I'm an admin at MNR (monday night racing) we run a league for LFS in Australia.

We have run our servers for a few years without any serious problems (that could not be fixed with a restart)

However recently we have been having a strange problem with our two dedicated LFS servers.

When you connect and race, every 15-60 seconds your own local car warps into slightly a different position on the track.

Note: I am not talking about the normal lag effect you can sometimes get with the other connected cars jumping around.

Also: one interesting quirk is that the random local warping seems to happen less when there are a lot of players connected.

I have read the server config wiki.

I have also searched the net and this forum and read many threads but have not come across any that discuss this particular issue.

Also I am not sure how to analyse or run diagnostics on an LFS server...

The server is windows 2003 (fully patched).
LFS Server Version 0.5z10
(we've also tried 0.5z3)

I have tried:
restarting LFS
restarting the Server
disabling insims apps
reinstalling LFS files
updating LFS files

If you want to see the issue first hand, connect to:
mondaynightracing.com 2

I and the rest of MNR would greatly appreciate any suggestions or help anyone can provide.

what is /pps set to in the config file?

/pps=5

i use four, but you could even try three... if it's still bogus, i'd say maybe the pipe connected to the server, or some other network inbetween, is congested.

I just tried 3 and it got worse. Also tried 6 but no real improvement.
I doubt it is a connectivity issue as the hosting setup is pretty solid. And Teamspeak works perfectly (btw: we are not running that at the moment becuase we thought it may have been part of the issue)

Also if it were a connectivity issue, I would have thought that would make the time between updates slower or less consistent which would make the other cars appear to jump around a bit more.

But I don't understand why that would make your local view warp around?

Edit: just connect to mondaynightracing.com 2 do a lap and have a look at what happens...

another thing it might be, is if the processor on the server is maxed out, it could be affecting LFS's physics engine (which processes where cars are and what they're doing)...

i'm at work, so i can't really test this... not to mention i'm in canada and the distance alone might not help in testing.

Actually, I was just investigating that side of it. And It looks like there is a reoccurring cpu spike that coincides with the in game warping...
I'm going to try and locate the process that is causing it...
Hopefully I can stop it and that will fix the problem...

Thanks for your help...

Quote from bunder9999 :

if the processor on the server is maxed out, it could be affecting LFS's physics engine (which processes where cars are and what they're doing)...

It won't affect clients physics (and it can't).

Quote from Shadowww :

It won't affect clients physics (and it can't).

no, but the server does all the calculations (the client does to some degree, but the server is the one considered to be right), hence the warping... not quite the same as lag, but the end result is close enough.

Oh, wait.
Your OWN car warps around?

Maybe you have low FPS?

Quote from Shadowww :

Oh, wait.
Your OWN car warps around?

Maybe you have low FPS?

And the other 20+ people suffering the same problem?

Its definetly not a Racer PC Problem

Quote from Shadowww :

Oh, wait.
Your OWN car warps around?

Yes each person's own car warps around from their point of view.
if you connect to it you will see the problem on your computer too.

Quote from Shadowww :

Maybe you have low FPS?

No, it pretty much happens to every one who connects no matter what their own PC performance is like.

Quote from Shadowww :

It won't affect clients physics (and it can't).

That's what I thought too...

Quote from bunder9999 :

no, but the server does all the calculations (the client does to some degree, but the server is the one considered to be right), hence the warping... not quite the same as lag, but the end result is close enough.

But from what I can tell so far bunder9999 is spot on..
I just could not find any docs discussing what bunder9999 just stated.

There is a custom made InSim app, but wether its running or not the problem still persists.

Thanks for the offer, we'll definetly keep it in mind. Problem is, we'd still need a second server for our "Clubman" division. 30+ people in that one without fail

Quote from SilverArrows77 :

ah i see ... unfortunately ive rented this server at only 20slots, as i tend to believe that more cars than that in race online leads to chaos (and 20 is pricey enough for my liking at the moment lol)

Well offer stands if it helps in anyway, just let me know Really strange prob i must say, hope you guys get it worked out

Email sent.

Just a stab in the dark here but is there any way to check the windows RTC at the server PC?

SD.

Just in case anyone else is having this kind of issue:

I was able to determine that the hosting enviromnent was running VMWare workstation which was contributing to the CPU spikes (possilby through mis-management of process prioritisation).

It has since been replaced with VMWare ESX bare metal and the spikes have gone away. So have the symptoms that were manifesting in LFS.

Thanks to everyone for their help...

Quote from bitb :

Just in case anyone else is having this kind of issue:

I was able to determine that the hosting enviromnent was running VMWare workstation which was contributing to the CPU spikes (possilby through mis-management of process prioritisation).

It has since been replaced with VMWare ESX bare metal and the spikes have gone away. So have the symptoms that were manifesting in LFS.

Thanks to everyone for their help...

vmware workstation is terrible. every time i use it my hard drive doesn't stop chugging along.

my work seems to like it (esx) though, but they have big expensive overpowered enterprise servers.