Re: Game Company- Java Server Thread Priority

From: Mike Brannigan [MSFT] (mikebran_at_online.microsoft.com)
Date: 01/23/04 

Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 09:12:20 -0000

If all of the underlying system and setup of Windows is identical to the
first system (with the exception of the hardware changes to faster
components). Then unless it is a hardware issue (some setting in the BIOS
to incorrectly set up the mother board or CPUs); then your statement about
"revamped some of the major systems (the code and the computer itself)," -
would lead you to possibly retest the system using the original code base
for the application that was running on the old server. This will help
eliminate your code changes as being the source of the error. (alternative
path is to put your new code version on the old server and retest) 

-- 
Regards,
Mike
--
Mike Brannigan [Microsoft]
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no
rights
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"BlackHawke" <blackhawke@legacygames.net> wrote in message
news:C_4Qb.23473$1e.6174@newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net...
> Hello!
>
> This is my second post. Ppl really helped me with the first. I hope there
> are answers for this one as well
>
> I own a game company (www.aepoxgames.net) releasing the beta for our first
> sci-fi space game in about 2 weeks (www.andromedaonline.net)
>
> We have multiple servers, but the game engine (Game Server Program) is a
> Java program (don't ask why) on a windows 2003 enterprise system with dual
> xeon p4 processors and 4GB of RAM. This program needs to process orders
for
> thousands of ships as fast as possible.
>
> When we first set this up, the Game Server Program took exactly 50% of the
> CPU cycles when idle, and up to 80% or 90% when working (processing a
turn,
> for example) and could process a turn of 10,000 ships in 15 seconds.
>
> We revamped some of the major systems (the code and the computer itself),
> did a fresh install of Windows 2003 on a different system (still dual
Xeon,
> but faster MB and CPU), migrated the Game Server Program there, changed
the
> threadpool priorities in the code, etc.
>
> We've now noticed that on idle (IE not processing turns), the Game Server
> Program takes 0% of the CPU load, and when processing a turn goes up to
> 3-7%. It never exceeds 7%, and takes FOREVER now when processing a turn.
It
> is the only program running on the machine, and services are at a minimum.
> Even with 99% of the CPU resources free (IE on System Idle), the game will
> never take more than about 7% of the processor time.
>
> This is extremely serious.
>
> We've tried increasing the priority of Java, but
>     a) The only way I know to do this is through the Task manager, meaning
> it would have to be done every time we run the server
>     b) I increased the priority to "Real Time" and this had absolutely no
> impact on the server process. The CPU load didn't change.
>
> This is the only program intended to run on this computer. We need it
> hogging as many resources as it can. Database, development, everything's
on
> different systems. This machine has one job, run this Java program, and
it's
> not taking that job seriously.
>
> We don't know if it's a Windows issue, or a Java issue, but I suspect it's
a
> combination of the two. All we know is it used to run fast as hell, and
now
> crawls.
>
> This post is going to Java groups and Windows groups on the assumption
that
> something can be done on each end to improve things (perhaps there's a
> command line parameter to tell java to run at a higher priority, perhaps
> there's a windows issue not giving proper time to the Java App).
>
> Any thoughts?
>
> Thank you for your time.
> Nick Soutter
>
>
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