first loads a model - it'll lag everyone as its in effect paused while loading the model.

 

For clients, you'll probably get lag for the first time you see a mistral (or any other aircraft) as you'll have to load the model for it but it should be a one time thing once loaded.

 

Hopefully adding AI one will solve it :)

 

The lag we're more interested in is constant jitter on an obvious cycle (i.e every minute). Spawns of any type will always lag a little. Until DCS is multithreaded (which is being worked on! https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=3147153&postcount=24 ) this will always be the case.

 

From the sounds of it (ignoring spawn lag) its looking a little better then?

 

When I have some time i'll try to see if the mistral lag is every spawn, rather than just the first as that definitely shouldn't be the case (as model is loaded after the first spawn)

I don't know that I've seen the jitter lag all the much. Most of the time it is the sporadic warping, very heavy lag, that happens occasionally. At least that had been my experience.

[Thrud]

Guys, guys, You are experiencing a problem that all multiplayer flight sims have had since the beginning. I'll give an example how to easily replicate what your experiencing.

Any time the sim suddenly asks your computer to render something new, you'll take a hit.

 

When you join the server, Blue is flying AC type 1 & 2, Red is flying type 2 & 3. You pick AC type 3 and spawn in. No one takes a hit because everyone else is already rendering AC type 1,2 & 3.

Everyone is having a grand ole time and a new player joins and selects AC type 4 and spawns in. Suddenly all those other computers are being asked to render this new thing that wasn't on before. That's what your seeing.

 

We used to try to lessen this by preloading the AC types as statics lying around the field or having the AI versions of them flying off in a remote corner of the map.

 

Yes you took hit, TJ, when I spawned in a Mistral because I was the 1st and only one fly it that was new to you. Yes you took a hit when Hollywood spawned in an F-5 because it was new to your computer. All the other AC types were already rendered by your computer when you joined.

 

I rarely get hits because not as many people fly the Gazelles. When I join all the other AC types are already in play.

 

Try over the chat. look and see what AC type isn't already in play, select it, warn those in chat your about to spawn, and do it. Then collect results.

 

This also goes for ground units, too. Everyone is flying around dog fighting and suddenly the rotor heads start spawning in. With choppers comes the spawning of new ground units that your machine will have to start rendering; crates, troop types 1,2,& 3. Kubs etc...

 

Mission design can lessen these issues

[M0ltar]

Guys, guys, You are experiencing a problem that all multiplayer flight sims have had since the beginning. I'll give an example how to easily replicate what your experiencing.

Any time the sim suddenly asks your computer to render something new, you'll take a hit.

 

When you join the server, Blue is flying AC type 1 & 2, Red is flying type 2 & 3. You pick AC type 3 and spawn in. No one takes a hit because everyone else is already rendering AC type 1,2 & 3.

Everyone is having a grand ole time and a new player joins and selects AC type 4 and spawns in. Suddenly all those other computers are being asked to render this new thing that wasn't on before. That's what your seeing.

 

We used to try to lessen this by preloading the AC types as statics lying around the field or having the AI versions of them flying off in a remote corner of the map.

 

Yes you took hit, TJ, when I spawned in a Mistral because I was the 1st and only one fly it that was new to you. Yes you took a hit when Hollywood spawned in an F-5 because it was new to your computer. All the other AC types were already rendered by your computer when you joined.

 

I rarely get hits because not as many people fly the Gazelles. When I join all the other AC types are already in play.

 

Try over the chat. look and see what AC type isn't already in play, select it, warn those in chat your about to spawn, and do it. Then collect results.

 

This also goes for ground units, too. Everyone is flying around dog fighting and suddenly the rotor heads start spawning in. With choppers comes the spawning of new ground units that your machine will have to start rendering; crates, troop types 1,2,& 3. Kubs etc...

 

Mission design can lessen these issues

Maybe putting all units, including troops In one of the dark corners of map? Jets, helis, troops, vics, everything. Just put them on one of the teams and throw them in a far corner at mission start.

 

I think the test of having players spawn in new unused aircraft is worth it too.

[Ciribob]

Guys, guys, You are experiencing a problem that all multiplayer flight sims have had since the beginning. I'll give an example how to easily replicate what your experiencing.

Any time the sim suddenly asks your computer to render something new, you'll take a hit.

 

Isn't that literally what I've repeatedly said... Above and in previous posts?

 

Spawn = lag

 

Pre-spawn aircraft to reduce lag is fix.

 

Reduce unit count, to help netcode and server and client cpu.

 

As I said, we're interested in constant lag and jitter, lag spikes are good to know about but there are limits to what we can do as I refer you to above again, spawn = lag

 

Sent from my ONEPLUS A3003 using Tapatalk

[Thrud]

Correct. Big pauses are usually spawns. Warping is usually packet loss.

I think some may have been using the term "lag" as an general term for both of these issues.

[Tj1376]

Hopefully adding AI one will solve it :)

 

The lag we're more interested in is constant jitter on an obvious cycle (i.e every minute). Spawns of any type will always lag a little. Until DCS is multithreaded (which is being worked on! https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=3147153&postcount=24 ) this will always be the case.

 

From the sounds of it (ignoring spawn lag) its looking a little better then?

 

When I have some time i'll try to see if the mistral lag is every spawn, rather than just the first as that definitely shouldn't be the case (as model is loaded after the first spawn)

 

It sure feels like it's every time the Mistral is spawned in. Tough to test when I'm on red. Maybe the blue guys could give it a shot tonight.

 

The only time I ever felt the constant jittery lag was when we had a million blue manpads and sa6s north of Kutasi to help keep red from coming south. You wiped the units and restarted the server and I haven't seen the constant lag since then. If it's the constant stuff you guys want to get rid of, I think we found the limit that night and just need to tweak it from there.

 

TJ

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Thrud]

TJ, on red, test it with the Mustang. It's rarely flown.