new [Suggestion] Headless client to reduce lag

[ProGamer]

I would like for the Coop invade and annex servers to use a headless client. This would mean less lag, AI is not affected by lag and less stress on the server.

[Ducky]

Can you extend on this idea my good sir

[Jester]

I know what he means for the most part. The thing is the $$. Servers are not cheap.

[galzohar]

Even if you run the headless client on the same server, what you benefit is that the CPU load of the AI will not affect the server's ability to handle network traffic.

 

Right now, the way the engine works, is that if the CPU load is heavy for whatever reason (usually AI), server FPS goes down, and thus the responsiveness of the server goes down. As far as I'm aware, server does not keep handling network traffic while it is waiting for AI to finish processing the next frame.

 

When the AI processing is on a headless client, the AI might not perform better (unless you have very weak CPU and offload it to a different computer to split the effort, or unless you use complicated scripting to split the AI load to multiple headless clients and find a way to make them sort of communicate), but at least the network traffic won't be affected by the AI CPU load as the AI will only cause the HC's FPS to go down, while the server FPS can stay high and thus the server will be responsive.

 

 

If your server is already running at high FPS (20-30 or higher) then this won't help much. But if you're dropping lower than that, using a HC will help connectivity. Keep in mind, though, that if you use this many AI, AI might still be unresponsive even with a HC, as it will still cause FPS to be low on the client that's handling it.

 

 

As for $$, the only cost is another copy of ArmA 3 required to run the headless client.