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EVE Online: Need for MOAR Speed
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
The CCP team has put up the first in a series of articles detailing the technical war being waged in the much ballyhooed battle with lag in EVE Online. The series (including this article) will run five articles covering the Singularity Mass Testing Report, distributed applications and scaling, slimming down the EVE client and EVE's core technology.
We call this the long battle on lag because there's not a single issue that creates lag or removes it. It's a constant, slow battle that has many possible warriors standing against us on the opposing side. You may also remember some of our more focused initatives, like Need For Speed which we started 2006. It has been a priority within CCP since then as we've taken a holistic approach to EVE's growing population and the emergent behavior of its pilots. In EVE's long history, we've made continual progress towards the promised land of minimal lag, sometimes in incremental steps and sometimes punctuated by large leaps such as StacklessIO and EVE64.
Read the series introduction.
Comments
It's good they are doing this, communication is key in online games.
I know its all a PR gambit, but I like seeing them talk about the problems and results wanted.
The issue isn't that Eve is one big cluster since each system runs on separate blades within the cluster and heavy load in one system isn't going to effect (normally) performance in another system on another blade. The problem is that they bloated their software to the point that it can't do what it used to and the thin client idea is a way to put it on a diet though the odds of them getting it working right are against them at this stage. But, you have to give them some credit for acknowledging the problem, trying to fix it and then keeping the community informed.
Last time I checked, Python, the language they program in, still does not support multiple cpu's which can make hardware design difficult for them. I would think that getting that problem fixed a major issue for them.
The problem is that the cpu speed has grown very slowly in the past few years if because of heat issues. So the cpu designers solution to this was to add more cores. We are seeing 6 and 12 core chips coming out now, but those are not very useful if your software does not support it.
Actually Python 2.6 allows for multi-core processing via the multiprocessing module.
However, they are probably running the game with 2.5x, where the GIL (global interpreter lock) prevents more than one core from being used.
A lot of info regarding dual-core CPUs and multi-threading can be found here:
http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=682229
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
The problem with CCP's current approach is to run a node on each core, so that kind of defeats the purpose of having mulitple cores. There are a lot of games out there that only support one or two cores. Even the just released Starcraft II only supports 2 cores. It is not as simple a solution as most people think, you need some intelligence directing which threads get executed on which core.
It's not just that, Ozmodan, but that most games don't really have that much to spread out. In order to take advantage of multiple cores, you need to have multiple things that can be worked on concurrently but separately. Due to the nature of games, it's difficult to do this, as most things are interdependent, or must simply be done faster. Games are notoriously difficult to program for multiple cores for this reason.
PS3 Running 24/7 since: 30 JAN 2008
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Wait... you guys said they abandoned Eve!
You said they didn't care about client stability in Null and would rather make new shinys to attract new players only.
Looks like CCP isnt abandoning anything and most of you were wrong.
i'm happy CCP is trying to do something to help the null situation because honestly im tired of you guys crying like children.
Playing: Rift, LotRO
Waiting on: GW2, BP
WHAT? I thought they were devoting 99.9999999% of their team to DUST 514! How can you say they're still working on the game? This is just a PR gambit to keep customers quiet. Like a pacifier for babies. But you know some babies will eat the pacifier and keep crying just as loud, because they love their EVE.
They never said they were devoting all that time to dust.
The people that work on dust cannot work on eve its a totally different game system...
Bless the people with little vision as they shall fail in life as well as games...
Note that they still haven't actually done anything. All that devblog contains is a list of more devblogs about trying to do stuff that we'll see later. Maybe. If they still want to.
Whilst it is good to read in and of itself, CCP haven't exactly been exemplary in keeping their promises lately, and a promise that they'll make some more promises isn't exactly cause for celebration just yet.
Give me liberty or give me lasers
Note that they still haven't actually done anything. All that devblog contains is a list of more devblogs about trying to do stuff that we'll see later. Maybe. If they still want to.
Whilst it is good to read in and of itself, CCP haven't exactly been exemplary in keeping their promises lately, and a promise that they'll make some more promises isn't exactly cause for celebration just yet.
It's crazy to expect the stability issues eve client has to instantly be fixed. It's a complex issue or multiple issues that have created the problem.
Have patience. Atleast you know they're focusing on it. Wasn't that your complaint before? Ccp not fixing "your eve"? Well here's proof that they are.
Playing: Rift, LotRO
Waiting on: GW2, BP
"Instantly"? The problems started over 9 months ago. The only way that it could be construed as an "instant" fix is if CCP have only just started trying. Is that what you're saying?
As for "proof", no it's not. It's a devblog about some possible future devblogs. It's not proof of anything. There's no firm commitment to anything to do with the game itself.
Give me liberty or give me lasers
The problem with these critical posts is that you really have no understanding of the issue at hand.
I estimate that only a small group of their programming staff have enough knowledge of how the hardware and software aspects interact to actually work on a solution. Generally you have the rest of the staff doing development writing new code while these specialists try to fix the problems created earlier with new code along with making sure up coming new code does not create new issues.
You can't just throw the entire staff at the problem, it would not fix anything. Most of them don't have the knowledge base for it.
My guess is they have identified at least part of the problem, but the solution's so far are not simple or cheap. Instead of whining on this thread you should get your butt over on the test server and help them out.
So many of you can talk the talk, but can't walk the walk.
CCP might get more people on the test server if they didn't have such an abysmal record of ignoring bugs and issues raised by players from the test server.
The thing is CCP seem to have become fixated on code-based issues and have ignored balance and gameplay issues. Stuff like the POS modules recycling fiasco that crippled PI. Stuff like the Technetium issue that has totally unbalanced 0.0. Stuff like fixing Rockets. All issues that were brought to their attention via the test server, fully documented and supported with proper analysis and then completely ignored.
Give me liberty or give me lasers
I'm starting to think your just looking for a reason to bitch now.
It was a single devblog that started all your emo crying yet the next devblog giving info you should be happy about doesn't matter???
Why does one mean everything and this one mean nothing???
And who the hell said ccp hasn't been trying to deal with the stability issues the last nine months? Do you actually work for ccp?!?
Playing: Rift, LotRO
Waiting on: GW2, BP
Actually Python 2.6 allows for multi-core processing via the multiprocessing module.
However, they are probably running the game with 2.5x, where the GIL (global interpreter lock) prevents more than one core from being used.
Oh come off it CCP used Python because it is an easy to learn language and they were able to put together a bare bones game quickly. It's disadvantages are still that it's slow to use Python as it isn't best suited to unlock modern computing hardware, either current CPU or GPU.Stackless Python is the king. 'Tis the truth.
I think you're underestimating the complexity of the main issues that are causing the lag to begin with. Also with many of the issues in the game they have decided that instead of just making a band aid fix now they are going to just wait till they have the resources to redesign the system as a whole.
This applies specifically to the rocket issue. They know that rockets are currently fubared, but in order to fix them PROPERLY they need to completely redesign how the rockets work and they just don't have the resources to do it right now.
Well CCP answered. The are upgrading Python from version 2.5 to 2.7. One thing this means is that the ability to use multicore processing was introduced in version 2.6. Whether CCP's code takes advantage of that feature is unknown, but at least it is something they can now utilize in the future.
This is an encouraging development, as are the two recent devblogs, both very informative and low in "PR spin".
At the end of the day, it is results that will count though.
Give me liberty or give me lasers