HL2:Ep 2/Multithreading = 128 player server?

Since the new HL2: Episode 2 engine has finally introduced multi-threading, I was wondering how far we can REALLY kick up the playercount once Krenzo works these new engine changes into Empires. From what I understand, the official server has 2 dual-core processors, and until this release it has only been able to use one of these at a time for processing data. If a single one of those can handle 52 players, (albeit on "life-support") what about now with all four cores available?

I cant wait to watch some guy i'm introducing to Empires 2.0 say "I'm getting some sort of bug, it says there's 89/128 players on the server!?" and I'll tell him it's true and he'll freak out with lots of capitalized acronyms and exclamation marks with a few mistyped 1s.

The question: Will we be able to have a 128+ player game?

I WANTZ MY 63 PLAYER TEAM TO COMMANDEERS!

EDIT: I don't think we should kick the player limit any farther than 64 people until we get 16x maps. Think of SoF with 64 people PER TEAM...

 

What´s wrong with that? </sarcasm>

 

I think the connection would max out... Think of the 56 k'ers :p

 

I would be surprised that they were able to dl Empires in the first place.

 

You'd be surprised how much information some of these fiber-optic connections can handle. With all the optimisations to the network code Krenzo's made, it would probably take a lot more than 128 people to max it out. I get 8-10mb/s easily from my service provider, and they even offer an even faster 22mb/s connection for a price.

*This is running on the assumption that Krenzo has a really good connection for the server*

 

Oh god, fiber optics on servers.... I would think Krenzo would use it to dl pr0n 50x faster.

And... don't get your hopes up for 64+. Remember that the server has to also interpret all the physics and collisions. Lets say we have a tank war in a 32vs32. Thats about 40-50+ explosions thats going to happen all at once. You'll definitely going to have a lot of lag spikes. And thats not just pummeling the server cpu, but your own cpu as well.

There's a reason why CS:S and other source games are capped at 64 .

 

Good points there, but I still would think that a 128 player game could be possible with proper optimisations (CS:S isn't the best example of networking code out there) and enough server horsepower. Maybe if we get krenzo to join in on the CW-JPL-OnE server payroll we could get a server the size of an average closet that could handle it.

 

They've put physics and networking in their own threads. I'm betting 64 players with the ep2 engine will be like how 32 players is now. However, there will definitely be more incoming data, and the current rate limit would have to be increased.

 

A server the size of a closet or did you mean a few server blades to fill a closet?

 

I must admit i'd like to find this out as well.
But here's a fact: empires using ep1 engine isn't even released yet, and ep2 is already released. So it's possible we won't have empires using ep2 engine untill a few months after the release of ep3.

 

As long as Krenzo doesn't try to fiddle it in before he releases 1.8 / 2.0 FINAL I agree that we should try to make use of it.

 

I don't want to move to the ep 2 engine for 2.0. Moving to the ep 1 engine took awhile. 2.1 should be the ep 2 engine.

 

I think that's the best way to do it.
I'm no programmer but i can imagine a lot of unforseen problems popping up when changing to a new engine. Now that this version is close to being bugfree it's probably best to finish it up and release it. It already introduces a new engine i think isn't it?

 

more phys props in the maps? :D

sounds great!

sweet

 

Does that mean we'll have to buy EP2 to play empires?

 

I dunno but I would say no. Maybe Valve will upgrade the engine for every game .

 

They are upgrading every game to the new engine.

 

Hopefully. :>

But they upgrade the SDK Base, just like with Episode 1. You should know this by know Evan. :mad: :p

 

We're using the Ep 1 engine and i only own the original HL2.

 

i'll settle for a stable 32v32 match in empires 2.1. good news