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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."

26 of 107 comments (clear)

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

    Don't imagine a beowulf cluster of these.

  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.

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

    or:

    Il luogo è shashdotado. :)

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  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.

      --
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  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 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

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  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.

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  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.

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  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!!!

    --
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  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! :)

  13. 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.

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    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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  14. 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.

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  15. 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 ;).

  16. 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)

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  17. 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.

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    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.

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  18. 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.
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