Spec Check? (Please)

[St1flus]

Okay well I now have a server cpu with the following specs:

i7 860 @ 2.88GHz
4GB of RAM @ 1600MHz
Velociraptor 300GB 10000RPM Hard Drive

...

How will SRCDS make use of the hyperthreading?

Does that mean the SINGLE core it's used on default will make it so it uses 2/8 from hyperthreading?

Also... What can I run this server at? (2000FPS? 100 Tick? How many slots?)
It's been a while since I've had an upgrade so I don't know what this can handle.. It can obviously do 100 Tick, but yeah.

I would appreciate it if you guys could help me out!

[loopyman]

It will use 1/8 threads.

[Mooga]

My experience with HT and SRCDS was on an old P4. In that case, enabling HT actually helped and it did run on both threads. I not sure how it works with the new i7s.

What games are you running? All games run slightly different and use different resources.

[loopyman]

In theory it should run on 1/8 threads, but then again, windows load balances.

[Beaverbeliever]

I'm pretty sure it will Hyperthread it as the core is in 2 parts, and since SRCDS runs on 1 core, it should run on both parts of the core.

[St1flus]

I'm planning on running CSS. (Sorry I didn't mention)

Also is there certain ways so I can assign which cores it uses in case I want to host multiple servers?

[BloodAngel]

-affinity x in the start-up line;

Were x is the hex representation of the binary xxxx xxxx, (8 bits-8 threads)

E.g. to use thread/core 0 the binary is 0000 0001, integer 1, hex 1

To use thread/core 0-3 the binary is 0000 1111, integer 15, hex F

etc,

Note that its been a long time since I've used windows for SRCDS's so, but as far as I can remember, that should be right.

[3choE]

St1flus,

For my box I set CPU affinity, and don't use HT.

HT will just be switch the SRCDS back and forth between cores. Since each core has its own TSC (wiki), that are not necessarily sync'd, it might cause timing issue. As SRCDS is not multithreaded, It doesn't benefited from the load balance anyway.

While not directly related to SRCDS, you might want to read some general explanations regarding HT:

- http://serverfault.com/questions/47411/hyper-v-and-hyper-threading-on-or-off

---

Of course lots of those practices I found from the web (like this forum), then have to confirm by trying on my own servers.

The tough thing about confirming this one, was I had to wait until each of my 4 TF2 servers to have 30+ players, then it started to show the issue.

[Mooga]

Most admins now don't use affinity and let windows auto-load balance. They say you actually get less lag... who knows?

[3choE]

Indeed. When I looked for performance tips back then, the majority of admins against setting CPU affinity. Just that I tried it myself and it worked for me (on both Linux and Windows 2003), so I stick with it.

Windows 2008 might be different, as I have read lots of good comments about its improvements. I am still trying 2008 on my home sandbox, which my uplink isn't enough for 10+ players, so I cannot confirm until I have 2008 on my remote dedi.

Anyway, as setting CPU affinity is just a mouse-click thing, this member should try for himself, and see what works for him.

[lol554]

I can confirm that load balancing works great on Windows 2008. Im running 2008 R2

[3choE]

(01-19-2010, 02:10 AM)lol554 Wrote:  I can confirm that load balancing works great on Windows 2008. Im running 2008 R2

So with 2008, no need to set CPU affinity at all? Awesome.

I was having issue when trying to switch my remote dedi from Linux to 2008, thus using 2003 for now.

Got to switch it to 2008 now.

[St1flus]

Niiice, thanks guys, appreciate it.

[lol554]

(01-19-2010, 07:12 AM)3choE Wrote:  

(01-19-2010, 02:10 AM)lol554 Wrote:  I can confirm that load balancing works great on Windows 2008. Im running 2008 R2

So with 2008, no need to set CPU affinity at all? Awesome.

I was having issue when trying to switch my remote dedi from Linux to 2008, thus using 2003 for now.

Got to switch it to 2008 now.

Well i have about 12 servers running on that server, and i can see in the process manager that almost every core has the exact same load (15-25%). So it must be working