Affinity

[stronius]

I've heard a lot of controversy regarding affinity, some saying leave it open and let Windows balance the load, and some saying that setting affinity to specific cores will improve performance. I just want to see what you've all discovered or think.

Also, does anyone set affinity for explorer.exe and a few other windows services to 0?

[stronius]

Just given the topic a little... BUMP.

[realchamp]

I don't know what it is.


Btw. what does "affinity" mean?

[stronius]

Processor affinity means, on a multi-CPU machine, the process(es) run only on dedicated set of CPUs. In other words processes are bound to isolated (subset) of the CPUs.
So...if you've ever used TCAdmin, you'll notice an affinity option under service settings and this setting can assign your server to run specifically off a certain core (0,1,2 or 3 in a quad core) or can allow windows to balance usage throughout all the cores.

[realchamp]

Ohh. So I say like: I will just make processor affinity, be right back?

[dualcore1289]

LOL. . . anywho I experimented with this, and I could not tell a performance difference between setting the affinity, and not.

[Ryan]

glad you brought this up do you think a server would be effected if the "interact with desktop" option on tcadmin was checked. Its the only server out of 10 that has that checked.

[Drocona]

I've experienced that setting the affinity for 1 server on a quad core box really doesn't matter much, the real "works" of the affinity comes in when you have like 2+ server per core.

Setting the affinity can prevent Windows from switching a server to a core that is next to being full (ie full by a 32 player TF2 server @66tick). This can interfere with performance. Where as when you set affinity it will stay on that core.
One thing you have to keep in mind tho is that when you set affinity windows won't change the core when it gets overloaded, so you have to make sure the core doesn't get higher than 80%.

[Hazz]

I've used both, found auto balancing it to be the best. Better performance and easier.

[Spartanfrog]

Eh I always just set each server I ran on a dual-core box to separate cores and it worked fine for me.

[Mooga]

I haven't tested myself, but some people claim that it's best to let windows manage the load. They claim that manually adjusting affinity creates lag and other server issues.

[kin0013]

tried it on linux and it was terrible.. Even thou the load of the cpu core was < 3%

[stronius]

thanks guys. can some one give me a rundown on the "Interact with desktop" option.

[Ryan]

well we had that on our dust2 pub 24 slot that ive been on here trying to figure out why the tic drops when 24 people are on. It had that option and the fps was only 250 with the booster. I removed the option and the server boosted up to 500. In TCAdmin where it says affinity of the server am i support to select all of them for each server or none of them because my cpu is only running at 20% and my ram is 1.5GB used but that one dust2 pub is dropping to 50 tic after 20 players. Maybe i need a new config
Current:
sv_maxrate 30000
sv_minrate 10000
sv_mincmdrate 10
sv_maxcmdrate 101
sv_minupdaterate 10
sv_maxupdaterate 101

Mods:
Mattie Event Scripts
Mani Admin
Srcdsbooster
ETB Team balancer

[stronius]

Ryan Wrote:well we had that on our dust2 pub 24 slot that ive been on here trying to figure out why the tic drops when 24 people are on. It had that option and the fps was only 250 with the booster. I removed the option and the server boosted up to 500. In TCAdmin where it says affinity of the server am i support to select all of them for each server or none of them because my cpu is only running at 20% and my ram is 1.5GB used but that one dust2 pub is dropping to 50 tic after 20 players. Maybe i need a new config
Current:
sv_maxrate 30000
sv_minrate 10000
sv_mincmdrate 10
sv_maxcmdrate 101
sv_minupdaterate 10
sv_maxupdaterate 101

Mods:
Mattie Event Scripts
Mani Admin
Srcdsbooster
ETB Team balancer

Well if you select none of them, you may have a problem.
I think its all based on your configuration, because I have server's assigned to specific cores and find I get a more stable FPS.