uday Posted October 27, 2003 Report Share Posted October 27, 2003 We installed a new server yesterday. This version does not provide any new functionality but is an attempt improve performance. Heads up: be prepared for strangeness. I've made a lot of changes and was unable to test this code under realistic conditions of usage and system load. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uday Posted October 27, 2003 Author Report Share Posted October 27, 2003 One side effect of this change (perhaps only a temporary side effect, until i fix) is : - if you login while already logged in, both sessions are terminated and the user will have to login again (this time successfully, since the other session has been discarded) Previously, the first session would be terminated and the second allowed to continue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uday Posted October 28, 2003 Author Report Share Posted October 28, 2003 We replaced this variant of the server with another variant; the dual-login issue has gone away. We're still not sure we're keeping either variant, but the "be prepared for strangeness" warning still holds Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gweny Posted November 18, 2003 Report Share Posted November 18, 2003 Sole complaint I hear is length of time to log on. This seem to vary depending on number of people in bbo (makes sense) but long delays is little bit annoying. And VERY annoying if boot in tournament or game and it maybe take 3-5 min to return. Part of this time lag is player maybe no idea they boot for sole indication you boot is chat do not work. I no suggestions for this - but you very smart and maybe you think of how to disconnect us fast so we return fast. I understand this long log in time is maybe isp issue vs bbo issue but 1-3 min initial log in time is not unusual. Sigh ... maybe one day we all dsl/cable tee hee. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uday Posted November 18, 2003 Author Report Share Posted November 18, 2003 When you login, the server sends a bunch of "state" information - who is logged in, what they're doing - to your PC This adds up to about 100 characters per user, which doesnt sound like a lot - and it isnt, but when we have 2,500 users online, even logging in can take a while on a slow connection ( 250,000 characters must be sent). We'll come up with something....eventually :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JRG Posted November 18, 2003 Report Share Posted November 18, 2003 When you login, the server sends a bunch of "state" information - who is logged in, what they're doing - to your PC This adds up to about 100 characters per user, which doesnt sound like a lot - and it isnt, but when we have 2,500 users online, even logging in can take a while on a slow connection ( 250,000 characters must be sent). We'll come up with something....eventually :) Ah <light goes on>, that's what's happening. Thanks for the information. I was sure it was something to do with my dialup connection. I could certainly see that there was a lot of communications going on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gerardo Posted November 18, 2003 Report Share Posted November 18, 2003 What about compressing the info sent at log on?Could reduce the size a lot. zlib and bzip2, can both be used for this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uday Posted November 18, 2003 Author Report Share Posted November 18, 2003 We use zlib now; but it is not as straightforward as that. most messages from the server to the client are relatively small, and compression is of no help. A couple of exceptions: Login: a series of tiny messages are sent out, compressed as best as I can ( more on this later in this post) Fetching large things: Tourney results, articles, etc. The compression is a little worse these days because of a change I put in to take advantage of our second (virtual) processor. Now, one thread reads incoming messages and produces output, while another pumps the output to each client. So, while we try to compress, the underlying problem is that the output thread is pretty fast, and sucks away the (uncompressed) data faster than it can be built up to a size worth compressing. This has been extremely beneficial overall (as the last vugraph might attest) but part of the price we paid was a loss in compression The medium term solution is probably to compress the actual stream, not individual messages (or groups of messages). But that too is the small view. The real long term solution is almost certainly to reduce the amt. of data being sent ot the client. This will have implications for the client interface. On BBO, we show each client the state of every other client. This is a good thing, perhaps, but hard to scale (as 5,000 online users demonstrates nicely at login). But alternatives are not rushing forward. Don't show full state to each client? Make clients remember some state from last session (like profiles of other players)? Make clients ask for state as needed (a Refresh button on the table/player list?) Not clear. Under discussion. For the moment, i think we're ok - we're back to our usual rate of growth, and we have a few more months before we hit the 4K mark routinely and daily. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gweny Posted November 19, 2003 Report Share Posted November 19, 2003 8) I hate to mention P word (tee hee pogo) but it look like EA/Yahoo handle this problem by creating lobby and other "rooms" so user do not need ALL other player info at login... query is available so you maybe "see' people you look for and "friend" list is separate page so you may locate friends... Maybe is time to consider Main bridge club 1 and 2? then maybe login data is reduce by 2 if you come to lobby and you see who is IN lobby vs all who is in BBO. Other consideration is people who log in and sit. They do not play they sit. If I go to sleep do I need remain log in to bbo? Maybe you close to time to consider disconnect due to inactivity? <and this maybe reduce login time thing> With growth come change... and I very happy for all BBO staff for growth of BBO but maybe is time to start think of way to limit this initial info exchange... if 250K chars now then when you grow to 4k average do this increase login time to 5-10 min? or worse maybe people see server busy try later message? People grow impatient at 17 SECONDS on hold... login is not same thing but analogy is same... what is acceptable wait and this data exchange do explain why people is 3-5 min to return but this also create/continue problem of what do we do in tournaments <clocked>? The strain on people in tournaments is replacement... if dial up connection ( and this is much of world no?) no way original player ability to return in timely fashion... therefore new person must enter. Tonight in fun fishy we use large numbers of replacements <sigh> and with no subs available this make natives restless. If we ability to replace original players back with partner this is very nice... preferably at round change o board change... this fit nicely with 3-5 min it take for player to return. Keep up good work - we all very sure this is No. 1 place to play bridge :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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