Performance idea

[bad_mojo (DayZ) 1204]

On youtube I'm subscribed to a few people from the Arma2 community ShackTactical, anyway, they've started using this "headless client" technique where AI processing is done in another process so the server process doesn't get bogged down. This got me thinking about how DayZ does its AI and the effects that has on our CPUs.

In DayZ, the player closest to the spawning zombies handles the computations for them. So if you walk into Cherno and zombies spawn, your CPU is working to make them do their thing. Obviously this means the more zombies around, the more your CPU has to work, and the less frames per second you're likely to get as a result. From my understanding, this is why I get ~30 fps in dayz, but WAY higher in normal arma2.

So... my idea is a little complex. But, essentially the map would be divided up into chunks, and each chunk would contain the same number of zombies. For the sake of this post I'll say split the map into 4 quarters, and there's a possible 1000 zombies per quarter.

Instead of having the players do the computations for the zombies, another server (or another process on the same server) would do them. This would allow a collection of servers to run 1 map with more players and more zombies. Of course there is logistical problems with a system like this, not everyone could afford to buy multiple physical servers in order to run one game server. But, I think if the end result benefits the game and players, this might be something worth doing.

(Sorry if I'm wrong about anything in my post, I have no experience with Arma2 servers so this might be impossible for all I know. I just wanted to throw it out there for the more experienced people to see.)

[MorphineJunkie 13]

Making all game logic run server side has already been confirmed:

http://dayzdev.tumbl...y-it-is-it-isnt

This will not only increase client performance but eliminate script-cheats like

teleporting all players, turning players into goats, spawn of weapons, vehicles etc. and probably make stuff like fixing duplication glitches etc a LOT easier.

One thing i really hope for is that the team considers not sending vehicle/tent/player position unless the player is within a certain range of the object, simply to prevent ESP hacks totally!

When a buddy of mine started using ESP hacks, the game was really ruined for me and i haven't really played since, because:

A. Surviving is LAME if you know where all players / vehicles are located

B. It was obvious that eventhough I played on dayzRP a self-proclaimed no cheat private hive, there were ESP hackers everywhere.

Edited November 23, 2012 by MorphineJunkie