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"Testing, please abuse"

Started by benjad, January 18, 2015, 04:48:01 PM

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benjad

So I bought an HP Mini 110 about 5 years ago.  3 months later, I got the iPhone 3, and the Mini was rendered pretty much useless.   It saw odd and end presentation uses, and that was about it. 

I decided to give it a try as a game server.  Been running "Testing, please abuse" for maybe 2-3 weeks now.  It's running the latest stable pak64 with graphics on.   Is directly connected to broadband with 5mbps up. Biggest load seems to be zipping and sending the game, but it does seem to be doing that faster now. 

For those of you that have tried it.... is it running well enough to host a game?  Are there more desyncs than other servers?   Location is Eastern USA.  Hasn't crashed yet.

prissi

Without a display even low end virtual machines could run servers quite ok.

Michael 'Cruzer'

Keep in mind that running quite old hardware can cost you more money on power cost then just renting a tiny virtual server from some low-budget hosters (which may even have faster internet connection then yours).

But since your question was about if performance of the device is enough: The notebook will be able to run the server for sure. Even large maps. However size of the maps will mostly be limited by your internet connection and the connection of your players.
Founder and Ex-Maintainer of pak192.comic. Provider of Simutrans Hosting rental service.

moblet

I've been getting enough desyncs to be irritating, although they are mostly confined to train depots and building rail station tiles. They would only stop me playing on this server if better-performing servers were available, so I guess my answer is that I consider it passably playable.
Quote from: Michael 'Cruzer' on January 19, 2015, 10:04:32 AM
Keep in mind that running quite old hardware can cost you more money on power cost then just renting a tiny virtual server from some low-budget hosters (which may even have faster internet connection then yours).
A baby machine like the Mini 110 draws only a small amount of power (I did my initial server tests on a dm1, a more powerful model that draws less than than my 40W solar panel produces in full sun) but I agree that server rental is likely cheaper if you want to host a single game continuously and have only full-sized hardware to do it.

@benjad if you're going to running server games also I'd like it if we could co-ordinate so that we're offering diversity in paks and/or maps rather than duplicating one another.

benjad

Yup, specs say the charger is capable of 30W max... would love to kill-a-watt it and see what it actually uses.  Guessing 15-20W.  Tempted to pay dedicated host, but I am using this to learn a few things too.  Want to compile to 0 bit depth... still reading about it.

As far as coordination, I am still in hardware test mode.  There is no serious game on there now. 

If I do long term host, do have a lot of details to work out.  Set up players ahead of time, set start and end date with set goals for victory. Want to see if the scenario engine can be used to enforce rules as well...  looks like it can.  (We can forbid adding cities... thats a great start on it's own!)

What I mean by goals. Max income in final year, profit in final year, etc... would like to see profit added to the player switcher.. better indicator of player health than bank account.

BTW.. I strongly recommend the MOTD file... it makes logging in much prettier!


moblet

With the screen and wi-fi off it'll definitely use a lot less than the full 30W. Switching out the HDD for a SSD would also reduce consumption, but I know with the dm1 many have reported incompatibility problems with some SSD's.

Administering competition between players would be quite fraught in a public game, since everyone then has an incentive to inconvenience everyone else. We've had enough behavioural problems as it is.

The way profit is generated in Simutrans is, IMO, too artificial for financial competition to make any sense.

Interested to see what you uncover in your investigations of the scenario engine.

Dwachs

Quote from: benjad on January 20, 2015, 04:48:16 AM
Want to see if the scenario engine can be used to enforce rules as well...  looks like it can.  (We can forbid adding cities... thats a great start on it's own!)
This was one of the motivations to develop the scenario framework. You can enforce rules. You can check winning conditions, award points to players. Stuff like that. Please have a look at the scenario at http://scenarios.simutrans.com . The tram-madness scenario is good to look into enforcing rules: http://scenarios.simutrans.com/scenario/pak128/trammadness

Documentation of available functions is at http://dwachs.github.io/simutrans-sqapi-doc/index.html
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and maggikraut.

benjad

Thanks for TramMadness... that is really going to help understand what it is capable of. 



benjad

To anyone using this server.

1. Server will likely go offline sunday.  Current game date is 2033. 
2. Vandals have struck.  lots of no route.

[rant]
We really need to find a way to do vandal protection of some sort.  IP banning is useless, and IPs can be dynamic.  Locking all the players discourages people from joining a game. 

I wonder if I could build a scenario script... where new players are on "probation" and can't delete public or alter landscape.. until players vote them off probation.  Use signs as markers on the world somewhere....   

[/rant]

DrSuperGood

Quote2. Vandals have struck.  lots of no route.
That is what you get I guess for naming a server "Testing, please abuse". Even I logged in just to spam cities everywhere (which made me aware of a game bug in the process which I intend to patch eventually).

QuoteI wonder if I could build a scenario script... where new players are on "probation" and can't delete public or alter landscape.. until players vote them off probation.  Use signs as markers on the world somewhere....   
The problem is that city roads are owned by nobody. They are physically owned by player null as such they could still vandalize the map.

benjad

Forbid the remove tool for untrusted users.

benjad

Outstanding!   @106,485 in game... not taking a screen shot and posting it.

moblet

Quote from: DrSuperGood on January 24, 2015, 07:11:59 PM
That is what you get I guess for naming a server "Testing, please abuse".
I didn't exactly do that and we still got vandalised. I'm leaning towards having multiple games available, at least one of which anyone can join and is advertised as suitable for beginners, and one of which has controlled entry and accountable players.

DrSuperGood

QuoteI didn't exactly do that and we still got vandalised.
There is a difference between having a serious game where trolls join and having a game asking trolls to join. In your server's case random trolls came to try and ruin peoples fun. In this server's case people will specifically get out their way to vandalise and abuse the map purely because he asked for it politely.

I mean normally I do not go around destroying maps but could not help myself to create a few random cities and a huge pyramid purely because he asked for his server to be abused lol.

TurfIt

Quote from: benjad on January 18, 2015, 04:48:01 PM
It's running the latest stable pak64 with graphics on.   Is directly connected to broadband with 5mbps up. Biggest load seems to be zipping and sending the game, but it does seem to be doing that faster now. 
I'd recommend changing the saveformat from bzip2 to zipped. For an Atom N270, I roughly calculate 170 kbps as the crossover point where compression time + transfer time is equal for the two formats.

Graphics typically consume 80% of the CPU for moderately populated maps. Running a low resolution with the game at max zoom over some empty landscape would reduce that somewhat, but still best to run graphicless servers once players fill the map.


Quote from: DrSuperGood on January 25, 2015, 04:13:53 AM
I mean normally I do not go around destroying maps but could not help myself to create a few random cities and a huge pyramid purely because he asked for his server to be abused lol.
There is rather a difference between testing/abusing the server vs abusing the game running on it...
The huge pyramids do show that pak64's double heights are incompatible with multiplayers' lack of map rotation.

benjad

Final game save:  https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0gdCwqnX_TbTnV0dWYxUGlNN1U/view?usp=sharing

Server does have a future, I think.  Going to look at zip settings as suggested, and want to follow OTTD instructions to compile headerless.   As always wish I had more time!

Gustavo Laskoski

I was really enjoying that game? Will you provide other game in this server? When?

IgorEliezer

Quote from: Gustavo Laskoski on January 26, 2015, 12:43:35 AM
I was really enjoying that game?
Only you can know. ;)

Quote from: Gustavo Laskoski on January 26, 2015, 12:43:35 AM
Will you provide other game in this server? When?
This one, only server owner can answer. :D

DrSuperGood

QuoteThe huge pyramids do show that pak64's double heights are incompatible with multiplayers' lack of map rotation.
You can layer slice the maps and use that instead? I find myself having to do that a lot anyway due to the awkward construction tools in Simutrans.

QuoteI was really enjoying that game? Will you provide other game in this server? When?
If I could get the POSIX version to work on Windows I would happily run it from time to time to show off JIT2 (something I proposed in the past). If it does crash I can also use that data to resolve fixes.

Currently there is some fatal error relating to PThreads with POSIX built in Visual C++. Since it is PThread related I have no debug information as to why it is fatling outside of the OS thrown exception code. Even the thread that crashes is a PThread internal thread with all game related threads being paused on some control object at the time.