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Idea: Auto logoff after 20-30 minutes of idle time
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Avaelica Kuershin
Paper Cats
#61 - 2017-05-29 17:49:59 UTC
Kassimila wrote:
Teckos Pech wrote:


Northern Coalition scum....

Again, still going to get some false positives. I have two screens. I can be looking at one that is say got my invention spreadsheets and miss that pop up. Similarly if I am selling things on the market. And the benefits are negligible.


So I think you're misusing the term "False positive". If the window pops up, and you do nothing with it, there's nothing false about it. Also when I stated 'bring it into focus' that means it would jump on top of your spreadsheet/netflix/whatever you're doing. It would be impossible to miss unless you were in fact not looking at the screen at all.


That you even suggest this pop-up grabbing focus (over all other applications), shows that you've run out of any remaining arguments for your case.

Also, another NO to your suggestion.
Cade Windstalker
#62 - 2017-05-29 18:03:42 UTC  |  Edited by: Cade Windstalker
Kassimila wrote:
This is a pretty standard feature in most online games. I'm not sure why Eve Online hasn't implemented it.

Benefits :
Less Server load.
Less Tidi
Less load on the network pipe.
Accurate Count of people playing the game.

Con:
Afk people have to reconnect to the game.


These aren't good reasons.

The server load generated by an AFK player, especially one in a station, is minimal in the extreme. Someone who goes AFK for an hour and then gets blown up in 5 seconds probably generates more server and network load in the 5 seconds it takes them to die than they do in the hour previous because unless something happens to them or on their grid the server basically does nothing with them.

Similarly, AFK players don't contribute much if anything to TiDi, since TiDi is a function of server load and message processing backup rather than raw number of players on the node.

See above, also network load is somewhere down at the bottom of things Eve is bottlenecked on. Short of some kind of semi-DDOS style action you would likely crash a node before you would hit the network cap on Eve's servers.

If I'm logged in for the purposes of watching a gate, or gathering chat logs, or messing with market orders, or even just waiting for something I'm still "playing the game" for all intents and purposes, even if I haven't moved my mouse within the client in an hour.

Which is the primary reason Eve hasn't implemented anything like this. There are legitimate use-cases for sitting in a state that most games would consider "AFK" and Eve doesn't have enough of a technical or gameplay impetus to kick people off who aren't "active". A game like WoW with server population limits does because during peak times that frees up space for other players, and the gameplay there has little to no reason for someone to be AFK for any length of time.
Kenrailae
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#63 - 2017-05-29 18:34:41 UTC
No.

The Law is a point of View

The NPE IS a big deal
Kassimila
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#64 - 2017-05-30 00:41:43 UTC
Cade Windstalker wrote:
Kassimila wrote:
This is a pretty standard feature in most online games. I'm not sure why Eve Online hasn't implemented it.

Benefits :
Less Server load.
Less Tidi
Less load on the network pipe.
Accurate Count of people playing the game.

Con:
Afk people have to reconnect to the game.


These aren't good reasons.

The server load generated by an AFK player, especially one in a station, is minimal in the extreme. Someone who goes AFK for an hour and then gets blown up in 5 seconds probably generates more server and network load in the 5 seconds it takes them to die than they do in the hour previous because unless something happens to them or on their grid the server basically does nothing with them.

Similarly, AFK players don't contribute much if anything to TiDi, since TiDi is a function of server load and message processing backup rather than raw number of players on the node.

See above, also network load is somewhere down at the bottom of things Eve is bottlenecked on. Short of some kind of semi-DDOS style action you would likely crash a node before you would hit the network cap on Eve's servers.

If I'm logged in for the purposes of watching a gate, or gathering chat logs, or messing with market orders, or even just waiting for something I'm still "playing the game" for all intents and purposes, even if I haven't moved my mouse within the client in an hour.

Which is the primary reason Eve hasn't implemented anything like this. There are legitimate use-cases for sitting in a state that most games would consider "AFK" and Eve doesn't have enough of a technical or gameplay impetus to kick people off who aren't "active". A game like WoW with server population limits does because during peak times that frees up space for other players, and the gameplay there has little to no reason for someone to be AFK for any length of time.


A minor load x thousands = not minor. Secondly you all have repeatedly mentioned your 20+ cyno alts you have parked around the universe, those aren't sitting in station now are they? How can you argue that you are paying attention to a client, when you can't be bothered to CLICK A SINGLE TIME every 30 minutes? Stop pretending that is some sort of major hardship. If you're checking market orders, you're active. If you're participating in chat, you're active. If your client is minimized while you go out for dinner, guess what, you're not active.
Teckos Pech
Hogyoku
Goonswarm Federation
#65 - 2017-05-30 00:51:35 UTC
Kassimila wrote:
Cade Windstalker wrote:
Kassimila wrote:
This is a pretty standard feature in most online games. I'm not sure why Eve Online hasn't implemented it.

Benefits :
Less Server load.
Less Tidi
Less load on the network pipe.
Accurate Count of people playing the game.

Con:
Afk people have to reconnect to the game.


These aren't good reasons.

The server load generated by an AFK player, especially one in a station, is minimal in the extreme. Someone who goes AFK for an hour and then gets blown up in 5 seconds probably generates more server and network load in the 5 seconds it takes them to die than they do in the hour previous because unless something happens to them or on their grid the server basically does nothing with them.

Similarly, AFK players don't contribute much if anything to TiDi, since TiDi is a function of server load and message processing backup rather than raw number of players on the node.

See above, also network load is somewhere down at the bottom of things Eve is bottlenecked on. Short of some kind of semi-DDOS style action you would likely crash a node before you would hit the network cap on Eve's servers.

If I'm logged in for the purposes of watching a gate, or gathering chat logs, or messing with market orders, or even just waiting for something I'm still "playing the game" for all intents and purposes, even if I haven't moved my mouse within the client in an hour.

Which is the primary reason Eve hasn't implemented anything like this. There are legitimate use-cases for sitting in a state that most games would consider "AFK" and Eve doesn't have enough of a technical or gameplay impetus to kick people off who aren't "active". A game like WoW with server population limits does because during peak times that frees up space for other players, and the gameplay there has little to no reason for someone to be AFK for any length of time.


A minor load x thousands = not minor. Secondly you all have repeatedly mentioned your 20+ cyno alts you have parked around the universe, those aren't sitting in station now are they? How can you argue that you are paying attention to a client, when you can't be bothered to CLICK A SINGLE TIME every 30 minutes? Stop pretending that is some sort of major hardship. If you're checking market orders, you're active. If you're participating in chat, you're active. If your client is minimized while you go out for dinner, guess what, you're not active.



1,000 * .00001 = 0.01--i.e. still small.

I do not have 20+ cyno alts. I have 5 alts that can light cynos (so can my main) but since they are spread over 3 accounts they cannot be logged in all at the same time. And cyno alts are not AFK now are they. And paying attention to the client is different than being AFK. AFK I am physically not present. Right now I have 2 alts logged in. I am not paying attention to that screen as I am typing this reply to you. But I am ATK.

By the way, it is not that hard to have a macro that will double click on the client. Yes, I know you'll say EULA violation. I say no, it is not. That macro is not letting me acquire in game assets or resources. It is merely keeping me logged in...which is not imposing a significant burden.

And you should stop pretending this would lead to a significant improvement in large scale combat. If I am AFK 39 jumps away and I and other players who are AFK or not watching their client at that time are logged off you will still be stuck at 10% TIDI.

"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."--Friedrich August von Hayek

8 Golden Rules for EVE Online
mkint
#66 - 2017-05-30 02:49:48 UTC
AFK pilot = nearly no load
formerly AFK pilot having to relog = some load
Server adding in an activity check for every character every tick = game-breaking load

Your idea would cause far more lag than it could possibly fix. What I don't understand is how you think you're some kind of innovator for having this idea. Inactivity timers have existed in software for a long long time. You don't think the devs have checked if this was a worthwhile way to go? Of course they have. And they decided it was a bad idea. Maybe some day if some kind of fundamental re-engineering of the server software results in a situation where this is beneficial, they'll review it, and bump their findings over to the designers who will decide if the obtrusive disruptive nature of this change would be worth it. But they'll do it because they decide to do it, not because of this ephemeral thread.

Maxim 6. If violence wasn’t your last resort, you failed to resort to enough of it.
Donnachadh
United Allegiance of Undesirables
#67 - 2017-05-30 14:44:45 UTC
Kassimila wrote:
Well if you have a cyno alt parked at a safe, you would need to wiggle the screen once every 20-30 minutes. I assume it would be done with a simple popup -"Are you still there?". Click yes, not booted. If you are not able to do this on your 'scout' ship, it doesn't really sound like you're watching it anyway.

Nice work there, pick out the weakest aspect of my post and completely ignore the most important.

So what about those emergency cyno alts?
Not sure if you have ever encounter these rather unique character but they are not needed unless something goes terribly wrong in a battle. Because of this they are always parked at a deep safe somewhere, cloaked and ignored until they are needed. In my specific case as a logi pilot with reps, cap transfers, monitoring targets both mine and those the fleet is shooting,as well as monitoring the movement of the enemy fleet AND trying to fly my own ship I simply do not have time to keep going back and checking the status of the emergency cyno alt. You see that is why we leave them cloaked at a deep safe so they are there if / when we need them but we do not have to devote any time to watching them or trying to keep them safe.

Kassimila wrote:
Well friend, this isn't a complicated endeavor. After 30 minutes without any keyboard input to the client you popup a window that said "Are you there pilot?" (Yes). You also issue a command bringing the window to the front of the desktop focus. That player than clicks yes, restarting the 30 minute timer. If they don't click anything within 5 additional minutes, socket closed. I fail to see how this would generate any 'false positives', if you didn't click the popup then you're not at the keyboard.

Hell no is my initial response, as a logi pilot I do not need some idiotic "hey are you still there" window from my "emergency" cyno alt jumping up and grabbing the focus at a critical moment causing me to miss a call for reps or cap transfer. But what the hell I am sure that my fleet mates will understand that eliminating that 1% of TIDI in your 500 plus ship battles is more important than their ship loss in their 30 to 40 ship battle because we all know that you null sec carebears are the most important thing in this game.

Kassimila wrote:
Teckos Pech wrote:


Northern Coalition scum....

Again, still going to get some false positives. I have two screens. I can be looking at one that is say got my invention spreadsheets and miss that pop up. Similarly if I am selling things on the market. And the benefits are negligible.


So I think you're misusing the term "False positive". If the window pops up, and you do nothing with it, there's nothing false about it. Also when I stated 'bring it into focus' that means it would jump on top of your spreadsheet/netflix/whatever you're doing. It would be impossible to miss unless you were in fact not looking at the screen at all.

I agree with Teckos Pech here I could easily miss these pop up notices simply because the client that character is logged into is not visible at the moment. See above for my response to your terrible idea of it grabbing focus and preventing input anywhere else.

You refer to a 1% raise in pay as if that was the ultimate answer. Well I agree with Danika, adding 1% more TIDI onto your 500 plus ship fleet battles is not something you would actually notice while playing the game. And considering the negative impacts on the rest of us that are never involved in those large boring battles the answer is still this is a terrible idea.

EvE is not like those "other" games you refer to. In most of those other games you are allowed a single account and a single character logged in at a time making it easy to determine who is actually playing the game and who is simply logged in to be logged in, EvE on the other hand with multiple characters online at the same time is not so easy.
perseus skye
Republic University
Minmatar Republic
#68 - 2017-05-31 13:06:06 UTC
Personally a afk person is someone who can be found ,cloaked or not and killed where as someone logged off cannot be so it's a no from me .

Example a cloaky camper managed to decloak while afk and my T1 frigate got a 900m tenge kill plus pod
Cade Windstalker
#69 - 2017-05-31 15:44:41 UTC
Kassimila wrote:
A minor load x thousands = not minor. Secondly you all have repeatedly mentioned your 20+ cyno alts you have parked around the universe, those aren't sitting in station now are they? How can you argue that you are paying attention to a client, when you can't be bothered to CLICK A SINGLE TIME every 30 minutes? Stop pretending that is some sort of major hardship. If you're checking market orders, you're active. If you're participating in chat, you're active. If your client is minimized while you go out for dinner, guess what, you're not active.


Not necessarily, it's all a matter of scale. In this case the load is so minuscule and distributed across so many nodes that it literally is still minor even with thousands of players potentially AFK at any one time.

The only place where there's remotely any potential for "AFK" players to draw any significant amount of resources is Jita, and CCP have flat out stated that they don't draw enough to be a significant problem. The population limits on the Jita node take into account all the AFK (and largely in-station) players. Since people AFK in a station take even fewer resources than those in space it's really not an issue.

Stop pretending that AFK players are some massive drain on server resources when *everything* we know about Eve says they're not. Active players use a few orders of magnitude more resources than inactive ones, even a cloak doesn't use as much as a cycling Invuln because it's not something the game has to check every cycle, it just works until it's either shut off by a player command (free until command is issued) or someone gets close enough (incredibly cheap to check thanks to cheap Eve-physics and oct-trees). People sitting in stations are even cheaper and take even less processing, because there's no physics. Most of what they take up is Memory and that's the thing Eve has the fewest issues with.
Kassimila
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#70 - 2017-05-31 17:42:39 UTC
Cade Windstalker wrote:
Kassimila wrote:
A minor load x thousands = not minor. Secondly you all have repeatedly mentioned your 20+ cyno alts you have parked around the universe, those aren't sitting in station now are they? How can you argue that you are paying attention to a client, when you can't be bothered to CLICK A SINGLE TIME every 30 minutes? Stop pretending that is some sort of major hardship. If you're checking market orders, you're active. If you're participating in chat, you're active. If your client is minimized while you go out for dinner, guess what, you're not active.


Not necessarily, it's all a matter of scale. In this case the load is so minuscule and distributed across so many nodes that it literally is still minor even with thousands of players potentially AFK at any one time.

The only place where there's remotely any potential for "AFK" players to draw any significant amount of resources is Jita, and CCP have flat out stated that they don't draw enough to be a significant problem. The population limits on the Jita node take into account all the AFK (and largely in-station) players. Since people AFK in a station take even fewer resources than those in space it's really not an issue.

Stop pretending that AFK players are some massive drain on server resources when *everything* we know about Eve says they're not. Active players use a few orders of magnitude more resources than inactive ones, even a cloak doesn't use as much as a cycling Invuln because it's not something the game has to check every cycle, it just works until it's either shut off by a player command (free until command is issued) or someone gets close enough (incredibly cheap to check thanks to cheap Eve-physics and oct-trees). People sitting in stations are even cheaper and take even less processing, because there's no physics. Most of what they take up is Memory and that's the thing Eve has the fewest issues with.


I think the issue here is neither of us is discussing actual factual numbers. I'd love to hear CCP weigh in on this. If we kicked every player idle for > 30 minutes from the game. How many CPUs would be free'd?
Kassimila
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#71 - 2017-05-31 17:45:00 UTC
perseus skye wrote:
Personally a afk person is someone who can be found ,cloaked or not and killed where as someone logged off cannot be so it's a no from me .

Example a cloaky camper managed to decloak while afk and my T1 frigate got a 900m tenge kill plus pod


This thread is not about cloaky campers. Please stay on topic.
Cade Windstalker
#72 - 2017-05-31 18:45:30 UTC
Kassimila wrote:
I think the issue here is neither of us is discussing actual factual numbers. I'd love to hear CCP weigh in on this. If we kicked every player idle for > 30 minutes from the game. How many CPUs would be free'd?


Zero, individual players are processed in terms of tiny fractions of a cycle.

While none of us have any hard numbers anyone with a good understanding of basic game programming and the bits and pieces CCP have released about Eve's backend setup over the years can confirm what I'm saying here. The primary thing being put under load when the system hits TiDi is the node system for processing commands input by players followed, quite a ways down the list, by the physics simulation.

For reference, take a look at the original dev blog on TiDi for an explanation of how that works, and then the much more recent TQ Tech 3 one-year anniversary blog for reference.

The really relevant bits here are that TiDi is basically just slowing down processing of everything else so that the system for processing player inputs (and all associated kerfuffle) can catch up. This is where the vast majority of load on TQ comes from and where TiDi comes from.

The other important bit of background to know is that TQ runs on hardware divided into Nodes. The smallest division for a Node is a System but some processes don't run on a Node like the thing that keeps track of your character training or the Market.

So, with that in mind, looking at those graphs the only places removing AFK players could even remotely potentially save CPU resources are the various system nodes, and potentially the character services slice.

However, in both cases we can say with some certainty that neither of these is significant for AFK characters.

For Character Services the primary things that put load on this area of the game are players moving around and logging in and out, neither of which AFK players do. There's also something in Ascension that caused a spike here, but I'm not sure what that is and it's unlikely it's related to active players both from how it spikes up and down and how it wasn't present previously.

For the system nodes the main resource drains are all things active players are doing, like activating modules, giving commands to their ship, shooting stuff, blowing up, ect. AFK players do none of these. They might potentially generate some physics load when the system checks for collisions on a grid they occupy, but as previously mentioned this is going to be ridiculously cheap unless someone gets close to them, in which case they're likely to explode in short order.

In fact logging a character in and out is expensive enough, since it requires database reads and writes, as well as parsing the data and loading it into the appropriate systems, that it could be argued that kicking people for being AFK would actually result in a slight net *increase* in server load. That, though, would require exact numbers whereas everything else stated here doesn't require them for the conclusions drawn, it just needs the statements CCP have already made about what actions are expensive, and a little programming knowledge.
Kassimila
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#73 - 2017-05-31 19:12:56 UTC
Cade Windstalker wrote:
Kassimila wrote:
I think the issue here is neither of us is discussing actual factual numbers. I'd love to hear CCP weigh in on this. If we kicked every player idle for > 30 minutes from the game. How many CPUs would be free'd?


Zero, individual players are processed in terms of tiny fractions of a cycle.

While none of us have any hard numbers anyone with a good understanding of basic game programming and the bits and pieces CCP have released about Eve's backend setup over the years can confirm what I'm saying here. The primary thing being put under load when the system hits TiDi is the node system for processing commands input by players followed, quite a ways down the list, by the physics simulation.

For reference, take a look at the original dev blog on TiDi for an explanation of how that works, and then the much more recent TQ Tech 3 one-year anniversary blog for reference.

The really relevant bits here are that TiDi is basically just slowing down processing of everything else so that the system for processing player inputs (and all associated kerfuffle) can catch up. This is where the vast majority of load on TQ comes from and where TiDi comes from.

The other important bit of background to know is that TQ runs on hardware divided into Nodes. The smallest division for a Node is a System but some processes don't run on a Node like the thing that keeps track of your character training or the Market.

So, with that in mind, looking at those graphs the only places removing AFK players could even remotely potentially save CPU resources are the various system nodes, and potentially the character services slice.

However, in both cases we can say with some certainty that neither of these is significant for AFK characters.

For Character Services the primary things that put load on this area of the game are players moving around and logging in and out, neither of which AFK players do. There's also something in Ascension that caused a spike here, but I'm not sure what that is and it's unlikely it's related to active players both from how it spikes up and down and how it wasn't present previously.

For the system nodes the main resource drains are all things active players are doing, like activating modules, giving commands to their ship, shooting stuff, blowing up, ect. AFK players do none of these. They might potentially generate some physics load when the system checks for collisions on a grid they occupy, but as previously mentioned this is going to be ridiculously cheap unless someone gets close to them, in which case they're likely to explode in short order.

In fact logging a character in and out is expensive enough, since it requires database reads and writes, as well as parsing the data and loading it into the appropriate systems, that it could be argued that kicking people for being AFK would actually result in a slight net *increase* in server load. That, though, would require exact numbers whereas everything else stated here doesn't require them for the conclusions drawn, it just needs the statements CCP have already made about what actions are expensive, and a little programming knowledge.


Cade you keep talking about the individual nodes, when I'm talking about the cluster as a whole. There are two different types of "CPUs". Physical, and virtual. Without knowledge of the specific hardware/software configuration of the CCP cluster it's hard to discuss specifics. Hence my request for more information from CCP.

A single system 'node' can have MANY virtual/physical cpus assigned to it. That's in fact how they reinforce a node. There is also the fact that each solar system with a player in it gets 1 or a fraction of one CPU. So lets say hypothetically 300 systems have a single inactive player in them right now. Lets also say the minimum fraction of a cpu you can get is .1 . Kicking these players off the server would free up 30 physical CPUs that could then be assigned to active systems with players in them. So while these players won't show up in the 'server load' graphs you are linking, they are in fact stealing 30 cpus worth of power doing absolutely nothing.

The second part of CPU theft is idle players in Jita, even though they aren't 'doing' anything chat windows are still being sent to their clients. If they left their market window open, that has to be refreshed, etc. Is it a huge load? Probably not, but why not reclaim it for the people actually playing the game?
Teckos Pech
Hogyoku
Goonswarm Federation
#74 - 2017-05-31 19:38:50 UTC
Kassimila wrote:
Cade Windstalker wrote:
Kassimila wrote:
I think the issue here is neither of us is discussing actual factual numbers. I'd love to hear CCP weigh in on this. If we kicked every player idle for > 30 minutes from the game. How many CPUs would be free'd?


Zero, individual players are processed in terms of tiny fractions of a cycle.

While none of us have any hard numbers anyone with a good understanding of basic game programming and the bits and pieces CCP have released about Eve's backend setup over the years can confirm what I'm saying here. The primary thing being put under load when the system hits TiDi is the node system for processing commands input by players followed, quite a ways down the list, by the physics simulation.

For reference, take a look at the original dev blog on TiDi for an explanation of how that works, and then the much more recent TQ Tech 3 one-year anniversary blog for reference.

The really relevant bits here are that TiDi is basically just slowing down processing of everything else so that the system for processing player inputs (and all associated kerfuffle) can catch up. This is where the vast majority of load on TQ comes from and where TiDi comes from.

The other important bit of background to know is that TQ runs on hardware divided into Nodes. The smallest division for a Node is a System but some processes don't run on a Node like the thing that keeps track of your character training or the Market.

So, with that in mind, looking at those graphs the only places removing AFK players could even remotely potentially save CPU resources are the various system nodes, and potentially the character services slice.

However, in both cases we can say with some certainty that neither of these is significant for AFK characters.

For Character Services the primary things that put load on this area of the game are players moving around and logging in and out, neither of which AFK players do. There's also something in Ascension that caused a spike here, but I'm not sure what that is and it's unlikely it's related to active players both from how it spikes up and down and how it wasn't present previously.

For the system nodes the main resource drains are all things active players are doing, like activating modules, giving commands to their ship, shooting stuff, blowing up, ect. AFK players do none of these. They might potentially generate some physics load when the system checks for collisions on a grid they occupy, but as previously mentioned this is going to be ridiculously cheap unless someone gets close to them, in which case they're likely to explode in short order.

In fact logging a character in and out is expensive enough, since it requires database reads and writes, as well as parsing the data and loading it into the appropriate systems, that it could be argued that kicking people for being AFK would actually result in a slight net *increase* in server load. That, though, would require exact numbers whereas everything else stated here doesn't require them for the conclusions drawn, it just needs the statements CCP have already made about what actions are expensive, and a little programming knowledge.


Cade you keep talking about the individual nodes, when I'm talking about the cluster as a whole. There are two different types of "CPUs". Physical, and virtual. Without knowledge of the specific hardware/software configuration of the CCP cluster it's hard to discuss specifics. Hence my request for more information from CCP.

A single system 'node' can have MANY virtual/physical cpus assigned to it. That's in fact how they reinforce a node. There is also the fact that each solar system with a player in it gets 1 or a fraction of one CPU. So lets say hypothetically 300 systems have a single inactive player in them right now. Lets also say the minimum fraction of a cpu you can get is .1 . Kicking these players off the server would free up 30 physical CPUs that could then be assigned to active systems with players in them. So while these players won't show up in the 'server load' graphs you are linking, they are in fact stealing 30 cpus worth of power doing absolutely nothing.

The second part of CPU theft is idle players in Jita, even though they aren't 'doing' anything chat windows are still being sent to their clients. If they left their market window open, that has to be refreshed, etc. Is it a huge load? Probably not, but why not reclaim it for the people actually playing the game?


Or if it is 0.01 it is 3 CPUs...out of how many? 3,000? 30,000? Are we talking 1% of CPUs or 0.01%?

Personally, I'll go with the people who actually run and maintain these things, they say not an issue. Fine, good enough for me, especially compared to made up numbers pulled from one's arse.

"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."--Friedrich August von Hayek

8 Golden Rules for EVE Online
Teckos Pech
Hogyoku
Goonswarm Federation
#75 - 2017-05-31 19:45:26 UTC
Kassimila wrote:


I think the issue here is neither of us is discussing actual factual numbers. I'd love to hear CCP weigh in on this. If we kicked every player idle for > 30 minutes from the game. How many CPUs would be free'd?



Yes, so maybe you should stop using Bravo Sierra numbers.

In fact, maybe we should just let the thread die. After all it is not a new idea.

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=4165927
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=4012237

"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."--Friedrich August von Hayek

8 Golden Rules for EVE Online
Kassimila
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#76 - 2017-05-31 20:13:39 UTC
Teckos Pech wrote:


Or if it is 0.01 it is 3 CPUs...out of how many? 3,000? 30,000? Are we talking 1% of CPUs or 0.01%?

Personally, I'll go with the people who actually run and maintain these things, they say not an issue. Fine, good enough for me, especially compared to made up numbers pulled from one's arse.


I wasn't 'pulling numbers out of my arse', I was in using actual data because I do this for a living.
If you see this dev blog: https://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/tranquility-tech-3/

You will see that they have gone to ESXi for virtualization. The MAXIMUM recommended physical to virtual ratio is 10:1, aka .1 or 10%. So my numbers were spot on. I've never heard them say TIDI isn't an issue.
Teckos Pech
Hogyoku
Goonswarm Federation
#77 - 2017-05-31 20:15:20 UTC
Kassimila wrote:
Teckos Pech wrote:


Or if it is 0.01 it is 3 CPUs...out of how many? 3,000? 30,000? Are we talking 1% of CPUs or 0.01%?

Personally, I'll go with the people who actually run and maintain these things, they say not an issue. Fine, good enough for me, especially compared to made up numbers pulled from one's arse.


I wasn't 'pulling numbers out of my arse', I was in using actual data because I do this for a living.
If you see this dev blog: https://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/tranquility-tech-3/

You will see that they have gone to ESXi for virtualization. The MAXIMUM recommended physical to virtual ratio is 10:1, aka .1 or 10%. So my numbers were spot on. I've never heard them say TIDI isn't an issue.


Out of how many? 30 our of 3,000, 30,000, 45,000?

"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."--Friedrich August von Hayek

8 Golden Rules for EVE Online
Cade Windstalker
#78 - 2017-05-31 20:17:19 UTC
Kassimila wrote:
Cade you keep talking about the individual nodes, when I'm talking about the cluster as a whole. There are two different types of "CPUs". Physical, and virtual. Without knowledge of the specific hardware/software configuration of the CCP cluster it's hard to discuss specifics. Hence my request for more information from CCP.

A single system 'node' can have MANY virtual/physical cpus assigned to it. That's in fact how they reinforce a node. There is also the fact that each solar system with a player in it gets 1 or a fraction of one CPU. So lets say hypothetically 300 systems have a single inactive player in them right now. Lets also say the minimum fraction of a cpu you can get is .1 . Kicking these players off the server would free up 30 physical CPUs that could then be assigned to active systems with players in them. So while these players won't show up in the 'server load' graphs you are linking, they are in fact stealing 30 cpus worth of power doing absolutely nothing.

The second part of CPU theft is idle players in Jita, even though they aren't 'doing' anything chat windows are still being sent to their clients. If they left their market window open, that has to be refreshed, etc. Is it a huge load? Probably not, but why not reclaim it for the people actually playing the game?


I'm talking in terms of nodes because that's the only context in which a discussion of Eve's backend server performance makes any sense. A Node is a physical server, and while one Node can run multiple Systems the smallest Eve can currently go is one Node to one System and multiple Nodes can not share a System.

Different Nodes have different capabilities but generally speaking they split load by moving systems on or off of Nodes, not by reallocating resources between nodes, that's why the Fleet Fight Notification System exists, because the best way for CCP to move something onto a more powerful node is with advanced notice.

There is no minimum fraction of a CPU a player takes up. The only time players take CPU time on the Node running a system is when something checks over their state, which is rare outside of the base heartbeat ping if nothing else happens to that character. The vast majority of Eve's CPU cycles are taken up processing things players are actually doing, therefore an AFK character takes up very very little CPU time.

Those estimated numbers btw are ridiculous. Eve these days peaks around 40k PCU, assuming that it takes .1 of a physical CPU to process a player *who is doing nothing* is just... what? No. Nothing we know of CCP's architecture supports that assumption or anything like it.

Market windows are only refreshed on player action, not automatically. Updating chat windows is A. done by a separate system from what processes in-space stuff, and B. is easy to do independently of the number of people in the channel, since the relevant packets only need to be shipped off the a list of addresses rather than being processed individually for every player.

The only way removing AFK players could *remotely* have any impact on the play experience of others, based on what we *know* about Eve's back-end, is when those AFK players are on the same node as a major fight or other activity that causes that node to hit its cap for tasklet processing per frame. Under basically all other circumstances Eve isn't getting anywhere close enough to the limit of the resources available to it so removing players does literally nothing from that perspective.

Go look at the various Fanfest and Eve Vegas videos about back-end Eve stuff, read through old dev blogs. You have apparently made quite a few bad assumptions about how Eve is architected from a back-end perspective that are driving this idea that we need an AFK-removal mechanism. There is a fair amount of information out and available already, go read up.
Sonya Corvinus
Grant Village
#79 - 2017-05-31 23:03:07 UTC
Kassimila wrote:
Cade you keep talking about the individual nodes, when I'm talking about the cluster as a whole. There are two different types of "CPUs". Physical, and virtual. Without knowledge of the specific hardware/software configuration of the CCP cluster it's hard to discuss specifics. Hence my request for more information from CCP.

A single system 'node' can have MANY virtual/physical cpus assigned to it. That's in fact how they reinforce a node. There is also the fact that each solar system with a player in it gets 1 or a fraction of one CPU. So lets say hypothetically 300 systems have a single inactive player in them right now. Lets also say the minimum fraction of a cpu you can get is .1 . Kicking these players off the server would free up 30 physical CPUs that could then be assigned to active systems with players in them. So while these players won't show up in the 'server load' graphs you are linking, they are in fact stealing 30 cpus worth of power doing absolutely nothing.

The second part of CPU theft is idle players in Jita, even though they aren't 'doing' anything chat windows are still being sent to their clients. If they left their market window open, that has to be refreshed, etc. Is it a huge load? Probably not, but why not reclaim it for the people actually playing the game?


"its hard to discuss the specifics", but I'm going to suggest massive changes to the game based on my assumptions that I know more than the developers on how the specifics of the game works.

--Kassimila's view, apparently.

I go to bed at night sincerely hoping people like you are trolling
baltec1
Bat Country
Pandemic Horde
#80 - 2017-05-31 23:52:03 UTC
Kassimila wrote:
perseus skye wrote:
Personally a afk person is someone who can be found ,cloaked or not and killed where as someone logged off cannot be so it's a no from me .

Example a cloaky camper managed to decloak while afk and my T1 frigate got a 900m tenge kill plus pod


This thread is not about cloaky campers. Please stay on topic.


You want to wipe out being able to AFK, so yes its about AFK cloaking.