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Hi,

this is just a copy of the message I just posted on the server OPs forum at Descentforum.de.

I have made some changes to DE_Hunter's server tool.

Now I'm looking for hosters willing to test it.

What needs to be tested extensively is the new function that I called \"Selective servers\". Servers marked as \"selective\" will be stopped as soon as a player joins another \"selective\" server.

The idea of this was to increase the amount of available servers for players to choose from.

This is how it works:
- You set up - let's say 5 - servers with the property \"Selective server\".
- You start the servers.
- A player joins - let's say - server number 2.
- After about 30 seconds the server tool shuts down all other \"Selective servers\" that don't have players.
- As soon as the last player has left server number 2, all \"Selective servers\" are fired up again after some time delay.

In theory, server hosters should be able to host tens of these selective servers without issues. They all shut down as soon as a player has chosen one of them, and they start up again when no one is in that server anymore.

Please PM me for a beta copy. I hope we can release this version very soon.

I don't have the time to devote to this, but I wish you great luck on this project! It would really help for my online play.

I don't see a reason for this feature.

Why should I shut down all my other servers when a single player joins?

Empty servers aren't a drain on resources (when empty and properly set up, they barely use any cpu cycles or memory).

What would be really helpful is a new server-on-demand system for those infrequent cases when there isn't a ServerOp around.

Very cool. I like this idea. Maybe there could be a configurable setting... not jsut one person, but 2, 3, whatever.

Aside from this, I'd LOVE to see the elusive bug fixed where the D3 server sometimes restarts even though there's people in it.

Ryujin wrote:Aside from this, I'd LOVE to see the elusive bug fixed where the D3 server sometimes restarts even though there's people in it.

Agreed. That's been a very annoying bug in the D3Server tool.

It might also help to get players into one server…I don’t know, was just the first thing that occurred to me.…

Ryujin wrote:Very cool. I like this idea. Maybe there could be a configurable setting... not jsut one person, but 2, 3, whatever.

That's possible, yes. Only issue could be because the server config dialog is already very crowded, and of course it would make the configuration more complicated.

Ryujin wrote:Aside from this, I'd LOVE to see the elusive bug fixed where the D3 server sometimes restarts even though there's people in it.

I can have a look at this if time permits it, but to start with I think I will need more information on it first.

Spidey wrote:It might also help to get players into one server…I don’t know, was just the first thing that occurred to me.…

Yes, I believe so too. That was one of the reasons for its implementation.

Foil wrote:Empty servers aren't a drain on resources (when empty and properly set up, they barely use any cpu cycles or memory).

What happens if players join several of your servers at the same time? Network as well as CPU get utilized several times more, although CPU is not really an issue for anarchy levels. The software is waiting for I/O quite a lot (depending on the settings).

Two co-op servers certainly blow the dust out of any server with less than 4 CPUs.

Thomas01 wrote:What happens if players join several of your servers at the same time? Network as well as CPU get utilized several times more, although CPU is not really an issue for anarchy levels. The software is waiting for I/O quite a lot (depending on the settings).

Two co-op servers certainly blow the dust out of any server with less than 4 CPUs.

If I have four games running, and fifteen people join server #2, my resource usage looks something like this:

Server #1 (empty): <1%, negligible network usage
Server #2 (15 playing): 40-50%, lots of network usage
Server #3 (empty): <1%, negligible network usage
Server #4 (empty): <1%, negligible network usage

The empty servers use almost zero resources. Closing them literally does almost nothing to improve the performance of the full server.

So, again, why would I want to do that? Especially if someone wants to play one of those levels?

Thomas01 wrote:

Ryujin wrote:Aside from this, I'd LOVE to see the elusive bug fixed where the D3 server sometimes restarts even though there's people in it.

I can have a look at this if time permits it, but to start with I think I will need more information on it first.

I gave you a couple of links over on ServerOps. It would be great if you could take a look at it.

Foil wrote:The empty servers use almost zero resources. Closing them literally does almost nothing to improve the performance of the full server.

It does, because you can't compare CPU resources in percentages in real-time applications like games, expecially on Windows.
But I think that doesn't belong here.

Despite the negative conclusions made here, they seem fullfill their purpose.

Thomas01,

I'm using your Beta version right now on two different servers.

I don't use your \"selective server\" (closing un-occupied servers when a player joins) feature. I'm not hosting co-op games, so it provides no benefit to close my empty servers.

However, your latest fix for the player-count bug (auto-restarts when a server still has players) appears to work well - thank you!