Since the Halloween update, my server has been nigh unplayable.
The thing's hosted on a spare machine I have. Windows 7 Home Premium, Intel i7 CPU (8 cores at around 2.9Ghz), 6GB RAM. Internet connectivity is fine, and before the Halloween patch I was able to host around 40 people max easily, with a regular population of high 20s, low 30s. Server hardly lagged, if at all.
Now, since the update, it's all gone to hell. Chunks of our map take forever to load. It's entirely too easy to walk to the edge of a chunk, look down at the void, and count to 30 before more terrain will load in front of you. This is on existing maps, not new ones where the server is trying to generate terrain! Chat lag is usually a good 30 seconds behind, so communicating with other players is quite a task. Blocks that are placed or destroyed rapidly undo whatever happens to them, which means building is nigh on impossible. It's even worse in areas around our main cities.
We're running no mods. Just the plain ol' server.
Thinking that it might just be the old map causing problems or something, I loaded up a fresh map onto the server. If anything, that was worse, since it was also having a hard time actually generating the chunks.
I've also localhost-joined the server by running the client on the same machine, and these issues persist, which suggest to me that the network latency is not a factor at all in this.
My server population's been dwindling pretty fast as a result, because nobody can actually build the things they've been working on. We're all sort've waiting to see if Notch acknowledges a problem with SMP that is making it unplayable, but I figured I'd post this up here to see if anyone's experienced similar and maybe found a solution in the mean while.
We're seeing a large lag spike on force saves - it seems to take 30-45 seconds to make an entire save which is a horrid thing - other than that taking 4-5 TIMES longer, theres not much else going wrong.
Bibble. No I'm making my creeper alright? Don't distract me.
You are aware that this is a matter of national security right? Making of the creeper...
*Whistles*
Either way, what he's trying to say is: The lag is not server side it is client sided.
He shut down the server and I was still running around watching him move in the past.
Yeah, that's my char, and I'm taking the pic too
And they were walking, slowly, but they were still walking. This was witnessed by someone else on the server, so it wasn't just client side.
I have no idea what the Java efficiency is like between Windows and a Linux based operating system, but switching to a Linux based distro and running Java in server mode instead of client may speed things up for you greatly
1) Disable mobs, animals, etc.
2) on windows, set the server's affinity to JUST 1 CORE, believe me, that does it!
perhaps you'd want to raise the memory available to java too
-Xms####
-Xmx####
#### = memory in MBytes.
How do I set the affinity to run 1 core? Also how do I raise the memory. I can do it with MCAdmin, but I don't see how I can do it with just the server file.
The thing's hosted on a spare machine I have. Windows 7 Home Premium, Intel i7 CPU (8 cores at around 2.9Ghz), 6GB RAM. Internet connectivity is fine, and before the Halloween patch I was able to host around 40 people max easily, with a regular population of high 20s, low 30s. Server hardly lagged, if at all.
Now, since the update, it's all gone to hell. Chunks of our map take forever to load. It's entirely too easy to walk to the edge of a chunk, look down at the void, and count to 30 before more terrain will load in front of you. This is on existing maps, not new ones where the server is trying to generate terrain! Chat lag is usually a good 30 seconds behind, so communicating with other players is quite a task. Blocks that are placed or destroyed rapidly undo whatever happens to them, which means building is nigh on impossible. It's even worse in areas around our main cities.
We're running no mods. Just the plain ol' server.
Thinking that it might just be the old map causing problems or something, I loaded up a fresh map onto the server. If anything, that was worse, since it was also having a hard time actually generating the chunks.
I've also localhost-joined the server by running the client on the same machine, and these issues persist, which suggest to me that the network latency is not a factor at all in this.
My server population's been dwindling pretty fast as a result, because nobody can actually build the things they've been working on. We're all sort've waiting to see if Notch acknowledges a problem with SMP that is making it unplayable, but I figured I'd post this up here to see if anyone's experienced similar and maybe found a solution in the mean while.
What java are you running?
I tried rolling java back to 6_u13, but that didn't get me very far. Upgraded it back to the latest version instead.
Bibble. No I'm making my creeper alright? Don't distract me.
You are aware that this is a matter of national security right? Making of the creeper...
*Whistles*
Either way, what he's trying to say is: The lag is not server side it is client sided.
He shut down the server and I was still running around watching him move in the past.
log bug by cretinbob, on Flickr
Yeah, that's my char, and I'm taking the pic too
And they were walking, slowly, but they were still walking. This was witnessed by someone else on the server, so it wasn't just client side.
2) on windows, set the server's affinity to JUST 1 CORE, believe me, that does it!
perhaps you'd want to raise the memory available to java too
-Xms####
-Xmx####
#### = memory in MBytes.
How do I set the affinity to run 1 core? Also how do I raise the memory. I can do it with MCAdmin, but I don't see how I can do it with just the server file.
Thanks,
Sam
If I log out right where I am and log back in it will load that area but it will not load the other area.