Server tickrate
It may seem strange, but why even in advancing modes by EA in 16v16 or 32v32 is the same 45Hz tick rate used (not 60 or higher)? Okay, maybe in 128 player modes this worked very badly and increased t...
Forum Discussion
Running on virtualized servers in the cloud is fine as is proven with BF1/BF5 doing the same and both having very acceptable netcode by now. At least I barely have those bad hitreg experiences or player models lagging around as I have every match in BF2042. And if I do, then I can use the scoreboard to see the ping of those players and sometimes (not always) this explains why those events happened.
I would even go so far as to say that using cloud servers is the best way as they can easily scale and only have to pay for what they use. And definitely 1000 times better than having any client host the match. As far as server performance is concerned this depends mostly on the parameters set by the cloud infrastructure provider. At work we are running a large cluster ourselves and I can easily spin up a server in seconds with 96 cores (which is the limit given the underlying hardware). If I run `htop` I can see all cores (which looks impressive for 96 cores 🙂 ). If I am the first one doing that, then I have (almost) the full performance of the underlying hardware. But due to the configuration of our cluster, I can also spawn such a POD (we are running k8s) even if another one is active. To me this looks like I have the same machine, but both 'VMs' running compute intensive jobs, they will be slower of course as they share the underlying HW.
So, it depends on how the cloud provider chosen by EA (AWS?) has configured their cluster. Do they allow for the same 'sharing' of CPU cores or does one get dedicated cores. If the allow for a shared CPU, then each server instance gets slower (less CPU cycles per wall time), even when the virtualized HW as it can be seen by the client does not change. And I guess that Dice tested their servers and decided for the 'right' size and parameters of their VMs in their idle test environment and now with more servers active and the same HW getting slower because of that, they face issues. All of this is of course a bit of speculation as I don't know the AWS/Azure/... config (most likely even Dice does not know that in detail) and if all of the lag/hitreg problems are related to server performance at all.
@OskooI_007 @Dont_Qwit @DuaneDibbley
I dunno about all that stuff but I DO know from the player's perspective our clan's ability to host our own servers (BF1942 through BF4) set them up the way we wanted and have the ability to admin as we saw fit (and judging by the fact that they were almost always packed, players agreed) was a FAR SUPERIOR experience than what we're are all going through in the last few years.
I don't know why EA/Dice adopted this new matchmaking system and removed the ability to host our own servers but in my view it sucks.
@Ironhead841 wrote:@OskooI_007 @Dont_Qwit @DuaneDibbley
I dunno about all that stuff but I DO know from the player's perspective our clan's ability to host our own servers (BF1942 through BF4) set them up the way we wanted and have the ability to admin as we saw fit (and judging by the fact that they were almost always packed, players agreed) was a FAR SUPERIOR experience than what we're are all going through in the last few years.
I don't know why EA/Dice adopted this new matchmaking system and removed the ability to host our own servers but in my view it sucks.
Yeah we desperately need to get back to those days, and DICE need to act fast to save BF2042.
- @Ironhead841
That is without a doubt true. We did run our own server (or briefly two) and with Procon and all plugins we could craft the experience we wanted and keep the server cheater free for the most part (also thanks to Metabans).
But I see no (technical) problem with having persistent server instances (that you will have to pay for of course --we as a clan would certainly be willing to do that again) alongside those cloud hosted servers the number of which would be scaled on player demand.
And even persistent server instances we are all asking for would be possible with cloud hosting. The only difference is that after a round is over the SAME server would be reused instead spawning a new instance for every new match. This would be still cloud based and from a cost perspective would incur the same cost as the MM/new server per match method they use now.
@RayD_O1 wrote:
@Ironhead841 wrote:@OskooI_007 @Dont_Qwit @DuaneDibbley
I dunno about all that stuff but I DO know from the player's perspective our clan's ability to host our own servers (BF1942 through BF4) set them up the way we wanted and have the ability to admin as we saw fit (and judging by the fact that they were almost always packed, players agreed) was a FAR SUPERIOR experience than what we're are all going through in the last few years.
I don't know why EA/Dice adopted this new matchmaking system and removed the ability to host our own servers but in my view it sucks.
Yeah we desperately need to get back to those days, and DICE need to act fast to save BF2042.
I am afraid that it is already far too late to save the BF2042 game.
It had it's chance.
The meltdown was allowed to simmer for too long.
No meaningful fixes and no new added contents to it for the xmas/new year period was the dagger into it's heart.
It was on the heart&lung machine for life support during the winter and spring, just to keep it barely breathing.
And now with the much delayed Season1 drop, with near nothing of substance, it woke up from the coma only to be in a vegetative state.
I'm not sure if I'm following what you are saying, do you mean renting a cloud server from EA/Dice?
I mean I guess that would be ok as long as you could still maintain admin controls, I'm not sure how that would all work.
I would still prefer if we could host our own servers and since that wouldn't cost EA/Dice any extra money I don't understand why they would be against that.
@Ironhead841
Yes, what I meant was paying for an (persistent) server instance managed by EA/Dice where they would have to act as a reseller. It would be in the cloud infrastructure they currently run their other (Portal) servers in. Otherwise it would be a big overhead on their end and I guess they would not be willing to invest that.
We have to be realistic -- the option to get your hands on the server executable and host this on your own hardware will most likely never come back. The best you can hope for is the state we had up to BF4 with dedicated server hosting companies that would offer servers that could be rented from them (and they would manage the server along with the server executables provided by Dice). The system worked pretty well for us. But I also doubt that this will make a return anytime soon.
So the best and at least somewhat realistic option would be to have Dice divide their portal servers in two pools. One of the pools could be persistent server instances that they would be available 24/7 (or at least visible in the server browser -- they don't have to actually be running if nobody is playing on them). From a player perspective, there is no difference in a server that is REALLY running 24/7 and one that only starts up on demand as soon as the first player connects and gets destroyed once the laster player leaves -- exactly like the current Portal servers. The only difference would be that it is visible 24/7 in the server browsers. The rest would be identical to the current Portal servers.
