Large servers getting "Out of Memory Exception"

[Ryan]

Large servers getting "Out of Memory Exception"

If your server meets the following requirements for the "Out of memory exception" then you can try this to resolve it.

Right now most servers are running with probaby 2 GB of RAM, of which .NET can only use 1.2 GB, so your shard if it is very large, you could see a crash when the application is using close to or 1.2 Gigabytes of RAM.

Here are the steps to alleviate it:

1. Upgrade to 4 Gigabytes of RAM (this is a must to go over 1.2 GB of RAM).
2. Add the /3GB switch to your boot.ini file as detailed below
   
   [boot loader]
   timeout=30
   default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT
   [operating systems]
   multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="????" /3GB
   ​
3. Load a command line window (Start -> Run -> cmd).
4. Run the following command: cd "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003\Vc7\bin"
5. Copy your Server.exe or RunUO.exe from the RunUO install to the current directory (C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003\Vc7\bin).
6. Run the following command: link -edit -LARGEADDRESSAWARE server.exe
7. Copy your Server.exe or RunUO.exe from the VC7\bin directory back to your RunUO Install Directory

Now, in case you are wondering, this is NOT a RunUO problem this is a Microsoft problem and I dont know if it is adressed in the next version of .NET or not.

At this point RunUO will now be able to use 2.4 Gigabytes of RAM!

Thanks!

 

[Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams]

7. Copy it back.

 

[bean56]

Wow, you would have to have a pretty huge server to take that much ram.

 

[Ryan]

Wow, you would have to have a pretty huge server to take that much ram.

UO Gamers had to do it, UO Dreams had to do it, Defiance had to do it, IPY has to do it.

Many shards out there are this big

 

[Ghosthunter02]

Large UO Server?

How many members are we talking here?

 

[bean56]

UO Gamers had to do it, UO Dreams had to do it, Defiance had to do it, IPY has to do it.

Many shards out there are this big

many huh. I bet you can name much more than that

 

[Jason]

All depends on the server.

 

[Ghosthunter02]

All depends on the server.

Obviously it depends on the server, I was just hoping to get a round number. How many members would it take before this fix would have to be implemented?

Ghosthunter

 

[infra001]

Members ? Players you mean ?

It's not to do with Players, that's CPU load related.
It's to do with the world and its size.

I would say you'll start seeing these issues at about 1.2 Million items all
depending on what's happing on the server i.e. a event which would cause alot
of data changes being loaded into RAM and the save times.

The shorter the save times the longer you'll be able to hold out before crashing.

 

[Ghosthunter02]

That's good information to have! Thanks for the clarification.

I'd still be interested in knowing how many players some of the larger shards are supporting.

Thanks again,
Ghosthunter

 

[infra001]

That's good information to have! Thanks for the clarification.

I'd still be interested in knowing how many players some of the larger shards are supporting.

Thanks again,
Ghosthunter

We're supporting around 350 at peaks and average of about 250-270.

 

[Ghosthunter02]

We're supporting around 350 at peaks and average of about 250-270.

That's amazing! Does that require a huge amount of bandwidth?

Sounds like you guys are doing really great!

I just keep getting more and more impressed with RunUO everyday. I've been running my (private) shard for over a year now, and it's been a great time for everybody involved. I've been adding a lot lately, and am finally getting a small, dedicated player base, but I've got requests coming in from quite a few people, but don't want this project to eat up all my bandwidth. I'm running 386 on a DSL link from behind a firewall, and so far I haven't noticed that the game makes even a dent in the bandwidth at the current level, about 7 dedicated players, 10 at peak, pretty small compared to your server.

LOL! That's a lot of bantering for a simple question. About when would I notice a bandwidth problem if I keep adding players?

Your input is appreciated!

Ghosthunter

 

[infra001]

Here's a monthly graph of bandwidth.

It's about 250KB/s to 350KB/s (Bytes) with that type of playerbase size.
That's including TX/RX (Outbound / Inbound) traffic together.

If your 386 DSL is 386 Upstream then I would think it would handle about roughly 20-35 players.

But remember, it's all related to what's happing too, if you put all the players in the same screen, the bandwidth will be much higher compared if they were all doing there own thing on the map, which would use little bandwidth.

 

[Ghosthunter02]

Here's a monthly graph of bandwidth.

It's about 250KB/s to 350KB/s (Bytes) with that type of playerbase size.
That's including TX/RX (Outbound / Inbound) traffic together.

If your 386 DSL is 386 Upstream then I would think it would handle about roughly 20-35 players.

But remember, it's all related to what's happing too, if you put all the players in the same screen, the bandwidth will be much higher compared if they were all doing there own thing on the map, which would use little bandwidth.

Marvelous! Thanks for your time today! I learned a lot!

Ghosthunter

 

[Ryan]

Here is the bandwidth graph from UO Gamers:

Compared that to our players online graph:

 

[bean56]

Very nice graphs.

 

[Gustavo]

Thanks Ryan. This is exactly what caused the last crashes in our server.

We have an average of 150-200 ppl on our shard and sometimes we go over 1gb of ram. We have about 2gb of ram so i guess we better upgrade to 4gb...

- Gustavo aka Gzy

 

[infra001]

The worst part is RAM is very expensive at this time compared to abit ago.

We had to do the upgrade with the these expensive prices on it, sucks

 

[bean56]

Try laptop memory.

 

[mr_wuss]

try Mac laptop ram