[Survival] A brief analysis of Survival

[Towelie]

Over the years I've had people ask me to add stuff such as a mining world, a skylands world, an adventure world and so on.
I am going to try to explain why I am such restrictive some times.

Worlds:
- We currently have two rather huge worlds (World1 and World2)  and two other smaller worlds (Nether and World3). The server's #1 lag source isn't the land itself or chunk loading as much as it's the entities. And sadly entities don't just means mobs and animals. Entities include but are not limited to: armor stands, paintings, item frames and even things like chests, furnaces, droppers, hoppers, ender crystals, players... you get it.
All of these mentioned entities (and more) get calculated pretty much each tick if they are in range /view of players. (one tick= a 20th of a second under normal conditions).
Now consider that we have some toys/gadgets which were added either to well.. make money and pay the bills or just for fun.
A helicopter/car is made of 10-30 armor stands (Each), hence why I insist that you put it back in your inventory when you're not using it. Statues are also made of armor stands (1 each).
So things can get pretty laggy with entities in the high thousands.
To add to the lag, every time a player visits an area that no other players are in, that chunk gets loaded by the server and sent to that player. So if we have 10 players in one area = good but if all 10 are going in different areas = lag.
Then are the plugins. About 80 of them. Each add lag and take processing power and lag. Some more than the others (eg: Slimefun is considerably more resource intensive than let's say a sign plugin). Then you have to consider the extreme inefficiency of Minecraft and the java platform.  Then you have to consider that we also do other i/o intensive operations such as but not limited to backups, dropbox syncs and so on.

So #1 I must be pretty limited with adding new worlds/plugins in order to keep this from becoming a lag fest
#2 Next time you are suffering from a tiny bit of lag instead of crying "lag"  think about the wonder that is "how the hell does Towelie keep this server relatively lag free?

PS: For modded servers multiply the amount of lag by 10 because forge and stuff. That's how a small server like lost takes about the same resources as Survival to run for not even a 10th of the benefits xD

This post is made solely for informative purposes. Others will be made if this post is appreciated.
I was just bored xD

[nmgod]

I have no problem with us removing some of this stuff, I rarely see anyone using planes, trains or automobiles. There are also, I imagine, a few plugins we don't even use anymore.

I would be happy us putting a few things to vote to kick to the curb. May even open opportunities to replace them with some other stuff.

Lets be honest too, we rarely get any lag and if you were around in the early days of this server, this is running like a dream  I remember breaking blocks and watching them drop 10 seconds later.

[Towelie]

I rarely see anyone using planes, trains or automobiles.

They are cool to have and unless people are actively using them they aren't causing any lag. They are nice to mess around when you get bored

[Towelie]

I remember breaking blocks and watching them drop 10 seconds later.

We didn't have the raw processing power we have now xD
We were running this on a vps initially with 8 gb of ram (which seemed like a fuckton at the time but if you take ~2gb used by the os and allocate 6gb to the server it doesn't seem so much any more. Now we use 16-24GB (dynamic allocation) just for Survival.
Minecraft also added async chunk loading which was a massive improvement (whereas before we had a strong multi core cpu, only one of those cores were used)

[TheStarNomad✯]

And this folks is why we don't allow redstone clocks and auto redstone machines.

[Doctor_Thanos]

Exactly! Simple minecraft foundations say it, Entities => Lag.

Great post @Towelie !

[nmgod]

I remember breaking blocks and watching them drop 10 seconds later.

We didn't have the raw processing power we have now xD
We were running this on a vps initially with 8 gb of ram (which seemed like a fuckton at the time but if you take ~2gb used by the os and allocate 6gb to the server it doesn't seem so much any more. Now we use 16-24GB (dynamic allocation) just for Survival.
Minecraft also added async chunk loading which was a massive improvement (whereas before we had a strong multi core cpu, only one of those cores were used)

Maybe not but those days were fun

[Towelie]

I remember breaking blocks and watching them drop 10 seconds later.

We didn't have the raw processing power we have now xD
We were running this on a vps initially with 8 gb of ram (which seemed like a fuckton at the time but if you take ~2gb used by the os and allocate 6gb to the server it doesn't seem so much any more. Now we use 16-24GB (dynamic allocation) just for Survival.
Minecraft also added async chunk loading which was a massive improvement (whereas before we had a strong multi core cpu, only one of those cores were used)

Maybe not but those days were fun

Yep, that's true.
Everyone blames it on SFT for not being the same when in reality its just Minecraft itself / its playerbase...

[blalp]

The server's #1 lag source isn't the land itself or chunk loading as much as it's the entities.

Same for lost i believe, but then "entities" include all the machines too.

[Mrs_Ender88]

Thanks for posting.  This is a great one. 

[HD]

A great post to prevent people from spamming lag, thanks Tow

[Nicadean33]

I actually never knew about most of this. Thanks for enlightening us on what the server has to do to be productive!

[Lucy_23x]

I always found that the more players in one place... The more laggier it got. But hey I'm me what do I know xD

[Chocotaco786]

What's really surprising is when B-Team has (relatively) no lag.

[MrRed2016]

I have no problem with us removing some of this stuff, I rarely see anyone using planes, trains or automobiles. There are also, I imagine, a few plugins we don't even use anymore.

I would be happy us putting a few things to vote to kick to the curb. May even open opportunities to replace them with some other stuff.

Lets be honest too, we rarely get any lag and if you were around in the early days of this server, this is running like a dream  I remember breaking blocks and watching them drop 10 seconds later.

Actually, I see lots of players using vehicles, so we should definitely keep this.

Also, lag doesn't impact me, since I have a good computer, but idk about some other players with lower-end computers.

[winston_b]

Wow! I knew there were TONS of entities in just one world, but all of that is just shocking to actually see. Thanks tow for being able to keep the lag down to a minimum 

[Smileyface2288]

Lag :/ Pocket isn't taht laggy but poor survival Get less laggy soon xD