So we finally have our dedicated server, Thanks ND80 for recommending Rackshack.net
Server is a 1.7ghz Celeron with 1GB ram running Redhat 7.3 and dedicated ET 1.01
Running a 30 player server we have plenty of room for bandwidth, but cpu is running 95% and ocassionally the game lags.
Is this the normal amt to expect from this machine? Should I expect less CPU usage with this setup? Should I look at our install?
Any ideas greatly appreciated!
Gatcha~
What’d u go and get a Celeron for? 
Seriously, it should run it fine. Most servers occasionally lag.
Celeron???
Yikes I have one at 32 player on P3 1133 and it just makes it. Altough the speed is slower a celeron isnt up to the P3 performance generally.
Try cutting the players count down untill it runs smooth.
TCIP lag yes, CPU lag noway 
only if you are doing other stuff on the box.
Good luck
Yeah they do say the cpu isn’t the main factor in a server but a celeron is “taking the piss” man.
if they’d halved the ram and used the money to beef up the cpu they’d have got you a fair bit more bang for the buck tbh. Celeron really is taking the piss for a server, where the cache really helps. Cut down the number of players, it shouldnt really be running at 95% most of the time as you’ll have peaks where it uses all 100% and needs more, this is when players experience server lag.
I have two 20player ET servers running on a P4 2.4ghz + 512mb, usual cpu use is 40 to 55% with all slots filled, sometimes peaking at 65%. I could probably squeeze an extra small server in but would have to use default memory allocations (and still be pushing it) and anyway prefer to have some cpu waste than laggy servers. The server is guaranteed for 36 players, heh - can probably handle 52 fine with defaults, and would do it easily with an extra 256mb to play with.
I have the following setup with the following results
1ghz Celeron 256mb sdram - 16 player DFBHD - avge use 15-20%
800mhz Athlon 256mb sdram - 20 player MOHAA - avge use 40%
dual p3 1ghz 512mb sdram - 20 & 20 player ET - avge use 65-85%
the above avge usage is based on servers being full
Pagefile min & max are set to the same value 1.5gb
max rate is set to 20000.
I dont ever run out of available ram on any of the above listed servers & it dosen’t make the game laggy having so little.
I run DU meter & taskmanager in the background on Win XP Pro
I will test the 1ghz celeron with ET tonight, but it should work fine as I used to run MOHAA on this at 20 player & it rarely got above 40-50%
Seems to me yours should be running much better than it is.
SwineHund(+)
Usually when you get a host like rackshack, they have other thinks running ont he box in the background. Talk to them, make sure that you have all background programs/services turned off.
Thanks for all the replies… Yes I’m aware that a 1.7 celreon isn’t best for a server, but it was most affordable. I still honestly think I should be able to play a 30 player game on it and not use 90%+ cpu…
I’ll talk to rackshack and try to weed out other services. A quick run through with TOP shows no other process using more than 1% however…
I’m using one of ND80’s custom configs… I might try a default and see if it has any effect.
Does anybody think the config can effect CPU? Other than number of players that is?
Thanks for all the replies.
Gatcha~
Ok I tested my 1ghz celeron box with ET last night but only got a max of 12 players on it at 1 time & that kicked over at 20% usage.
So I think yours should definitely perform better, have you checked your memory settings?
Sorry I don’t know what could be making it perform that way.
SwineHund(+)
At ND80’s on 2.0GHz P4’s and dual P4 Xeon’s we’ve seen lag start to
pop up around 28-32 players regardless of CPU load. Not sure why.
The docs do call for a:
A Celeron is a far cry from a Pentium when it
comes to floating point operational speed. I’m
not sure how much of the server code deals with
geometries, but the Celeron’s smaller cache and
lack of FP extensions could really slow it down.
As for background tasks… if you rent the pure Redhat
box then there are just a few things to shut down. A
“ps axf” and the appropriate "/sbin/chkconfig --del"s to
stop things from starting at bootup make for a pretty
clean setup. If you have the ensim/cpanel/plesk package
then it is a mess… have fun (see the RackShack forums).
Just my $.02.
SiliconSlick
Celron originally was produced to to create the < $1000 pc. They droped the FP and L3 cache. This made the CPU cheaper to produce, but also took some major performance hits. It was ok, at the time, for a home users pc because most people were not doing intense processing or multitasking. I have been running Linux sence the mid 90’s and even have some old 486’s running (single tasks), but all tests I ran showed IMHO, that it was not good for servers unless it was for a single task machine, like my 486’s.
When someone asks for my advice in purchasing a new PC, The main thing I tell them, is make sure you don’t get a celron.
Mine is a XP2400 w/512 or pc2700. Roughly when full load (20 person) is 35-45%