Help improving performance on Centos 5.6

[frog]

I'm running CentOS 5.6, 2.6.18-238.9.1.el5 (SMP) x86_64 on a AMD Opteron 2431 (6 cores 2.4Ghz) with 16GB RAM, and want to improve it's performance.

A 24 slot TF2 server with no mods struggles to maintain 66fps when full.

I'd recently updated the kernel from 2.6.18-194.32.1.el5, which improved things a bit, but where go from here. Any tips on fine tuning CentOS to get better SRCDS performance?

output from dmesg
http://pastebin.com/wwMmFb0c

[BehaartesEtwas]

see: http://wiki.fragaholics.de/index.php/EN:Linux_Optimization_Guide

I strongly advice a newer kernel, 2.6.18 is way too old for srcds to work nicely. the guide explains you how to compile your own recent kernel.

[frog]

With reference to this section of the guide, which unpatched 2.6 kernel would be the best to work on? The most recent one? or is it just pot-luck and take your pick.

[BehaartesEtwas]

it depends on the constellation... as most stuff of the RT patches is now in the mainline kernel, the RT patches don't help much anymore. I would start with the ZEN patches, but that's more like a hunch...