CSS Round Start Lag

[Knight319]

Server OS: Windows Server 2003 R2 SP2 32-bit (I believe it's 32 bit)
Processor: Intel Quad Core Xeon 3220 - 4 x 2.40GHz
Ram: 4gb
Game(s): Counter-Strike:Source
Start Up Command: Not using any except to define server ip, port, and tickrate.
Admin Mods: Mani Admin (5 servers), Sourcemod (1 server)
Extras: Eventscripts, ES Tools, GG 5 (On all the mani servers, except one which is reg css)

Our servers have been having some round start lag issue's for a while now, some even before we moved to a dedicated server. We are running about 6 servers on this box (I personally think that's too many, but apparently it doesn't seem to tax the box that much). Anyways, as I said before, our servers have been having round start lag issue's for a while now. I've pondered my head and tried to fix it, either making it worse, or not doing anything at all. The lag only happens when the server's get close to being full (18-20 slots), so I'm thinking it may be a config issue.

I've included my server.cfg file in a txt file, edited out the obvious things. Hopefully someone can help as these lag issue's are seriously starting to bug me now. If you need any more info, don't hesitate to ask.

[Beaverbeliever]

What is the bandwidth speed on that?

http://www.speedtest.net

If your upload speed is insufficient, that can cause Lag.

[Knight319]

Here are the speed test results. Our server is based in Washington D.C., so I chose the server in Washington D.C. The server IP seems to go to Dallas for some reason though.

[Drocona]

Wow, 15mbit is really low for a dedicated server, for 6 servers it is very low and the chances this is causing problems is pretty big.
I don't know how much badwidth you ordered but I'd check it out.

[Knight319]

Hm, would that upload speed be accurate seeing as I was running the servers and players were on them while doing the Speedtest? Also, does a 1 GigE port have anything to do with that either? We had a choice between a 100mbit port, and a 1GigE port, and went with the 1 gige instead.

[loopyman]

Also, your server might actually be in Dallas... Contact support and see if you can get it moved... IF the server it self is pinging 31 to WDC then its not in WDC, I know some of my KC servers show they are in Memphis, but they ping < 5 to KC, and I can physically touch them, go see them, and feed them skittles.

Yea, Its not in WDC, its in Dallas... Contact SoftLayer support... They made a boo boo... Also, if your paying more than $180 per month for that server its too much :3

[Knight319]

Did another speedtest towards WDC. Pinging about 2ms.

Paying about 199 for that server from 10tb.

[Xaphan]

Are they 100 Tick servers?
We seem to experience about 20% choke at round start with 5 servers @ 100 tick.
Also we removed Mani and Eventscripts which seemed to help a little.

[loopyman]

Okay that seems right... I never had much luck with dedicated servers from large companies like SoftLayer or ThePlanet... I always ended up getting the response "ITS YOUR ISP FLAME YOUR ISP!!! Or We have thousands of customers who do not report any problems and then we have you."

So now, I always collocate my machines in a data center that I have 24/7 access too.
And I was going to see if I can beat the price that you pay, but I don't have any of those processors in stock, and I will have a bunch of Xeon X3430's ( Core i5 of the Xeons ) about the 20th of November for $129 per month, out of Kansas City MO.
Right now all I have in stock is 1x Q8200 for $99 per month.

[Knight319]

(10-31-2009, 06:18 AM)Xaphan Wrote:  Are they 100 Tick servers?
We seem to experience about 20% choke at round start with 5 servers @ 100 tick.
Also we removed Mani and Eventscripts which seemed to help a little.

All of them are 100 tick except one which is a 66 tick. I personally don't care if choke is around 0-20ish, but once it shoots up towards the 70's is where I start getting a little annoyed (Which happens when the servers fill up, 16-20 slots). Same goes for that round start lag, the servers generally don't experience the round start lag until the server starts to fill up more. I run Mani on 5 of the 6 servers, Sourcemod on 1 server, and Eventscripts on all servers.

I know we aren't taxing the CPU nor memory that much as memory usage doesnt normally go beyond 200-500 megs and CPU usage isn't that high neither.

We went with 10tb/Softlayer because we had quite a few people recommend them. Though, it looks like Softlayers upload sucks, unless my server is the oddball. Never went with Softlayer before anyways, I tended to lean towards Peer 1 and Level 3.

[Xaphan]

Removing Mani and Eventscripts would help,
What plug-ins are you running with SourceMod and ES?

[Hazz]

Have you tried setting your servers to high priority? This happened to us when running our servers at normal priority.

[Knight319]

@ Hazz - Yeah, they are all at high priority. Our main server, and our most popular, has it's own CPU core to run off of. The rest of them get spread out over the 3 other cores.

@ Xaphan - For ES, just 16k cash each round. For SourceMod, Sourcebans, Kigen's AntiCheat, Autoban for HLSS/HLDJ, and just a few others that shouldn't really effect gameplay on that server.

They all have the round start lag, but it's less noticeable if the other servers are not as full. It's also slightly less noticeable on our SourceMod server.

Hmm, by any chance could ES Tools be causing any problems? I would doubt it.

My only guess is our upload is crappy, as stated by some of the others. I just ran a random speedtest on the dedicated server right now and at the moment I'm only getting 9 down, and 7 up, but note that all my servers are running right now.

[dualcore1289]

I would suggest its the bandwidth, if the cpu/ram usage is fine, rates are good, its either 2 things, plugins and/or bandwidth issues.

[Knight319]

For the 5 servers that run Mani/ES, they all run GG5, with slight variations. Such as turbo/knife pro, knifepro, deathmatch, etc. GlobalBan, some custom mods, and that's pretty much it.

I played around with the main server, and it doesn't seem to be the plugins (Or at least all of them except GG5, couldn't shut this off without getting retorts like "WTF!11!!1", so there's no way for me to test if GG5 is the culprit). Though, considering GG5 doesn't run on the Sourcemod/ES server, it must be the bandwith because they all experience the lag.

I'll probably be looking into a new host sometime this month, got quite an attractive offer from one of the forum members here. Or I can first see if I can contact my current server host and complain about the bandwith. I'm sure that won't do much good though.