Moonshaes Hosting Hardware

[AcadiusLost]

I'm in the process of experimenting with a better hosting setup for Moonshaes. I've built a nice new hostbox, but we haven't settled on what is the ideal setup for operating system and virtualization yet. I'll use this thread to track how we're presently hosting Moonshaes, and take any noticeable feedback here regarding bugs or observations.

To clarify: nothing revolutionary is being attempted here, presently it's just a step sideways onto hardware with a MUCH faster processor, RAM, and HDD. Same connection bandwidth, same vault connection technology. What this /should/ result in is less pathfinding /spawning / AI / pstorage / script lag. We're working on approaches to speed up some of the other lag sources, but they're not in place presently.

For now:

Native OS: Win7 64-bit home edition (Core i5/2500 quadcore, 8 gigs DDR3-1333 CAS7 RAM, SSD hard drive) running NWNx4/nwn2server.

Virualization: Virtualbox 4, running an Ubuntu linux guest to mount the vault via sshfs.

This setup has been hosting Live since last night, anecdotal feedback was that it was stable and seemed a bit faster. Module resets are FAST- less than 45 seconds as compared to the 8+ minute times we got on the old hardware. I'll likely leave this hosting in place at least until tonight or tomorrow, though I will likely shift back to original hosting hardware/OS soon in order to test another approach.

[Castano]

Feedbakc of teh Zelk/Castano/Causk test:

I pathfinded the hellout of MS with Zelk - 15 goblins runnign after her...drow preistess who ran and attacked and retreated etc. and Zelk runnnign up and down an area, all while Cuask tried to walk around our biggest laggiest city.

Causk had a few issues with rubberbanding.

I had zero lag on the DM client while I repeatedly healed Zelk's PC.

Zelk was able to fight w/o lag.

I also threw down a rapid succession of fireballs and they all went off in a row.

Now this was with only 3 people on the server...more to come.

[AcadiusLost]

Switched back to the old hardware while I play with something on the new... stay tuned for more info.

[AcadiusLost]

Switched back to the fast hardware (win7 native) for the 1/29 session(s), now shifting back onto the old hardware for another round of experimenting with the new rig.

[Burt]

That's some nice kit. Better than what I'm playing with for the most part!

[AcadiusLost]

Finally got Hyper-V up and running correctly (more or less), so I've shifted Moonshaes back onto the newer hardware.

For those who are intertested, Win7 and Ubuntu linux are now running in parallel, both virtualized, with Microsoft Hyper-V R2 as the native operating system. This sort of an arrangement allows the Win7 "machine" to be rebooted/crash/etc without disrupting the linux-based vault connection. It also means a second Win7 VM could be added in addition, using the same linux VM as a vault host. (If we wanted to, for example, host a beta server like Skullport on the same hardware).

Server response (pathfinding, AI, creator lag, etc) should be fairly indistinguishable with this arrangement as compared to the fast-hardware Win7 native install; with one exception. In the present configuration, the SSD is not being used, so reads/writes to hard drive are slower than before. The HDD is still a SATA WD Raptor drive, so it's no slouch... but for example it takes about 2 min to load Moonshaes vs. the 45 seconds or less with the Win7 native / SSD setup.

If I decide this is definitely the way to go, I'll wipe the SSD and run everything off that; in the meantime it allows an easy rollback to the win7 native setup if Hyper-V turns out to be problematic.

[AcadiusLost]

Shifted things back over to Win7 native / SSD drive tonight. I will probably keep this configuration for a while, as it seems stable enough and is the easiest to mange remotely.

[AcadiusLost]

So, it appears the motherboard I bought for this build has been recalled by Intel due to problems with the SATA2.0 controller. As I understand it, the SATA3.0 ports should be unaffected, so I'll swap over to them this evening.

Downtime should be pretty minimal, probably not worth moving hosting onto the old hardware for.

[AcadiusLost]

Switch is made, Moonshaes is back up.

[AcadiusLost]

Had several lockups on the new hosting rig, these put the server out of commission until I'm able to actually get home and hit the reset button manually. Not very encouraging. Hopefully it's just a bad driver or setting somewhere that can be addressed.

[thinkpig]

was able to log in but i crashed coming ATing into Oman's Isle from corwell town and the game crashes when I try to log back in. not sure if this is related, will post in bug forum as well.