Weird L4D zombie stutters.

[Mrandersonadmin]

Hi

I recently started hosting L4D servers,and I noticed that for some reason the server is smooth,everything is fine.except the zombies themselves,they seem to teleport and stutter when running.Like their animations aren't playing.The pings on the servers are fine,no spikes,tested from diffirent client PCs,tried every single rate combination and tick rate.Even and fps unlimiter that boosts the fps to 260 odd.Nothing helps.The infected just keep on teleporting and moonwalking.

I have checked the graphs,tried running it with console without the console,still no change.My hardware and line upload and down speeds are more than enough.I host many other servers from my data center.

Though this baffles me to no end,I am fairly new at hosting games on the source engine,so I have no idea what it could be.The only thing I haven't tried is setting the affinity for the cpus.The VM these servers run on(l4d and l4d2) both use AMD dual core cpus.Would this fix it?

As I said before,the server is smooth,no lag or ping spikes.NOTHING.Just this problem screwing me over.It issn't lag but more of a timing issue with the cores I think.

My server cfg is very basic,meaning all the commands and rates are on defualt(other combos etc does not solve the issue).CPU usage is low and I cannot detect any problems.Running wmp with the servers doesn't help.hardware is sufficient,line speed is well over the required.

Please any help would be appreciated.I hope it is something small like the cpu affinity that just needs to be changed.Currently they are both running off both cores of the AMD dual core cpu.

Server Specs:
Windows 2003 server std edition VM machines
Left 4 Dead 1 and 2
2 GB Ram
AMD Dual Core Opteron 2.45 Ghz
No admin mods
Currently not starting up with a command line,running through the srcds browser/menu (console and browser do same thing)

[Mrandersonadmin]

Update**

Tried switching affinity for the games and the cores,still no change.Installing it tonight on an Intel server I have aswell,will see if that makes a diffirence.

[Drocona]

Are you sure that the server is getting enough CPU priority since you are running virtual environments. The srcds always needs some "overhead" unused CPU directly available.
Also, looking at the net_graph 1, what does the line say behind "IN:"

[Mrandersonadmin]

Thank you for the reply.You are refering to the IN graph in srcds right?Its a flat yellow line,nothing else.

Under load the cpu never takes more than 20-30% load.I did notice though a slight improvent on single zombies running around when I set the programs priority higher.Won't setting it too high make it unstable?I set the priority to High and I did notice a slight improvement,dunno if that was just my mind imagining things.

I did however try the servers on a dedicate box without the VM system.Just plain old dedicated host box,and everything seemed perfect.Same hardware specs as the VM I was trying it on.It would be appreciated if I can get some suggestions.Do I set the priority higher in fear of losing stability or should I rather go with the non VMs?

Another question:Would an Intel Dual Core e5200 with 2gb RAM,be able to run say 3 or 4 l4d2 instances?
I currently have a rig like this in testing,thats not a VM,but a dedicated box.Just don't want to free it up just to have the same problem.
OS will be the same Windows 2003 just the cpu would be the Intel e5200 with 2gb RAM.(this is my last option if the VMs can't be sorted out.)

Seems srcds does not like VMs at all.

[loopyman]

The E5300 machine would work fine for hosting 3 or 4 L4D instances... and with a Windows OS it should be no problem.

[Drocona]

Like loopyman said, that should work perfectly fine.

When I was asking about the "IN" I was referring to net_graph 1, it's the one with all the numbers and no graphical stuff like teh graph. Theres a line below fps and such called "IN:" and it states the current kbps some other numbers and last it states xx/s, I would like to know that number.

If that number is anything like around 10, it's the CPU for sure.

[Mrandersonadmin]

Thanks for all the replies guys.I am currently out of town so I am posting from my phone.Once I am back in the office I will get you that IN: number you are looking for.

I am impressed,thank you for the help guys,I guess then when I am back I will prep the e5200 machine for 3 to 4 instances of l4d2.