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Online Game Cluster

Posted by timothy on from the drool-pools dept.

axehind writes "Carlo Daffara posted to the openMosix mailing list about his game cluster. It's a 6 node cluster using Athlon XP cpus and running linux & openmosix (with some qdisc trickery) for the OS. It is used to host approximately 1000 users playing online games, like Jedi Knight and Quake III. Here's a link (italian) to the pictures."

46 of 107 comments (clear)

  1. FP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Don't imagine a beowulf cluster of these.

    1. Re:FP by zapfie · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It's no more of a good business model than building kit cars, or designing Quake levels.. but who cares? What counts is that you enjoy it and get something from it. If you can also make it into a business model, all the more power to you.

      --
      slashdot!=valid HTML
    2. Re:FP by jo42 · · Score: 2

      Query: What do you call a cluster of slashdot Linux geeks?

      Response: The boys that called "Beowulf!".

  2. RDMA for GigEthernet by selectspec · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This is slightly offtopic, but RDMA for GigE is nearing finalization. I would imagine this will play as a huge win for these clustering technologies.

    --

    Someone you trust is one of us.

    1. Re:RDMA for GigEthernet by mysticalreaper · · Score: 2

      RDMA? I've never heard of this. Can you explain it, or at least give a link for more information?

  3. /.ed by psergiu · · Score: 5, Funny

    or:

    Il luogo è shashdotado. :)

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    1% APY, No fees, Online Bank https://captl1.co/2uIErYq Don't let your $$$ sit in a no-interest acct.
  4. waiting by jdkane · · Score: 5, Funny

    It is used to host approximately 1000 users playing online games
    More like "It was used to..."
    During the standard slash/dot.ing period, the cluster probably serves about two Quake players at max.

    1. Re:waiting by actor_au · · Score: 5, Funny

      During the standard slash/dot.ing period, the cluster probably serves about two Quake players at max.

      And knowing online gamers, one will be cheating and the other camping.

      --
      Read Errant Story.
  5. Imagine... by SlimFastForYou · · Score: 5, Interesting

    That same cluster spec running 1 instance of a game for someone to play on :). Someday I hope for clustering software to be to the point where when someone at a LAN party goes to sleep, their processing power can be used to help other machines.

    1. Re:Imagine... by neo8750 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      who goes to sleep durning a lan party?

    2. Re:Imagine... by SlimFastForYou · · Score: 2, Interesting

      At two day LAN's?:

      The weak rich bastards with the P4 2.8 GHZ and 1 Gig of RAM :P.

    3. Re:Imagine... by kevinqtipreedy · · Score: 5, Informative

      This is already possible. I have a Mosix Cluster where all of the nodes run off of a bootdisk. They remotely mount a file system. When someone goes to sleep, i put one of the boot disks in his or her computer. All I have to do is add their mac address to the database and add their dns name or ip address to the mosix config.

  6. Not powerful enough by mrbrown1602 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Even with all that power and bandwidth, it still cannot withstand the almighty force of the /. effect.

  7. Link to Google Cache by wmspringer · · Score: 5, Informative

    See the site here.

    (I

    --
    Twenties Retirement
  8. Why use Mosix ? by boaworm · · Score: 4, Interesting

    OpenMosix is used for load balancing, allowing processess to migrate during runtime.. I wonder what happens if you are trying to "gib/frag" someone and the server process migrates to another node .. ;-)

    It seems to me it would make more sense to use only the mentioned queue-system to position the games evenly.

    --
    Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.
    Aristotele
  9. supercomputer gaming by mmca · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://www.supercomputergaming.com/

    is doing something similar. If you cut through all the marketing hype it looks pretty cool.

    -M

  10. No wait by mao+che+minh · · Score: 3, Funny

    Now imagine a CLIC cluster of these....

    1. Re:No wait by zaqattack911 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Wait.. does a CLIC cluster work the way openMosix does? openMosix behind the scenes migrates processes (or server connections) to the least busy machine at that time. It doesn't do threads, and I don't even know how it works if it's not a network drive.

      How does CLIC do it?
      Don't assume it's the same thing... christ you could even call my webserver a cluster just cuz it's webpages spread amoung two different machines... but they (the servers) really have no concept of eachother.. and it doesn't share threads or diskspace or anything really.

      Clust is more of a buz word. It is what is technically going on that I'm most concerned with.

    2. Re:No wait by The_Sock · · Score: 5, Funny

      Clusternig is not a buzz word. It's a very real solution to many of the problems faced by enterprise applications and infastructure. Combined with .Net can be used to aid in providing web services, giving you One Degree of Seperation for your customers. Combined with XML and RDBMS, clusters can provide you with the speed you need for your enterprise software, and the 5-9s reliability that you require, without vendor lock-in.

      In short, clustering is the solutions for tomorrows problems today.

      --
      For a good time call www.sawkie.com
  11. As seen on the openMosix board... by deadhammer · · Score: 4, Funny
    Somebody should post this to Slashdot.org: How to assemble your own game server with openMosix

    The fools! Muhahahahahahaha!!!

    --
    I'll be honest, we're throwing science against the wall to see what sticks. -Cave Johnson
  12. Careful what you wish for... by Queuetue · · Score: 5, Funny

    Moshe said:

    Somebody should post this to Slashdot.org: How to assemble your own game server with openMosix

    BTW, has anyone else seen the AppAssure soft-core porn ads here on slashdot? Better than the .net ads, by far! :)

    1. Re:Careful what you wish for... by ottffssent · · Score: 2

      Damn, I *knew* there had to be a reason people keep using IE! So they can't turn ads off, and see the occasional good one.

      --
      High-speed Road Trip (18.000KPH)
  13. ok so you're using qdisc for packet control by honold · · Score: 2, Insightful

    but does this really count as ONE BIG SERVER for each game? if not, what is the advantage to having a single-entrance point of failure for the whole lot, when you could just use multiple independent servers?

  14. Why not make ONE game... by SexyKellyOsbourne · · Score: 4, Interesting

    That uses all CPU resources of a cluster, and leap 10 years into the future?

    The AI would use genetic algorithms, the sound would have every echo and diffusion effect possible, the graphics would use real-time raytracing, and the level count would be as extreme poly as possible. Simply spare nothing when it comes to CPU power, and just let it fly.

    Just use nothing but outright raw CPU power to render the whole thing.

    1. Re:Why not make ONE game... by ekrout · · Score: 3, Funny

      Just use nothing but outright raw CPU power to render the whole thing.

      Yeah, 'cause, ya know, most games these days are either powered by combustion engines or mules.

      --

      If you celebrate Xmas, befriend me (538
    2. Re:Why not make ONE game... by Screaming+Lunatic · · Score: 4, Interesting
      That uses all CPU resources of a cluster, and leap 10 years into the future?

      The same reason that game companies don't make games for machines with 8 CPUs or 4 CPUs, or even 2 CPUs. People just don't have machines out there to play the game.

      You can do it server-side, because some geek just has to put together a bunch of computers. On the client-side, can you imagine that 12 year old that keeps fraggin you when you're playing RtCW online putting together a cluster of computers? (That was rhetorical)

      The AI would use genetic algorithms

      "True to life" AI, does not imply good "Game" AI.

      the sound would have every echo and diffusion effect possible,the graphics would use real-time raytracing, and the level count would be as extreme poly as possible

      The network latency would kill you. Motherboards are moving to AGP 8x so that they can get more bandwidth to the graphics card.

    3. Re:Why not make ONE game... by FTL · · Score: 3, Interesting
      >That uses all CPU resources of a cluster, and leap 10 years into the future?

      Hmm, that is a good idea. According to my back-of-the-envelope math, 10 years would be seven cycles of Moore's law. Which means we are roughly dealing with a 128 times increase in CPU power. A cluster computer will waste much of its CPU time, so let's say we'd need 256 modern computers to do what you want.

      Not something the average person could do, it is the sort of thing that a bored university student with access to a lab of computers could do...

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    4. Re:Why not make ONE game... by Kragg · · Score: 2

      That uses all CPU resources of a cluster, and leap 10 years into the future?

      Minimum Hardware Requirements:
      8 speed CD-ROM
      Direct3D 8 or later graphics accelerator card
      50 2.4GHz PCs (100 2.4Ghz PCs recommended)

      Actually though, it's a good idea for the server to d othis rather than the client. You don't want to be sending pre-rendered graphics over the network, but you ought to be able to take advantage of the large CPU power available for good AI and physics modelling.

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  15. Interesting by ekrout · · Score: 5, Funny

    Here's a link (italian) to the pictures.

    I've always heard that a picture is worth 1000 words, but no one ever mentioned I'd have to translate them all into English.

    --

    If you celebrate Xmas, befriend me (538
  16. Slashdot effect. OT by FreeLinux · · Score: 2, Informative

    The Slashdot effect is beyond "getting old" now. I'm sick of story after story that is inaccessible.

    It's just so lame now. Oh, by the way, posting is still broken.

  17. or by Catskul · · Score: 2

    or....
    It used to host approximately 1000 users playing online games

    --

    Im not here now... Im out KILLING pepperoni
  18. phew by shimbee · · Score: 3, Funny

    good thing it's in italy and not in greece. gaming times 1000 counts of conspiracy would be bad ;).

  19. tbh I can wait another day for next weeks problems by DrSkwid · · Score: 3, Funny

    Clusternig is not a buzz word.

    where am dat warty melon

    8)

    --
    There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
  20. Migrating processes by tribes · · Score: 2, Interesting

    We toyed around with openmosix, "borrowing" some hardware at work. It was interesting to see what types of processes would be migrated to other cpus and which ones were simply not movable. We ended up running distributed.net threads until our hardware hijacking was discovered (hard to miss ~30 2RU servers). I would guess their tweaks facilitate easier process migration?

    1. Re:Migrating processes by BitHive · · Score: 2

      What was the point of running d.net in a mosix cluster? You're not going to see any performance gain like that.

    2. Re:Migrating processes by realnowhereman · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Clustering is not necessarily used to get performance increases. We're looking at using openMosix to make better use of a room full of lab computers. Certainly during the night their CPU's are completely unused. Getting processes to migrate to them and make use of the CPU is the goal NOT to gain some huge parallel computing benefit. The original poster might not want to get higher performance but rather to "steal" cycles from idle desktops, that otherwise would go to waste.

      --
      Carpe Daemon
  21. Local Cacheing by Catskul · · Score: 3, Interesting


    How about: before posting we see if we can get permission to cache locally (on slashdot). Obviously this isnt always possible, but in the case of small websites it might be practical, and even polite to do.

    --

    Im not here now... Im out KILLING pepperoni
    1. Re:Local Cacheing by DeadBugs · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Even though Slashdot handles all of its users fine now. Serving up large files like images and video instead of just text would cause it to suffer its own effect.

      --
      http://www.kubuntu.org/
  22. Genetic algorithms by jetlag11235 · · Score: 2, Informative

    "True to life" AI, does not imply good "Game" AI.

    Genetic algorithms do not imply "true to life" algorithms. They are merely a general method used to search for good solutions in difficult optimization problems.

    -- jetlag --

  23. FAQ by Catskul · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Yes, Ive read the FAQ, but as the parent noticed its getting rediculous.

    Regarding the issues in the FAQ, most of the news isnt time critical, especially if its a link to a small site. So waiting 6 hours isnt a big deal. Despite the FAQ response I think it would still be a good idea.
    In response to worrying about if the content changed: First of all it wouldnt be a big deal and second of all, how much harder would it be to recache it every 5-10 min ?

    So the quick answer is: "Sure, caching would be neat." It would make things a lot easier when servers go down, but it's a complicated issue that would need to be thought through in great detail before being implemented.

    I think its time someone went ahead, thought it though and implemented it.
    --

    Im not here now... Im out KILLING pepperoni
  24. What I want to know.. by mindstrm · · Score: 2

    Do they actaully treat it as one node, and let mosix take care of everything....
    or do they use it as a normal cluster, running different servers on different nodes, and just have mosix there for the hell of it.

  25. are there tuturials? by justindussonet.net · · Score: 2, Interesting

    are there tutorials out there on this kind of stuff? this seems very interesting to me and I would like to play around at home with a few machines I have.

  26. Re:SICK OF SLASHDOTING by anzha · · Score: 2

    Because, well, then, they'd /. themselves?

    --
    Do you know why the road less traveled by is littered with the bones of the unwary?
  27. Re:Question by fault0 · · Score: 2

    Read up on how (open)Mosix works.

  28. Re:SICK OF SLASHDOTING by Catskul · · Score: 2

    Id every article was cached slashdot would probably slashdot itself, but if you are only casheing one or two frond page posts links (ie only cache the links to small sites that cant handel the load) then it shouldnt be a problem. Remember September 11th when alot of other sites were in deadlock because of the mass of traffic. Slashdot was handeling the load just fine. I think Slashdot has a pretty meaty back end.

    --

    Im not here now... Im out KILLING pepperoni
  29. Slashdot effect is denial of service by twitter · · Score: 2
    It works like this:

    1. Story with links is posted.

    2. One thousand Steve Barkto set their bots to obliterate the sites linked.

    3. Steve Barktos then submit bogus and self moderated crap, including "slashdot effect complaints".

    In this case, the link was quicly mirrored by someone with VA System like networking bandwith and ability to kill bots. It must be tough reading Slashdot from a Microsoft owned IP address .

    I'd love to see Slashdot prove my assertions, just as much as I'd love to see all of these threads modded to -1 off topic. It gets in the way.

    --

    Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.