Behaviour and Performance of
Interactive Multi-player Game
Servers
Ahmed Abdelkhalek, Angelos Bilas, and Andreas Moshovos
Introduction
• Investigate the scalability of services
provided by servers
• Multi-player games are enabled by a central
server
• FPS typically supports under 70 users
The First Experiment
•
•
•
•
32 PII-400 MHz computers
Machines connected on the same LAN
Quake (FPS game)
1 human controlled player with the rest
being automated players
Server incoming network throughput per
client
Server outgoing network throughput per client
Server response size
Server received request rate
Server response rate (relies/s)
Server execution time breakdown
Graphics Rendering Time for Clients
Server response rate as measured at
the clients
The Second Experiment
• Each client computer simulates 16 players
• Compare statistics on two maps, a small
map and a big one
• use PIII-800 MHz computer as server later
• Use EMON to monitor the CPU statistics
Server response rate (small map)
Server outgoing network throughout
per client
Server execution time breakdown
(small map)
Request processing time at the server
(small map)
Server response size (small map)
Server response rate (large map)
Server execution time breakdown
(large map)
Request processing time at the server
(large map)
Server response rate (800MHz
processors, large map)
Request processing time at the server
(800MHz processors, large map)
Server execution time breakdown
(800MHz processors, large map)
Server CPU Behaviour
Conclusion
• Network bandwidth is not an issue
• Incoming bandwidth per player on server is
constant with increasing number of players
• Outgoing bandwidth per player increases
with increasing number of players
• Memory requirement is not an issue
• Use server response rate and average
response time for evaluation
Conclusion (cont’d)
• Can support between 60 to 100 players with the
equipment
• Server utilization increases linearly with the
number of players
• Doubling the speed of CPU results in a less than
double increase in the number of players
• Room for improving server performance at the
microprocessor architecture level