A Visual Guide To The Server Meshing Test

How did Star Citizen's first server meshing test go? In this video I show how the shards were configured and show some footage of some very interesting server things!

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[chiron]

So from what I remember from the 800 player test while I was standing in Orison when it locked up. That server was working well until around 400 and then it basically just stopped. Server fps stayed in the 20+ range. But nothing worked anymore. From my understanding of what Ahmed stated. Basically they found a bug within the servers code that was causing it to error out and it was just spamming itself with the error code, which is why it was like the world just stopped spinning and everyone and everything froze even with high server FPS still. And it was stated that they were not hitting the limits of the rep layer and it was simply the error of the server that was preventing that 800 test from working well. Which is a good thing to hear. Hopefully they get it sorted and we get another test shortly.

[tenpoundfortytwo]

Sorry for the low energy ill voice in this one!

[tree]

The MVP for 4.0/SM is 4 servers, ostensibly 2 for Stanton and 2 for Pyro. Said as much in the Letter from the Chairman infographic from 2022. The reason for this is to test both the transition from server to server within a system, and from system to system, which they handle differently, as was said in the ISC about Server Meshing at the beginning of last year. You can't compare PES to SM. PES had 8 of the 12 new services needed for Dynamic Server Meshing built into it. They couldn't implement it in multiple pieces, they called it the "big bang" approach in the Post Mortem and there was no other way. That many new moving parts means exponentially more things to go wrong and exponentially greater difficulty tracking them down, not to mention the issues that only occurred at scale with live release (hence kicking it out the door from PTU, they couldn't get any more data). They reiterated all this in the most recent letter from the Chairman. 4.0 will just be Server Meshing. The Separation of the Replication Layer and Crash Recovery will already be released to live and tested. No additional new services, but some refactors of existing services (like the Mission Service, mentioned in the Monthly Reports recently) with the new services for Dynamic Server Meshing finishing development from the data we're gathering now and through/after 4.0's release. Right now we're not only testing Server Meshing, but also stress testing the Replication Layer to see where it breaks and why and what loads it can handle in order to determine how to scale it up as well with Dynamic Server Meshing with additional "Replicants."

[The_Fallen_]

Hearing that both the 2 and 4 server shards went surprisingly well makes me very hopeful that 4.0 will be more than just one Stanton and one Pyro server, even if the player counts aren't increased all that much and it's just the 2 server per system configuration. (I know you said don't be too hopeful, but server meshing has seemingly been working a lot better than anyone expected, whereas PES was plagued with issues from the start and didn't go as well has people expected.)

[deathscreton]

I'm not apart of evocati, and haven't really played SC, but I constantly keep up with updates from good YTs like you and Tomato. I especially like your content here where it's straight to the point, information is concise, and easy to digest. I don't know if this is your typical content as this is my first video of yours, but I'm definitely liking it so far. Looking forward to more.

[RoLorl]

hi, friend!

It seems that there is little left to be able to enjoy your tests with a more definitive version of SC in terms of local performance.

Furthermore, everything indicates that 3.23 is going to include the complete pack, in addition to the facelift that they showed us, server meshing and vulkan and the tests have begun before summer!!, these guys can still redeem themselves.

I hope they can balance, adjust and polish all this as soon as possible and we can enjoy it without limitations.

Go!!!
❤

[RifRafJonesy]

The question I had on your last video has been answered. We can defiantly see servers changing. One word - impressive. Once they polish this, we might have a game.

[Xalos]

Every system from entitlements to the mission manager was stress tested so the amount of weird bugs we all saw is a good thing! Thank you for covering the server layouts and how the servers were split up, I was unable to get in Sunday (6+ 30k login timeouts) and Saturday all on New Babbage disappeared (including the tram I was riding in) and I fell to the surface of Microtech as the server recovered. I was then stuck in limbo for a while as the entire asset of New Babbage popped in and out of existence around me and the server kept crashing and recovering. Early days but very promising to see it working in the Tech Preview build! 🚀

[playercharacter]

So nice to be able to hear about Evo progress, thank you for the message to temper expectations, I do like the idea that I may have a little more interaction with other players in-game. Until now there have been so few people and so much space that most of the time seeing another person meant a firefight almost 100% of the time.

[KildalSC]

Wish you touched on the rotations of the planets and how it affected the testing at the boundaries, but a great informative video. Super cool to have server meshing in public testing.

[humanbeing]

This is what we've been waiting for since 2017, I'm in awe seeing that they finally did it

[andrewmaughan]

As a long time backer that was excited to explore PO back before 3.0 when being able to run around with others in Star Citizen was capped at just a few players, the advancements from 10 to 50 t9 100 & now with potentially much more soon, I'm happy for each of the advancements and looking forward to those still to come.

[CitizenScott]

Cool to see them getting this out there at scale so early. Hopefully these tests give them the data they need to avoid another 3.18 scenario.

[Anonnymouse]

Happy to see this kind of testing happening and really involving the community.
There's always going to be people left out, I think the different "Waves" of testers works pretty well. I know people don't like that you can pay for it, but how many people are actually making meaningful IC contributions? Probably not enough to get the thousands of concurrent players they need. I think many are happy just to be able to watch this stuff whilst it gets hashed out.

[BrandonPopson]

Thanks for sharing this! I wasn’t able to participate and this was a really good recap. Really appreciate it!

[MrCabbage-qzvd]

theoretically, they need to achieve partial dynamic server meshing cause it could be that 300 players or more go into 1 moon which has only 1 server. it needs to adjust accordingly when traffic increases.

[MetaRiot]

Great video. Im working on implementing server meshing for my game as well. Here's hoping I can get the same results as you.

[tomfoolery]

Here is my thing. As of last year we heard SM would be tested this year but most of us thought it would be end of year. Many thought it wouldn't actually come for a few more years. Yet here we are. I'm just excited we're actually testing it now!

[festersmith]

Thanks for the visual on how the servers were laid out. Its been kinda hard to understand it from other CC's.
I'm surprised it was laid out in this fashion. I didn't expect space to be its own. Or the moons to be separated from planets and grouped together.
It feels overly complicated that way. But I'm sure CIG had its reasons.
I'm more fascinated about how they can change and create the layouts so quickly.
They have gotten this far, and I'm sure they will get it working as intended.
I was there for 3.18 and remember that mess. I couldn't even log in for two months. I am a teenage whale, so money had nothing to do with as some would believe.
I just played other games in that time. Oh yeah, and touched some grass too. That was amazing, even though it was very wet in my area at the time.

[reamoinmcdonachadh]

They showed the principles were sound, they need activities on each to synch a bit more. For instance, you are on Arcorp, you pick a box mission on Lyria, you get to Lyria, it recognised you have a mission there, you pick up your boxes and go to Walla, Walla recognises you have a mission there, you drop off your boxes. See what I mean? And THAT should be the case for EVERY TYPE OF MISSION/ ACTIVITY in the game.