TF2 server performance issues!!!

**jabberwock** · 09-10-10, 01:34 AM

The TPG TF2 servers (as much as I love everyone on them) have become substandard. Of all the pub servers I visit with any regularity, TPG's are in my opinion the worst in terms of stability, and performance. I find the servers choppy, and it gets FAR worse once the servers are above 2/3 full. I don't experience the same chop on 32 man servers... Makes me wonder, really.

FPS lag. Did some poking around tonight in the main server with 22 people in it, and none in the other two. With nowhere near a full load on the source box, in other words. After hitting F5 until my fingers bled running net_graph 4, then sorting through the results, I ended up with this,

The server's running 500FPS, and when it's doing well, it looks like this,

Or maybe even this,

When things aren't so good which is more often than I like to see, it looks like the following. If you require it, give me an hour or so, and hundreds more pictures like this can be on the way,

Another thing I notice that our servers do, that no other TF2 servers (checked many over the years) share, is this,

All the time on all 3 TF2 servers, whether full or 1/26, the servers suffer timeouts at very regular intervals. TPG's CS:S servers don't do it. I don't understand why this happens, but it can't be good. This has been happening for over a year. The servers performed noticably better back then, but there was still some issue. Not everyone noticed, even when it was pointed out.

I love the crew that plays on TPG, but find the quality of the TF2 servers hard to bear. I know I'm not the only one experiencing this, and I'm certain that a few fickle gamers look elsewhere for better performance. While some TPGers may not even notice, I'm sure it doesn't help the population of the servers.

**Bunni** · 09-10-10, 01:37 AM

Though your interp is outta wack, we still have too much on the hypernia box. Been getting handful's of complaints regarding our servers performance. We need to decide on whether or not we are going to follow through with the shuffle we talked about at QC (pr-> killers box, 4 L4D's-> BF ranked box, shut done Tf2 down)

**jabberwock** · 09-10-10, 01:40 AM

Originally Posted by Bunni

Though your interp is outta wack,

yeah, gotta update my cfg.

Wasn't really in game for interp there.

**_BuRn_** · 09-10-10, 01:44 AM

This has been brought up before, however you have done an excellent job documenting it.
I recall a post from Coors not to long ago with more of the same type of data as well.

There are times when the server undoubtedly seems choppy, and at first one questions if it is the typical lagging home connection, but when you ask over voip if you are the only one noticing the stuttering, often a large majority reply they notice it as well.
And while gamers are typically a whinny, picky bunch, there are too many voices of reason here that report this same situation for this to be lightly dismissed.
While not game breaking, it is annoying, and as Jabber has pointed out, certainly cannot help maintain a loyal population.

**Captain Coors** · 09-10-10, 10:47 AM

Yeh I've got the same data as jabber, for reference here's live video I took to show the fps lag.

Originally Posted by Captain Coors

Here's a 1-2 min youtube video of the netgraph from a demo I just took. Watch in in HD and popout the video to make it more legible.

The last 30 seconds of the video are in slowmotion so you can read the numbers better and see the massive variance. Down into the 20's fps sometimes eek.

This never used to happen until recently.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G79-rypxKic

**jabberwock** · 09-10-10, 01:41 PM

Were the more instances on the box full when you took that vid, Coors?

Just curious to see, as it wasn't that THAT bad when I was on last night.

**jabberwock** · 09-13-10, 08:56 PM

As I've mentioned in previous threads, I helped Arreo a long while back when trying to track down the hlsw timeouts, and the closest he could figure was that hlstatsx stat dumping was perhaps the issue. I know the server wasn't as choppy back when we were running pstats. None of that, however is the cause of the FPS lag we're seeing now.

**jabberwock** · 09-22-10, 10:29 PM

Any news on the possible migration?

**Silent_Crow** · 09-23-10, 12:02 AM

I too am getting choke that is consistent at around 20 to 30. I brought it up with some others in the server and they also confirmed a high choke. I will keep my eye on the server fps as well.