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Server hardware, Intel etc...

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Gillia Winddancer
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#1 - 2014-12-01 22:24:41 UTC
I've been wondering about the current status on the hardware that the servers use. I remember a few fanfests ago CCP talked a bit about their partnership with Intel and how they had access to (at that time) some cutting edge goodies and I found it to be quite interesting.

Considering that these things just keep evolving at a rapid pace, I am a bit curious about what has happened since with Intel+CCP and what the future might be looking like in terms of new juicy upgrades, whether it is planned or is/is not worth it.

It hasn't been that long since it was unheard of having even 500 players in a big fight without all sorts of nasty stuff happening, but now there have been fights with I believe(?) 3k players and a shitload of TiDi on top. Would, say, 3k and very little to no TiDi be a possibility in the near future (assuming we disregard client side ability to cope with such numbers; PC specs + broadband keeps improving on this end anyway)?
Doc Fury
Furious Enterprises
#2 - 2014-12-01 22:27:00 UTC
Status: POS code is hard.



☼

There's a million angry citizens looking down their tubes..at me.
djNME
DAB
Solyaris Chtonium
#3 - 2014-12-01 22:32:58 UTC
They will improve the technology and the ability of the servers and we will push the servers to the brink like every time before. 100 vs 100, 1000 vs 1000, 3000 vs 3000 etc... no matter, at some point the limits are tested and found.
Unsuccessful At Everything
The Troll Bridge
#4 - 2014-12-01 22:37:11 UTC
By exposing ordinary hamsters to non-lethal levels of Gamma radiation over an extended period of time, CCP has forced the hamsters to evolve past the level of their non-irradiated brethren, but only when angry. While this indeed does correspond to a increased level of server performance, the fact is that no machine has been developed at this time to keep a mutant hamster pissed off, therefore a human must be stationed at the hamster wheels at all times (except during downtime.. bio break) to keep the hamsters in a perpetual state of anger.


Since the cessation of their usefulness is imminent, may I appropriate your belongings?
Paranoid Loyd
#5 - 2014-12-01 22:43:21 UTC
Unsuccessful At Everything wrote:
By exposing ordinary hamsters to non-lethal levels of Gamma radiation over an extended period of time, CCP has forced the hamsters to evolve past the level of their non-irradiated brethren, but only when angry. While this indeed does correspond to a increased level of server performance, the fact is that no machine has been developed at this time to keep a mutant hamster pissed off, therefore a human must be stationed at the hamster wheels at all times (except during downtime.. bio break) to keep the hamsters in a perpetual state of anger.



While you explained that humans are required you did not explain how said human keeps the hamster in a perpetual state of anger. Do tell...

"There is only one authority in this game, and that my friend is violence. The supreme authority upon which all other authority is derived." ISD Max Trix

Fix the Prospect!
Ralph King-Griffin
New Eden Tech Support
#6 - 2014-12-01 23:05:26 UTC
Can we have another "meet tranquility" devblog please?

Murderers of Negotiable Motivations

=]|[=
45thtiger 0109
Pan-Intergalatic Business Community
#7 - 2014-12-01 23:26:24 UTC
Ralph King-Griffin wrote:
Can we have another "meet tranquility" devblog please?



Umm Nope said Confucius

**You Have to take the good with the bad and the bad with the good.

Welcome to EvE OnLiNe**
DaReaper
Net 7
Cannon.Fodder
#8 - 2014-12-02 00:02:46 UTC
I swore there was a dev post about this a few months ago, but search has failed me. At any rate, IIRC TQ is going to get some upgrades soon, the SSD'd in it are getting close to EOL and I think some of the cpu's as well.

But that's beside the point. I have posted this many times over the years so I will repeat:

The issues with TiDi are not hardware, its software.

Along time ago, in the year of 2000 when CCP started work on eve, the current trend in cpu's was MORE GHZ!!!! So CCP wrote all of eve in single CPU code thinking that in a few years we will have 20ghz processors and all will be well. But there was the dreaed 10ghz barrier which most computer engr's said was the limit of processing power.

Shorty after the release of eve, maybe 2 years after, intel soved the issue of the 10ghz barrier and made the first dual core processor. At that point, the industry shifted from MORE GHZ!!! to MORE CORES!!!!

Eve being written for single cpu could not deal with multi core very well and had issues scaling.

So normally if core 1 is having a heavy load on a cpu, the code would move some of the load to core 2 or 3 or in the case of xeons, core 24. To spread the load accorss the board. Problem is, sections of ccp's code can't do that.

Its like this. Your city just made the most perfect road imaginable... no drag, friction, wind resistence, smooth as silk, perfect. You can drive like a mad man and get incredible speeds. So you decide to drive on this road.. you get in Pinto and floor it. But you are only doing 80mph and you can't go faster, you think you should be at farrari speeds, but no, cause you are in a ******* pinto.

Doesn't mater how good the hardware is, ccp is limited by there code. While people whine about little fixes or rewrites that 'changes or fixes nothing' they forget that each piece that gets changed from single core to multi core code improves performance over time. That's what various projects int he back burner are doing. Like the pos code, the corp and alliance code, standings, biab, dogma, etc. As these systems get re-written it will make TQ a much better place. Then you add in new hardware, and you are improving the road that your jet car can drive on.

At least this is my understanding of the problem

OMG Comet Mining idea!!! Comet Mining!

Eve For life.
Hasikan Miallok
Republic University
Minmatar Republic
#9 - 2014-12-02 00:09:49 UTC
DaReaper wrote:
I swore there was a dev post about this a few months ago, but search has failed me. At any rate, IIRC TQ is going to get some upgrades soon, the SSD'd in it are getting close to EOL and I think some of the cpu's as well.

But that's beside the point. I have posted this many times over the years so I will repeat:

The issues with TiDi are not hardware, its software.

Along time ago, in the year of 2000 when CCP started work on eve, the current trend in cpu's was MORE GHZ!!!! So CCP wrote all of eve in single CPU code thinking that in a few years we will have 20ghz processors and all will be well. But there was the dreaed 10ghz barrier which most computer engr's said was the limit of processing power.

Shorty after the release of eve, maybe 2 years after, intel soved the issue of the 10ghz barrier and made the first dual core processor. At that point, the industry shifted from MORE GHZ!!! to MORE CORES!!!!

Eve being written for single cpu could not deal with multi core very well and had issues scaling.

So normally if core 1 is having a heavy load on a cpu, the code would move some of the load to core 2 or 3 or in the case of xeons, core 24. To spread the load accorss the board. Problem is, sections of ccp's code can't do that.

Its like this. Your city just made the most perfect road imaginable... no drag, friction, wind resistence, smooth as silk, perfect. You can drive like a mad man and get incredible speeds. So you decide to drive on this road.. you get in Pinto and floor it. But you are only doing 80mph and you can't go faster, you think you should be at farrari speeds, but no, cause you are in a ******* pinto.

Doesn't mater how good the hardware is, ccp is limited by there code. While people whine about little fixes or rewrites that 'changes or fixes nothing' they forget that each piece that gets changed from single core to multi core code improves performance over time. That's what various projects int he back burner are doing. Like the pos code, the corp and alliance code, standings, biab, dogma, etc. As these systems get re-written it will make TQ a much better place. Then you add in new hardware, and you are improving the road that your jet car can drive on.

At least this is my understanding of the problem



yah pretty much.

The other issue MMOs have is that the obvious solution of more servers (one server for every system? Why not hardware is cheap? ) soon reaches the point where the overhead synchronizing the extra servers outweighs the performance gain.

... and if you move the processing client side - surprise surprise - people hack it and cheat :D
Lugia3
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#10 - 2014-12-02 01:44:30 UTC
Unsuccessful At Everything wrote:
By exposing ordinary hamsters to non-lethal levels of Gamma radiation over an extended period of time, CCP has forced the hamsters to evolve past the level of their non-irradiated brethren, but only when angry. While this indeed does correspond to a increased level of server performance, the fact is that no machine has been developed at this time to keep a mutant hamster pissed off, therefore a human must be stationed at the hamster wheels at all times (except during downtime.. bio break) to keep the hamsters in a perpetual state of anger.





...Gnar.

"CCP Dolan is full of shit." - CCP Bettik
Hal Morsh
Doomheim
#11 - 2014-12-02 01:50:26 UTC  |  Edited by: Hal Morsh
Doc Fury wrote:
Status: POS code is hard.






CSM minutes can confirm it's more than hard. It's scary. The mission system is also insanely coded.

Oh, I perfectly understand, Hal Morsh — a mission like this requires courage, skill, and heroism… qualities you are clearly lacking. Have you forgotten you're one of the bloody immortals!?
Brigadine Ferathine
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#12 - 2014-12-02 01:51:48 UTC
DaReaper wrote:
I swore there was a dev post about this a few months ago, but search has failed me. At any rate, IIRC TQ is going to get some upgrades soon, the SSD'd in it are getting close to EOL and I think some of the cpu's as well.

But that's beside the point. I have posted this many times over the years so I will repeat:

The issues with TiDi are not hardware, its software.

Along time ago, in the year of 2000 when CCP started work on eve, the current trend in cpu's was MORE GHZ!!!! So CCP wrote all of eve in single CPU code thinking that in a few years we will have 20ghz processors and all will be well. But there was the dreaed 10ghz barrier which most computer engr's said was the limit of processing power.

Shorty after the release of eve, maybe 2 years after, intel soved the issue of the 10ghz barrier and made the first dual core processor. At that point, the industry shifted from MORE GHZ!!! to MORE CORES!!!!

Eve being written for single cpu could not deal with multi core very well and had issues scaling.

So normally if core 1 is having a heavy load on a cpu, the code would move some of the load to core 2 or 3 or in the case of xeons, core 24. To spread the load accorss the board. Problem is, sections of ccp's code can't do that.

Its like this. Your city just made the most perfect road imaginable... no drag, friction, wind resistence, smooth as silk, perfect. You can drive like a mad man and get incredible speeds. So you decide to drive on this road.. you get in Pinto and floor it. But you are only doing 80mph and you can't go faster, you think you should be at farrari speeds, but no, cause you are in a ******* pinto.

Doesn't mater how good the hardware is, ccp is limited by there code. While people whine about little fixes or rewrites that 'changes or fixes nothing' they forget that each piece that gets changed from single core to multi core code improves performance over time. That's what various projects int he back burner are doing. Like the pos code, the corp and alliance code, standings, biab, dogma, etc. As these systems get re-written it will make TQ a much better place. Then you add in new hardware, and you are improving the road that your jet car can drive on.

At least this is my understanding of the problem

Could be summed up as the game needs to know how to use the hardware and that is not happening yet. We have an 800HP engine but the transmission and everything else is only ment for 200hp.
Unsuccessful At Everything
The Troll Bridge
#13 - 2014-12-02 02:50:22 UTC
Paranoid Loyd wrote:
While you explained that humans are required you did not explain how said human keeps the hamster in a perpetual state of anger. Do tell...


Its all up to the person on staff at the time. Im told that the hamsters hate it when CCP Guard makes them sit there, watching his homemade videos of CCP Gargant doing Taylor Swift karaoke, elbowing them while he's laughing hysterically and saying "watch this part!!!". CCP Tuxford has a button (not THAT one) that plays the hamster's mother-in-laws voice over a loudspeaker and nags them about how her daughter could have done much better than him and could have married Garry the nice Gerbil from EA, but nooooooo, she had to marry your server powering ass. Then we have CCP Fozzie, who simply sits there, and every five minutes takes a locket out and opens it, sighs incredibly loudly as if to ask for attention, and then puts the locket away. When the hamsters ask 'whats up?' CCP Fozzie just says 'oh, its nothing..'. No one knows whos photo is in that locket, and he wont show the hamsters.

Since the cessation of their usefulness is imminent, may I appropriate your belongings?
Gillia Winddancer
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#14 - 2014-12-02 11:08:03 UTC  |  Edited by: Gillia Winddancer
DaReaper wrote:
I swore there was a dev post about this a few months ago, but search has failed me. At any rate, IIRC TQ is going to get some upgrades soon, the SSD'd in it are getting close to EOL and I think some of the cpu's as well.

But that's beside the point. I have posted this many times over the years so I will repeat:

The issues with TiDi are not hardware, its software.

Along time ago, in the year of 2000 when CCP started work on eve, the current trend in cpu's was MORE GHZ!!!! So CCP wrote all of eve in single CPU code thinking that in a few years we will have 20ghz processors and all will be well. But there was the dreaed 10ghz barrier which most computer engr's said was the limit of processing power.

Shorty after the release of eve, maybe 2 years after, intel soved the issue of the 10ghz barrier and made the first dual core processor. At that point, the industry shifted from MORE GHZ!!! to MORE CORES!!!!

Eve being written for single cpu could not deal with multi core very well and had issues scaling.

So normally if core 1 is having a heavy load on a cpu, the code would move some of the load to core 2 or 3 or in the case of xeons, core 24. To spread the load accorss the board. Problem is, sections of ccp's code can't do that.

Its like this. Your city just made the most perfect road imaginable... no drag, friction, wind resistence, smooth as silk, perfect. You can drive like a mad man and get incredible speeds. So you decide to drive on this road.. you get in Pinto and floor it. But you are only doing 80mph and you can't go faster, you think you should be at farrari speeds, but no, cause you are in a ******* pinto.

Doesn't mater how good the hardware is, ccp is limited by there code. While people whine about little fixes or rewrites that 'changes or fixes nothing' they forget that each piece that gets changed from single core to multi core code improves performance over time. That's what various projects int he back burner are doing. Like the pos code, the corp and alliance code, standings, biab, dogma, etc. As these systems get re-written it will make TQ a much better place. Then you add in new hardware, and you are improving the road that your jet car can drive on.

At least this is my understanding of the problem


I must have missed that devblog.

But yes, you are right about the software bit. I did actually consider also asking how much CARBON (I assume it is all CARBON anyway?) can handle client-wise, but decided to stick to the hardware side only for now :p. I take it that they constantly update the software piece by piece...well, mostly anyway. The upcoming PoS changes, whenever that is due, is at least some hint of that P

Oh yeah, and do keep hamsters and Tuxfords and whatever out of this thread please P. Animal rights can be discussed elsewhere.
Steve Ronuken
Fuzzwork Enterprises
Vote Steve Ronuken for CSM
#15 - 2014-12-02 12:19:48 UTC