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128 player matches at all possible?

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The issue here is that the last few years the push hasn't been into making individual processors faster in raw speed of a single thread. But rather giving additional threads to processors.

So you now see beasts with for instance 12 threads on a single chip. In UE3 the server application can hand out separate server sections (netcode, physics, etc) to separate threads. However in the end your performance is bottlenecked by the heaviest server section and the max performance of a single thread.

So while computer processors have definitely gotten better, raw speed hasn't increased much. instead processors have primarily gotten faster at more parallel processes. This makes it that actually regarding to player slots that servers of the past aren't that much worse than newer servers (newer servers can host more servers but not more total slots for a single game).

Dedicated servers worth playing on are generally hosted in backbone data centers, meaning that the width of their internet connection generally shouldn't be an issue. (The only possible issue there is bandwidth costs).

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Sadly the past has shown that players prefer to play on the biggest player server. Regardless of overall server stability. And most server Admins prefer having more players on their server than having their server perform well.

If anything I hope that there will be hard limits for max server slots based on hardware configuration of a server. As too many servers in Roost have been operated way beyond their capacity.
 
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The issue I see is map design and general gameplay.

What if 40 plus guys are running down the same street? Sure it's happened a lot, but thinking of some of the DH maps I've been playing it would have been more likely that a squad would travel a path, not an entire platoon at once.

I just think in some circumstances, additional players would actually break away from the war feeling and make the game seem more like a shoot em up.

WW2online and to an extent ARMA2 can handle this possibility due to unlimited access to a large battle area. Even in battles for Antwerp in WW2online I never saw more than a few guys daring to cross the street at once (however I've seen about 100 fellow soldiers bunch up to avoid heavy weapons fire).
 
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Arma's net code blows above 32 it just feel clunkey. They can do it. Its all about the Maps and the pipe unless ut3 server isn't as multi-threaded as the client.

As a client you have much more things to care about, like graphics, client side physics, sounds/music. So a client version automatically utilizes more threads, as good server software cuts away all the features it doesn't need.

So it is likely that the client version will utilize more threads than the server version. UT3 servers generally mostly ran on one thread, with some other small processes being offloaded to a second one. While UT3 for clients took about 2 cores.
 
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Less is more, and quantity does not equal quality is all I have to say.

Arma's net code blows above 32 it just feel clunkey. They can do it. Its all about the Maps and the pipe unless ut3 server isn't as multi-threaded as the client.

Yes Arma has a horrible netcode, however that game also have huge levels with "decent" details.
 
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if "less is more", and "quality is better than quantity", then i suppose you'll be happiest playing alone? see, those platitudes don't apply to everything. in this case, increased number of players does not necessarily reduce quality.

this isn't an issue of which is better, but which is more suitable.
 
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if "less is more", and "quality is better than quantity", then i suppose you'll be happiest playing alone? see, those platitudes don't apply to everything. in this case, increased number of players does not necessarily reduce quality.

this isn't an issue of which is better, but which is more suitable.

Point is, 64 players is more than enough. I am not happier playing alone , infact i can't wait to try and blast away with 128 players in the short to be release IL2, but 64 more than does the job, and populating 128 player servers etc just becomes a pain in the arse.

You think 128 equals double the fun of 64?...
 
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The issue here is that the last few years the push hasn't been into making individual processors faster in raw speed of a single thread. But rather giving additional threads to processors.

So you now see beasts with for instance 12 threads on a single chip. In UE3 the server application can hand out separate server sections (netcode, physics, etc) to separate threads. However in the end your performance is bottlenecked by the heaviest server section and the max performance of a single thread.

So while computer processors have definitely gotten better, raw speed hasn't increased much. instead processors have primarily gotten faster at more parallel processes. This makes it that actually regarding to player slots that servers of the past aren't that much worse than newer servers (newer servers can host more servers but not more total slots for a single game).

Dedicated servers worth playing on are generally hosted in backbone data centers, meaning that the width of their internet connection generally shouldn't be an issue. (The only possible issue there is bandwidth costs).

-----

Sadly the past has shown that players prefer to play on the biggest player server. Regardless of overall server stability. And most server Admins prefer having more players on their server than having their server perform well.

If anything I hope that there will be hard limits for max server slots based on hardware configuration of a server. As too many servers in Roost have been operated way beyond their capacity.

Many wise words here from Zets..
Just because you have a 4 or 6 core chip in your server does not mean you can run a max player count.
Raw power is still the key.

Memory should never be an issue for servers as long as you allow a minimum 1 gig per core you will always easily have enough without ever having to use any cached HDD memory.

As Zets stated, running on a Backbone connection from a data house is a must if you want your clients to have smooth ride on the server but realising the capabilities of your server hardware is far more important.
Continually maxing out your CPU to run a player count your hardware cannot acheive will only result in a massively laggy gameplay experience for your clients and actually lead to long term damage of the server overall.
And remember if you get your server popular then you will be using a huge amount of bandwidth, so make sure that you have enough allowance.
It gets real expensive if you go beyond your agreed limits.;)
 
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isnt that something they said as well when people asked for 32x2 players in RO1 :) ?

I would not be surprised if some would at least try it to get 128 people.
In RO1 the player limits were hard coded into the server engine.
TWI will want to ensure the best gaming experience for all players so It is very likely that after testing the player cap will also be hardcoded into the new RO2..The final decision will be TWI's on whether too cap or not but if your building all of your player content based upon a 64 player max why would you want to lessen the player experience by making the count higher then your content can support?

TWI are in the buisness of quality not quantity...:D
 
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