ROT Server Upgrade Notice

[bsb5652]

As I have mentioned in a previous update, we built our production rig in September 2009 and haven't needed to do much to it due to amount of hardware futureproofing we did at the time. Due to recommended shelf life of certain hardware components we are going to upgrade and replace the following components. They have been ordered and will be installed in about 10 days or so. I will be scheduling a block of down time for the server while these updates are taking place and will update this thread with that information.

Items being replaced and upgraded at the same time:

- 8GB DDR3 1600 Server Grade Memory with 8 EAS rating -> 16 GB DDR3 1600 Server Grade memory with 10 EAS read rating. $124.99
- 2 - 120 GB 10,000 RPM 3.2 GB/S Hard Disks ( Mirrored ) -> 2 - 180 GB Solid State SATA III 6.0 GB Intel Cherryville Hard Drive $189.99

These upgrade / replacements will give us even further speed and expandibilty for years to come and fits right into our Server Rig without a restaging of the environment, so there will be limited down time.

All components ordered comes to $314.98

[AGhost_7]

2 - 180 GB Solid State SATA III 6.0 GB Intel Cherryville Hard Drive $189.99

What? For two thats a pretty good price.

[bsb5652]

No for one. I already bought one a few months back.

[bsb5652]

Hardware will be in on Monday. I'm going to try to schedule the downtime for Tuesday, between 5:15-8 PM EST for the upgrade and migration.

[bsb5652]

OUTAGE NOTICE!!!!! ROT Server will be down on Sunday 4/28/2013 from the hours of 9:30PM EST - 11:30PM EST for the hardware refresh. Please plan accordingly.

Thanks, and sorry for any inconveniences this outage may cause.

[bsb5652]

Tonight, 4/30 @ 6PM, during reboot of server we will be overclocking the FSB Memory speed to utilize the high end memory we have upgraded to. Since we are doing this prior to server re-load, there should be no server crashing, etc. It just will be a 5 minute or so outage.

[Barag9224]

Cool let's hope it doesn't explode like lastnight. Good Luck!

[bsb5652]

Yeah, I got greedy there. I pushed it over 4.1 GHZ. One of the things that most people who are players don't know, nor would I expect you to know, is that the NWN2 Server app is ONLY optimized to one core. So, even if we were to assign 2 or more CPU's to the process, it only can use up to 100% of 1 core at any time. For example, Core 1 is at 60% and core 2 is at 40%, at no time can it go over 100% between the 2. It is wise to split over 2 to avoid constantly smoking 1 processor, but you gain no performance in doing so. Thus, is the reason to overclock the processor, and is why we bought it when we did. It's an extreme core i7 that is meant to be overclocked to up to 4.2 Ghz per core. It's standard is 3.33 GHz. So, now that we have safely ( stable and cool ), set the processor to 3.875 GHz, were getting a 500MHz bump to the cores that run NWN2 Server, MySQL Database engine, etc.

Now comes to the memory.

The boards standard Memory speed is 1333, but can be overclocked to 2000. I purchased the Red Blu series that starts out at 1600 so we can safely overclock the memory as well. The benefit here is that most of what NWN2 does is done in memory. Just about the entire module is cached into memory and runs from there. All resources, except Conversations and Scripts ( to a point, as they are cached too and only reloaded if a change is detected. ) are ran from memory. The faster the memory the faster the scripts run and less strain on tasked/delayed commands there are and the server can maintain and clean itself it amazing speeds.

So to summarize, with the solid state storage array, all the cpu, and memory enhancements etc, we are loading the module in 1:47 vs 3:04 previously. Load times on areas and general server performance are all way up. And this is all after all the coding updates we did to change the way RoT does things behind the scenes. Tons of enhancements and performance tweaks, etc.

[bsb5652]

Test 2 complete. Tomorrow, we will be setting the final settings to permanent.

[bsb5652]

Server Status / Development Update: Chapter 11 Development resumes today. All hardware upgrades and architectural changes will be or already have been fully implemented by reboot today.

Engine performance has been monitored for the last 5 days via Windows Server perfmon, and by OC monitors and the server is humming. I hope everyone can get in this Saturday and push the server over 30 people on for a good ol fashion load test. We been getting real close, but not quite there.