Terrible lag on kids laptops with gnarly LAN server

[nocturnalwizard]

About a month ago, I caved in to my kids Minecraft obsession and dropped $100 on coins and "mod packs" for their Nintendo Switches for the holidays. It took them less than an hour to spend that $100 on... well, who knows... and they were just as "bored and disappointed" as they were before it all started.

At that moment, it occurred to me that... well, I'm a developer, and there has to be an open-source alternative. Enter Minetest. I discovered this wonderful project and decided to repurpose an old server I had just decommissioned from the datacenter a few months back to running a LAN server with the hopes of never having to shell out that much cash to Nintendo again just to feel totally swindled.

I've since built my own game, a laundry list of really cool mods using meshes I created in Blender, and for me, it's been a heck of a ride and a lot of fun learning 3D modeling, the Lua programming language, how voxel games work, etc. So, to that extent, I'd like to thank all of you for this project, and all of your contributions, to make this fun new adventure for me possible.

My kids, however, aren't such happy customers. They refuse to play for more than 5 or 10 minutes before giving up and going back to play Minecraft on their Switches due to the intense lag...

That said, here's my setup:

Server, Dell PowerEdge R640:
- CPU: (2) Intel Xeon Gold 6226R @ 2.9GHz (32 cores total)
- RAM: (12) 32GB DDR-4 @ 2933 MHz (384GB total)
- HDD: (4) Micron 7300 Pro 1.92TB NVMe
- OS: Debian 11.6
(I don't think Minetest could ever possibly utilize even a tiny chunk of what's available here)

Minetest server (software) info:

Code: Select all

cmake build opts:

-DRUN_IN_PLACE=TRUE \
-DBUILD_CLIENT=FALSE \
-DBUILD_SERVER=true \
-DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release \
-DIRRLICHT_INCLUDE_DIR=/root/irrlicht/include \
-DENABLE_CURL=ON \
-DENABLE_CURSES=ON \
-DENABLE_LUAJIT=ON \
-DENABLE_SYSTEM_GMP=ON \
-DENABLE_SYSTEM_JSONCPP=ON \
-DENABLE_UPDATE_CHECKER=FALSE \
-DENABLE_POSTGRESQL=TRUE \
-DPOSTGRESQL_LIBRARY=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpq.so.5.13 \
-DPOSTGRESQL_TYPE_INCLUDE_DIR=/usr/include/postgresql/

# bin/minetestserver --version
Minetest 5.6.1 (Linux)
Using LuaJIT 2.1.0-beta3
BUILD_TYPE=Release
RUN_IN_PLACE=1
USE_CURL=1
STATIC_SHAREDIR="."

Router, Netgate 7100:
- CPU: (1) Intel Atom C3558 @ 2.2GHz (4 cores)
- RAM: (4) 8GB DDR-4 (speed unknown, 24GB total)
- OS: pfsense 22.05
- Switch: 8-port 1Gbps Marvell 88E6190

Client #1, iMac 19,1 (mine):
- CPU: (1) Intel Core i5 @ 3.7GHz (6 cores total)
- RAM: (4) 16GB DDR-4 @ 2667 MHz (64GB total)
- HDD: Samsung T7 SSD
- OS: MacOS Mojava 10.4.6 (I refuse to upgrade)
- GFX: Radeon Pro 580X 8GB DDR5
- Client: Minetest 5.6.1 (installed from release)
- Problem: Intermittent lag; map blocks stop loading when moving with "fast" across the map from time to time, taking 3-5 seconds to load, meanwhile my character just hits an "invisible wall." I'm guessing this is just a Mac issue though, considering client #2 below...

Client #2, Dell XPS8900 (mine):
- CPU: (1) Intel Core i7-6700 @ 3.4GHz (8 cores total)
- RAM: (2) 8GB DDR-3 @ 2133MHz (16GB total)
- HDD: (1) Crucial MX500 SSD
- OS: Windows 10 Pro
- GFX: NVIDIA GeForce GT730 2GB DDR3
- Client: Minetest 5.6.1 (installed from release)
- Problem: I hate Windows, but this one works flawlessly.

Client #3, Asus laptop (kids):
- CPU: (1) Intel Pentium N3700 @ 1.6GHz (4 cores total)
- RAM: (1) 4GB DDR-3 @ 1600MHz
- HDD: Toshiba MQ01ABF050 (5,400RPM mechanical)
- OS: Debian 11.6
- GFX: cpu/built-in
- Client: Minetest 5.1.1 (Linux) using Irrlicht 1.8.4 (installed via apt)
- Problem: Terrible lag. Player movement is very jittery, and when interacting (placing/digging) it'll process a few blocks, freeze, process a few more, freeze.... worst of all, OS freezes frequently (about once per hour) requiring reboot.

Client #4, Toshiba laptop (kids):
- CPU: (1) AMD E-300 @ 1.3GHz (2 cores total)
- RAM: (1) 4GB DDR-3 @ 1600MHz
- HDD: (1) Toshiba MK3275GSX (5,400RPM mechanical)
- OS: Debian 11.6
- GFX: cpu/built-in, Radeon HD 6310
- Client: Minetest 5.1.1 (Linux) using Irrlicht 1.8.4 (installed via apt)
- Problem: Terrible lag. Player movement is worse than jittery (sometimes, whilst attempting to move across map, player gets "stuck" wherein you can move 5-6 blocks before you "snap" back to where you just were, over and over, until it gets "unstuck" and lets you actually go places again). Interaction, however, is not terrible. Digging/placing blocks seems fine. OS does not freeze like Client #3.

Given my server and network hardware, I don't think there's any bottlenecks there, nor much room for improvement lol. My Windows box runs Minetest like a dream, so I'm writing off my mac issues as just that... mac issues. As to the kids, their laptops are basically junk, but that's what we've got and I've seen a number of posts on here about people loving this game for its ability to run smoothly even on old hardware, so I'm hoping that maybe someone can point me in the right direction of some settings I can tweak to get them playing without having to buy them new laptops.

Fingers crossed! Anybody?

Edit #1: P.S. I read somewhere on here that there may be problems with LuaJIT. I tried recompiling the server without it, and that just made problems much worse.

[CalebJ]

I'm afraid you'll just need to try scaling down. Your equipment is fine. With LuaJIT and your very good hardware, you've already gone about as far as you can in that department.

Try removing mods that do a lot of `register_on_generated` stuff, or have ABM (Active Block Modifiers) in them. A simple `grep -r "register_abm"` in your mods directory might show a lot of these - if you have more than 200 or 300, it could explain the lag very well. Entities (mobs) can also be very memory-intensive, especially if they have complicated logic.

[snoopy]

Hi,

Sorry to hear of your apparent mishaps.

I'm afraid you'll just need to try scaling down.

IMO this is very good advice from @CalebJ

However, a second look at your request ...

Minetest server (software) info:

Code: Select all

cmake build opts:

-DRUN_IN_PLACE=TRUE \
-DBUILD_CLIENT=FALSE \
-DBUILD_SERVER=true \
-DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release \
-DIRRLICHT_INCLUDE_DIR=/root/irrlicht/include \
-DENABLE_CURL=ON \
-DENABLE_CURSES=ON \
-DENABLE_LUAJIT=ON \
-DENABLE_SYSTEM_GMP=ON \
-DENABLE_SYSTEM_JSONCPP=ON \
-DENABLE_UPDATE_CHECKER=FALSE \
-DENABLE_POSTGRESQL=TRUE \
-DPOSTGRESQL_LIBRARY=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpq.so.5.13 \
-DPOSTGRESQL_TYPE_INCLUDE_DIR=/usr/include/postgresql/

# bin/minetestserver --version
Minetest 5.6.1 (Linux)
Using LuaJIT 2.1.0-beta3
BUILD_TYPE=Release
RUN_IN_PLACE=1
USE_CURL=1
STATIC_SHAREDIR="."

.

IMO some more consideration should be worth on adding:

Code: Select all

-DENABLE_SPATIAL=ON \

and the applicable 'libspatialindex-dev' Debian package on your MT server system.

Furthermore, do you truly use a local PostgreSQL-13 server or might you simply have forgotten to heed some technical details on database back-ends?

1. Please have a read at https://wiki.minetest.net/Database_backends
2. https://packages.debian.org/bullseye/postgresql-13
3. https://github.com/minetest/minetest/bl ... nf.example - minetest.conf.example

When this might be too soon too much, stay with SQLite3 as back-end in general. The local SQLite3 database will quite sufficiently support such a low number of clients without any troubles, I presume.

Please consider updating all of your MT clients to MT 5.6.1 for better user experience and improved MT game compatibility.

Last not least, what is your LAN/WAN connection? From the above text I would presume you have some WAN to connect the kids as you should experience no lag in a LAN.

WAN - Please be aware a DSL connect could be quite low on the upload and thus the lag to all the kids connecting from WAN to your hardware overkill server. Low upload rate means lag to the clients obviously.

LAN - Why do you mention a "Router, Netgate 7100" explicitly? In a LAN you would need a Ethernet hub but no router at all. Naturally, you would need the router for internet downloads but that is besides the point of experiencing lags on the clients obviously.

Please accept my apologies in advance if I got the wrong picture as I might have misunderstood something from your above text.

My five cents.

Hope this helps.

[snoopy]

Client #1, iMac 19,1 (mine):
- CPU: (1) Intel Core i5 @ 3.7GHz (6 cores total)
- RAM: (4) 16GB DDR-4 @ 2667 MHz (64GB total)
- HDD: Samsung T7 SSD
- OS: MacOS Mojava 10.4.6 (I refuse to upgrade)
- GFX: Radeon Pro 580X 8GB DDR5
- Client: Minetest 5.6.1 (installed from release)
- Problem: Intermittent lag; map blocks stop loading when moving with "fast" across the map from time to time, taking 3-5 seconds to load, meanwhile my character just hits an "invisible wall." I'm guessing this is just a Mac issue though, considering client #2 below...

Please consider installing Minetest by Macports

[Desour]

I've since built my own game, a laundry list of really cool mods using meshes I created in Blender, and for me, it's been a heck of a ride and a lot of fun learning 3D modeling, the Lua programming language, how voxel games work, etc. So, to that extent, I'd like to thank all of you for this project, and all of your contributions, to make this fun new adventure for me possible.

My kids, however, aren't such happy customers. They refuse to play for more than 5 or 10 minutes before giving up and going back to play Minecraft on their Switches due to the intense lag...

Heh, yes, playing is not necessarily the most fun thing in minetest. x) You could try getting your kids to also make mods, or at least textures, so they can experience similar fun.

- Problem: Intermittent lag; map blocks stop loading when moving with "fast" across the map from time to time, taking 3-5 seconds to load, meanwhile my character just hits an "invisible wall."

This might be due to too slow mapgen, probably due to some mod.
In general, for server lag, you can look at the "max lag" value in /status. (0.09 seconds would be very healthy with default settings. < 2 seconds is still okish. 30 seconds is very bad.)

- Problem: Terrible lag. Player movement is very jittery, and when interacting (placing/digging) it'll process a few blocks, freeze, process a few more, freeze.... worst of all, OS freezes frequently (about once per hour) requiring reboot.

[...]

- Problem: Terrible lag. Player movement is worse than jittery (sometimes, whilst attempting to move across map, player gets "stuck" wherein you can move 5-6 blocks before you "snap" back to where you just were, over and over, until it gets "unstuck" and lets you actually go places again). Interaction, however, is not terrible. Digging/placing blocks seems fine. OS does not freeze like Client #3.

Kinda sounds like anticheat is doing its things badly. Try enabling the disable_anticheat setting.

OS freezes should not be minetest's fault, obviously.

Btw. to see your FPS, press F5.

You'll probably want to disable some heavy mods to decrease server-side lag.
(There's a profiler in builtin, which you could maybe use, but it's not well documented.)

[nocturnalwizard]

I'm afraid you'll just need to try scaling down. Your equipment is fine. With LuaJIT and your very good hardware, you've already gone about as far as you can in that department.

Try removing mods that do a lot of `register_on_generated` stuff, or have ABM (Active Block Modifiers) in them. A simple `grep -r "register_abm"` in your mods directory might show a lot of these - if you have more than 200 or 300, it could explain the lag very well. Entities (mobs) can also be very memory-intensive, especially if they have complicated logic.

That's the thing... I've created my own game from scratch, so I know every line of code running it. I am profoundly grateful for all of the mods out there in the wild and for those who contributed them, however my motivation for doing all of this was partly for fun (for the kids sake), but mostly as a fun, new, and exciting challenge for myself. The only mods in my game that I didn't build myself are "default" from MTG, sfinv, and worldedit.

I'm sure other coders here can relate... once our work becomes work, it's no longer fun. Once we have mastered a set of languages / skills over a 20 year long career, there's not much excitement left. It's just day in, day out, same old boring routine... so doing this has been more fun than I've had behind a keyboard in a REALLY long time.

To be honest, I have hardly even played the game! I've spent this whole past month studying the Lua language, the Minetest API, how other mods work, and building chat commands and custom nodes for the kids, but as a coder, that's the best part for me... being able to actually use my skills in a way that brings enjoyment to my family, not just paying the bills.

That said, I started off with a "singlenode" world and built from there. Currently, I've got a 2048x128x2048 map upon which we've been building, and I've been making all my own mods and assets (models, textures, sounds) from scratch as a learning exercise. I have implemented my own "creative" mode, and the fun is whenever my kids say "I wish there was a _____", I go build it! For example, beyond some new custom blocks, we now have lights, appliances (refrigerator, stove, etc.), and beds. The only ABM I've implemented so far, though, is one for automatically toggling lights on/off at dawn/dusk:

Code: Select all

minetest.register_abm({
	nodenames = { "group:night_light" },
	interval  = 10,
	chance    = 1,
	action    = function(pos, node, active_object_count, active_object_count_wider)
		local state = node.name:find("off") and "off" or "on"
		local time  = minetest.get_timeofday() * 24000
		if ("on" == state and time >= 6000 and time < 18000) then
			local new_node = node
			new_node.name  = new_node.gsub("_on", "_off")
			minetest.swap_node(pos, new_node)
		elseif ("off" == state and (time < 6000 or time >= 18000) then
			local new_node = node
                        new_node.name  = new_node.gsub("_off", "_on")
                        minetest.swap_node(pos, new_node)
		end
	end
})

Everything else is completely barebones/stock.

[nocturnalwizard]

Hi,

Sorry to hear of your apparent mishaps.

No way, this is the most fun I've had in a long time! :-)

IMO some more consideration should be worth on adding:

Code: Select all

-DENABLE_SPATIAL=ON \

and the applicable 'libspatialindex-dev' Debian package on your MT server system.

What does that do? Is this related to https://minetest.gitlab.io/minetest/spatial-vectors/ ?

Furthermore, do you truly use a local PostgreSQL-13 server...?

Yes. I was running stock sqlite3 for a while, but I've become quite the worldedit master, and larger operations would eat up about 24GB of memory then crash with a table overflow error, so I recompiled with pg support and set up Postgre. Now I can do massive worldedit operations (copying 1024 x 128 x 1024 chunks, for example) with no problem, and it's way faster, too.

Please consider updating all of your MT clients to MT 5.6.1 for better user experience and improved MT game compatibility.

Funny enough, I just got off work and before checking up on my post for any replies here, I was thinking the exact same thing. I've already downloaded the source on both laptops and am waiting for them to compile in the background right now as I write this.

Last not least, what is your LAN/WAN connection? From the above text I would presume you have some WAN to connect the kids as you should experience no lag in a LAN.
[/code]

That's precisely why I posted all my specs. My LAN is running on enterprise-grade router that's capable of processing 18+Gbps over a 1Gbps switch, with CAT6 drops to each client.

WAN - Please be aware a DSL connect could be quite low on the upload and thus the lag to all the kids connecting from WAN to your hardware overkill server. Low upload rate means lag to the clients obviously.

LAN - Why do you mention a "Router, Netgate 7100" explicitly? In a LAN you would need a Ethernet hub but no router at all. Naturally, you would need the router for internet downloads but that is besides the point of experiencing lags on the clients obviously.

Because when your LAN is running through a $1,500 Netgate running pfsense, you can kind of eliminate "network" from the "cause of lag" check list. LOL

[nocturnalwizard]

This might be due to too slow mapgen, probably due to some mod.
In general, for server lag, you can look at the "max lag" value in /status. (0.09 seconds would be very healthy with default settings. < 2 seconds is still okish. 30 seconds is very bad.)

Mapgen = singlenode.

I created a 2048 x 128 x 2048 map centered at 0, 0, 0 using worldedit using default_stone as a base, then built up from there using dirt, dirt_with_grass, a water_source lake, etc., then kids started building houses and what not.

Kinda sounds like anticheat is doing its things badly. Try enabling the disable_anticheat setting.

I'll definitely try that after I finish rebuilding 5.6.1 clients for the kids laptops here...

OS freezes should not be minetest's fault, obviously.

Actually, it is. That pentium chip really struggles lol.

Btw. to see your FPS, press F5.

Right now, on my iMac, with nobody else in the game, /status shows max lag at 0.358s and debug shows:

ss1.jpg (57.01 KiB) Viewed 2241 times

You'll probably want to disable some heavy mods to decrease server-side lag.
(There's a profiler in builtin, which you could maybe use, but it's not well documented.)

See my other reply above... nothing but default + sfinv + worldedit, and a few mods I built to add some custom nodes... hence the confusion. I'm like... why the heck is this running so slow?

[nocturnalwizard]

I've just compiled 5.6.1 on both kids laptops, then it occurred to me, perhaps I should run this by y'all... are these good settings, given the super old hardware it'll be running on?

cmake . -DBUILD_CLIENT=TRUE -DBUILD_SERVER=FALSE -DRUN_IN_PLACE=FALSE -CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release

[Festus1965]

so as much lag on a local network, and see rtt 4 ms, it is the server
thi hints on must be 5.6.1 are wrong ... my server run on 5.5.0 has one player login of 0.05s !!!

how much CPU usage on the server unit (htop ?) is shown when nobody online ?

has the server gui also, and you might be able to open a client there and login that server = rtt 0ms, and show the
* cpu usage now
* /status lag shown on client ?

if taking one lan PC and login, what show the
* server CPU usage then ?
* that client (best is same client version as server to be sure) /status lag ?

so if server is always high, even with no one logged in (see same high CPU usage server htop),
stop the mt server and look how CPU usage of server changes ? down or still high ?
* if still high then system problem ...

so far yet for you to check out, as I have home server, self compiled and some about 25 local logins some time (PCs and a lot of mobile) and still never more than 0.5s even with 30 gamer

then after new results I see next step (guess if mt server causes need activate /profiler and search for the lag mod)
avoid hard lag impact mods ! if you don't have at least 4 cores over 3.0 Mhz, 32 GB RAM and mimimum an SSD (plus some tuning with cache and faster DB)

added:
as check your top written server details : much cores does not help with mt, as use max 2 cores for main system = need faster CPU in MHz, if CPU threads of MTserver are always too high - they will NOT split up and use other Threads !
and so if this 2 MT server threads are always (too) high
* tuning with using free RAM for cache
* change MT to postgresql DB (faster) and also enlarge there caching = a big speed up
* and at the end, take off to laggy mods (activate /profiler in minetest.conf and take an export after 24 hours)
see example here

[CalebJ]

I'm afraid you'll just need to try scaling down. Your equipment is fine. With LuaJIT and your very good hardware, you've already gone about as far as you can in that department.

Try removing mods that do a lot of `register_on_generated` stuff, or have ABM (Active Block Modifiers) in them. A simple `grep -r "register_abm"` in your mods directory might show a lot of these - if you have more than 200 or 300, it could explain the lag very well. Entities (mobs) can also be very memory-intensive, especially if they have complicated logic.

That's the thing... I've created my own game from scratch, so I know every line of code running it. I am profoundly grateful for all of the mods out there in the wild and for those who contributed them, however my motivation for doing all of this was partly for fun (for the kids sake), but mostly as a fun, new, and exciting challenge for myself. The only mods in my game that I didn't build myself are "default" from MTG, sfinv, and worldedit.

I'm sure other coders here can relate... once our work becomes work, it's no longer fun. Once we have mastered a set of languages / skills over a 20 year long career, there's not much excitement left. It's just day in, day out, same old boring routine... so doing this has been more fun than I've had behind a keyboard in a REALLY long time.

To be honest, I have hardly even played the game! I've spent this whole past month studying the Lua language, the Minetest API, how other mods work, and building chat commands and custom nodes for the kids, but as a coder, that's the best part for me... being able to actually use my skills in a way that brings enjoyment to my family, not just paying the bills.

That said, I started off with a "singlenode" world and built from there. Currently, I've got a 2048x128x2048 map upon which we've been building, and I've been making all my own mods and assets (models, textures, sounds) from scratch as a learning exercise. I have implemented my own "creative" mode, and the fun is whenever my kids say "I wish there was a _____", I go build it! For example, beyond some new custom blocks, we now have lights, appliances (refrigerator, stove, etc.), and beds. The only ABM I've implemented so far, though, is one for automatically toggling lights on/off at dawn/dusk:

Code: Select all

minetest.register_abm({
	nodenames = { "group:night_light" },
	interval  = 10,
	chance    = 1,
	action    = function(pos, node, active_object_count, active_object_count_wider)
		local state = node.name:find("off") and "off" or "on"
		local time  = minetest.get_timeofday() * 24000
		if ("on" == state and time >= 6000 and time < 18000) then
			local new_node = node
			new_node.name  = new_node.gsub("_on", "_off")
			minetest.swap_node(pos, new_node)
		elseif ("off" == state and (time < 6000 or time >= 18000) then
			local new_node = node
                        new_node.name  = new_node.gsub("_off", "_on")
                        minetest.swap_node(pos, new_node)
		end
	end
})

Everything else is completely barebones/stock.

Good for you, whatever you've got there must be pretty incredible! 1 ABM is nothing, so the lag is coming from somewhere else. If you have a memory-intensive mapgen, or some very complicated logic, maybe that could explain it. Also, nesting tables in Lua can make for a very bad experience. :)

Another thing you can do is toggle some server-side settings which can help you with the lag. Given your hardware, I wouldn't guess this would help much, but you never know - it might be the answer.

Check here:
https://github.com/minetest/minetest/bl ... mple#L2910 onwards. These settings can be lowered or increased to help server performance.

But I wouldn't guess that's the problem. I think this is a client-side issue (the server is not lagging, your kids clients are!), based on what you've described. Laptops can't do a lot, so your heavy 3D models might be the culprit lagging your kids out of existence. Low-poly models are best (I would suggest rubenwardy's NodeBox Editor for casual nodes), and they're the only way you can save your FPS.

Could you provide some more information about those models (high-poly? what is a typical size (MB) for your models?), and how frequently they display in the game?

[snoopy]

That's precisely why I posted all my specs. My LAN is running on enterprise-grade router that's capable of processing 18+Gbps over a 1Gbps switch, with CAT6 drops to each client.

WAN - Please be aware a DSL connect could be quite low on the upload and thus the lag to all the kids connecting from WAN to your hardware overkill server. Low upload rate means lag to the clients obviously.

LAN - Why do you mention a "Router, Netgate 7100" explicitly? In a LAN you would need a Ethernet hub but no router at all. Naturally, you would need the router for internet downloads but that is besides the point of experiencing lags on the clients obviously.

Because when your LAN is running through a $1,500 Netgate running pfsense, you can kind of eliminate "network" from the "cause of lag" check list. LOL

LOL too.

Might be not related to your issues but gives a picture that money might not always buy you the performance as expected:

• super car crash fails

IMO you might be camouflaging some true technical issues with too much of a 'proud shopping list with price tags' here.

Have a look and search around the MT forum and you will find some good technical tips on tuning a MT server.

Make some thorough network checks on your LAN what truly might be happening there. Some so-called 'kids' could be wasting bandwidth thus producing lag on the LAN the MT server has to endure but would not be the cause of.

Again, the LAN basically needs an Ethernet hub, not a router with questionable setup and some misguided deep inspection firewall setting, I suppose.

• https://www.pfsense.org/download/
• https://www.netgate.com/pfsense-plus-ap ... ons/router
• https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/lat ... 22-05.html
• https://www.amazon.com/-/de/dp/B07PFYM5 ... r_1_9?th=1

Please be aware 'pfsense' is no OS (i.e., no computer Operating System) and current pfsense version would be 2.6.0 apparently but not some '22.05' of whatever government ready gadget.

Keep it simple, keep it running, I would say. Just change from glittery 'NetGate' to a working 'Netgear' if in the U.S.A., I suppose. Outside the U.S.A. it could be D-Link or some other nice hardware provider.

I've just compiled 5.6.1 on both kids laptops, then it occurred to me, perhaps I should run this by y'all... are these good settings, given the super old hardware it'll be running on?

cmake . -DBUILD_CLIENT=TRUE -DBUILD_SERVER=FALSE -DRUN_IN_PLACE=FALSE -CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release

Sorry to bring you the bad news, but this is besides the point. The MT client always runs independently from the MT server. Thus not compiling the MT server may minimally decrease the file amount used by MT programs on the local system but obviously has nothing to do at all with network bandwidth.

Apparently, you have no idea what 'super old hardware' means.

Edit #1: P.S. I read somewhere on here that there may be problems with LuaJIT. I tried recompiling the server without it, and that just made problems much worse.

Sorry to bring you the bad news, but 'recompiling the server without [LuaJIT]' may only show that you might misunderstand some technical concepts. Please consider some research and self-educating on computer systems and modern software programming concepts.

Please be always sure your compile is truly making use of the LuaJIT provided by the system and not the last resort of Lua poor man's solution as provided with the MT source package.

Let's give you a start with:

• Just-in-time compilation
• Debian 11.6 - Package: luajit (2.1.0~beta3+dfsg-5.3)
• Debian 11.6 - Package: libgmp-dev (2:6.2.1+dfsg-1+deb11u1)
• Debian 11.6 - Package: libjsoncpp-dev (1.9.4-4)
• Debian 11.6 - Package: libspatialindex-dev (1.9.3-2)
• Bandwidth (computing)
• Computer data storage
• Computer network

However, a MT version info Using LuaJIT 2.1.0-beta3 could show your compile might be on the safe side.

Last not least:
WorldEdit is a powerful tool but might be total overkill if one just wants to play the MT game or wants to run a MT server in particular, I presume. IMO one only should activate the WorldEdit mod for the particular phase of world editing. The tool should stay deactivated as default procedure otherwise.

My five (+ one) cents.

BTW it is much fun to read of your funny experiments. Just go on please.

Have fun with MT.

[LMD]

IMO some more consideration should be worth on adding:

Code: Select all

-DENABLE_SPATIAL=ON \

and the applicable 'libspatialindex-dev' Debian package on your MT server system.

What does that do? Is this related to https://minetest.gitlab.io/minetest/spatial-vectors/ ?

No, not at all. "libspatialindex" is used for the efficient implementation of area stores (using R-Trees, if you're interested in the details); if you don't install/use it, Minetest will fall back to an inefficient linear search.

[Festus1965]

Again, the LAN basically needs an Ethernet hub, not a router with questionable setup and some misguided deep inspection firewall setting, I suppose.

What ? if all PCs and the server have plugs at the router all will work, as SHOWN with one client 4ms to also internal (Intranet, LAN) server.
BUT as of my experience with up to 20 PC and mobile player to keep the router out of work, mean server and player PCs are on same switch (= better than hub) as some router have a problem with that amount of internal traffic (my old had !)

In my case that switch with the server and router connected, has just another 5 ports left, so 3 ports are used for another 3 switch, and one wifi extra, where local mobiles using kids join.

[Festus1965]

was double - gateway mistake

[snoopy]

Hi,

BTW - Are the Laptops truly linked by cable or did you just skip to mention your multi-level multi-tier WLAN? Or that on the flat above and below your own nice and costly living place?

No way, this is the most fun I've had in a long time! :-)

Have some more fun below the real desktops and check your physical network (i.e. all the cables and connectors), I suppose. Truly. Trust me or the below advice and give it some honest consideration.

• Some things you shouldn’t do when running network cable
• Ethernet cable wiring

Please never snap or crease the cables. A CAT6 cable with a sharp bend is not a cable any more but wasted money and just trash.

Having a dog or some kittle kitten to have fun with the kids is nice. However, any animals gnawing at cables makes trouble and can bring danger to both network and even danger of life if nibbling at the power cable. Putting e.g. the sharp foot of your real desktop on the cable or having fun in rolling your movable chair over the funny wires could produce similar negative results.

Furthermore, there is the logical network to be checked:

• Fix Ethernet connection problems in Windows
• View network activity in Activity Monitor on Mac
• Debian - Network Configuration
• Debian - How to use a WiFi interface
• Linux Network Configuration and Troubleshooting Commands

Furthermore, as you appear to be a gentle people having fun in playing with things and tools you might not be truly mastering (yet), there is some real risk of some malware or even evil bit-coining degrading the performance of your LAN, I presume.

Have fun and good luck.

[snoopy]

Hi,

Please never tamper with the TCP/IP stack. Please always be aware not everybody in the internet is your friend.

No way, this is the most fun I've had in a long time! :-)

Please stay with the default network settings and the manufacturer's default TCP/IP stack settings.

My five (+ three) cents.

Have fun with MT.

[Festus1965]

BTW - Are the Laptops truly linked by cable or did you just skip to mention your multi-level multi-tier WLAN? Or that on the flat above and below your own nice and costly living place?

No way, this is the most fun I've had in a long time! :-)

Have some more fun below the real desktops and check your physical network (i.e. all the cables and connectors), I suppose. Truly. Trust me or the below advice and give it some honest consideration.

????

In my Eyes this 4ms rtt show clear that the network is not an issue.
As in this moment my Client on my Work PC show 2 ms via USB2 to LAN-adapter 100MB, via Router (4 GB Ports) to server with 1GB Connection = 2ms for each 1 Meter cable length.

Right now, on my iMac, with nobody else in the game, /status shows max lag at 0.358s and debug shows:

The line above that post with the /status show 0.358 s lag is more interesting.
Maybe start the server just one time without all mods and see if then /status lag show 0.09s as that would be the lowest default possible and might show issues on server: hardware, CPU usage, IO memory, disc, etc. too much hard mods.

And further the fps 59 in the screenshot show quit clear that NOT the using the received data from server at and for the client is the problem, the client has no problem to create near 60 new frames per second.

I can reduce this problem sure onto the server itself - hardware, OS, MT, MT db up to mods - nowhere else

[monkeypox]

view range "r" unlimited uses much mem, "+ & -" lowering view range to less "-" helps (try around 100, enable fog will hide the blank loading world)
Disable all the fancy and effects on client.
Some of the server tweaks also work in the client mintest.conf

CalebJ mentioned performance settings. they help a lot. Check this forum sections very old and simple "Server performance settings"

If things don't improve start with vanilla and work your way up a few mods at a time until it gets bad.

[nocturnalwizard]

THANK YOU to EVERYONE who posted!! Wow! I'm so grateful for all of the input!

While a few responses kinda made me LOL, some others made me feel a little sad.

Might be not related to your issues but gives a picture that money might not always buy you the performance as expected...IMO you might be camouflaging some true technical issues with too much of a 'proud shopping list with price tags' here.

I apologize if the "$1,500 Netgate" comment came across as prideful bragging. I was just pointing out that I'm not running my LAN over an average consumer grade appliance, but instead, a very powerful enterprise grade router capable of 18+Gbps throughput. That was just to say that "I really don't think my LAN is the problem."

Again, the LAN basically needs an Ethernet hub, not a router with questionable setup and some misguided deep inspection firewall setting, I suppose.

Perhaps just my biased opinion: Netgate hardware + pfsense will outperform any ethernet hub on the planet.

Please be aware 'pfsense' is no OS (i.e., no computer Operating System) and current pfsense version would be 2.6.0 apparently but not some '22.05' of whatever government ready gadget.

FYI, pfSense comes in two flavors; pfSense Plus and pfSense CE (community edition). The Plus version uses a different version scheme. For example, pfSense Plus 22.01 and pfSense CE 2.6.0 were both released on the same day.

Sorry to bring you the bad news, but 'recompiling the server without [LuaJIT]' may only show that you might misunderstand some technical concepts. Please consider some research and self-educating on computer systems and modern software programming concepts.

Please be always sure your compile is truly making use of the LuaJIT provided by the system and not the last resort of Lua poor man's solution as provided with the MT source package.

I'm aware of what JIT is. I just read somewhere that there was some kind of problem with minetest/LuaJIT causing memory leaks / table overflows resulting in servers crashing once they reach 2GB memory usage, which is exactly what I was experiencing when attempting to run large worldedit operations. With JIT, my server (minetest software) kept crashing. So, I recompiled without JIT, and I was then able to manipulate 512x128x512 chunks of blocks. The only problem was, while running sqlite, it was eating up 24+GB of memory while doing so. So, I ultimately recompiled with both JIT and Postgre support and converted all my backends to use Postgre databases. Now I can easily manipulate 1024x128x1024 blocks with ease, and it hardly makes the needles budge on htop.

As to which version of LuaJIT I'm running:

Code: Select all

# apt search ^libluajit
Sorting... Done
Full Text Search... Done
libluajit-5.1-2/stable,now 2.1.0~beta3+dfsg-5.3 amd64 [installed,automatic]
  Just in time compiler for Lua - library version

libluajit-5.1-common/stable,now 2.1.0~beta3+dfsg-5.3 all [installed,automatic]
  Just in time compiler for Lua - common files

libluajit-5.1-dev/stable,now 2.1.0~beta3+dfsg-5.3 amd64 [installed]
  Just in time compiler for Lua - development files

No, not at all. "libspatialindex" is used for the efficient implementation of area stores (using R-Trees, if you're interested in the details); if you don't install/use it, Minetest will fall back to an inefficient linear search.

Ooooh, awesome. Thank you! I'll definitely recompile with that enabled just for giggles to see what happens.

In my Eyes this 4ms rtt show clear that the network is not an issue.

Agreed.

The line above that post with the /status show 0.358 s lag is more interesting.
Maybe start the server just one time without all mods and see if then /status lag show 0.09s as that would be the lowest default possible and might show issues on server: hardware, CPU usage, IO memory, disc, etc. too much hard mods.

Running default "devtest" game:

Code: Select all

# Server: version: 5.6.1 | game: Development Test | uptime: 1s | max lag: 0.0996s | clients:

so as much lag on a local network, and see rtt 4 ms, it is the server
thi hints on must be 5.6.1 are wrong ... my server run on 5.5.0 has one player login of 0.05s !!!

how much CPU usage on the server unit (htop ?) is shown when nobody online ?

Not sure. Kids are playing currently, so with 4 clients connected:

CPU0 33.6%
CPU1-31 0%
Mem 7.56/384.0G]
Tasks: 36, 36 thr, 2 running
Load average: 0.33 0.41 0.43

has the server gui also, and you might be able to open a client there and login that server = rtt 0ms, and show the
* cpu usage now
* /status lag shown on client ?

if taking one lan PC and login, what show the
* server CPU usage then ?
* that client (best is same client version as server to be sure) /status lag ?

so if server is always high, even with no one logged in (see same high CPU usage server htop),
stop the mt server and look how CPU usage of server changes ? down or still high ?
* if still high then system problem ...

I don't think it's the server.

so far yet for you to check out, as I have home server, self compiled and some about 25 local logins some time (PCs and a lot of mobile) and still never more than 0.5s even with 30 gamer

then after new results I see next step (guess if mt server causes need activate /profiler and search for the lag mod)
avoid hard lag impact mods ! if you don't have at least 4 cores over 3.0 Mhz, 32 GB RAM and mimimum an SSD (plus some tuning with cache and faster DB)

My server has 32 cores @ 2.9GHz and 384GB RAM, and I'm running Postgre, so I don't think any of that is the issue.

as check your top written server details : much cores does not help with mt, as use max 2 cores for main system = need faster CPU in MHz, if CPU threads of MTserver are always too high - they will NOT split up and use other Threads !
and so if this 2 MT server threads are always (too) high
* tuning with using free RAM for cache
* change MT to postgresql DB (faster) and also enlarge there caching = a big speed up
* and at the end, take off to laggy mods (activate /profiler in minetest.conf and take an export after 24 hours)
see example here

1. I regularly see the minetest server instance running multi-threaded. When running large worldedit operations, I've seen it use up to 5 or 6 if I remember correctly...

2. When you say "* tuning with using free RAM for cache" what are you referring to? Can I adjust minetestserver to use more memory?

3. Already running Postgre with shared_buffers = 4096MB

4. I don't have /profiler. Is that a mod? I attempted to search and only found this: LuaJIT Profiler

Good for you, whatever you've got there must be pretty incredible! 1 ABM is nothing, so the lag is coming from somewhere else. If you have a memory-intensive mapgen, or some very complicated logic, maybe that could explain it. Also, nesting tables in Lua can make for a very bad experience. :)

1. Mapgen = singlenode. I created a 2048x128x2048 block of stone using worldedit, then let the kids run with it from there.

2. No complicated logic...

3. I'm not nesting any tables in my mods.

Another thing you can do is toggle some server-side settings which can help you with the lag. Given your hardware, I wouldn't guess this would help much, but you never know - it might be the answer.

Check here:
https://github.com/minetest/minetest/bl ... mple#L2910 onwards. These settings can be lowered or increased to help server performance.

I actually think I got it all squared away, but I'll definitely keep this in my bookmarks for future reference!

But I wouldn't guess that's the problem. I think this is a client-side issue (the server is not lagging, your kids clients are!), based on what you've described. Laptops can't do a lot, so your heavy 3D models might be the culprit lagging your kids out of existence. Low-poly models are best (I would suggest rubenwardy's NodeBox Editor for casual nodes), and they're the only way you can save your FPS.

Could you provide some more information about those models (high-poly? what is a typical size (MB) for your models?), and how frequently they display in the game?

Now you're onto something. The clients were definitely the issue. As to the 3D models, I've just been learning how to build basic things (1-2 blocks in size). I've gone into a bit of detail with the bed, refrigerator, stove, etc... some examples:

bed.obj = 15.43KB
sign.obj = 1.03KB
xl_sign.obj = 1.04KB
refrigerator = 25.76KB
stove = 23.15KB

The only limitation I'm aware of with regard to meshes is 6 textures and 65536 vertices. Currently, I use no more than 2 textures (tiles) per mesh, and the most intricate design (refrigerator) has ~300 vertices.

view range "r" unlimited uses much mem, "+ & -" lowering view range to less "-" helps (try around 100, enable fog will hide the blank loading world)
Disable all the fancy and effects on client.
Some of the server tweaks also work in the client mintest.conf

CalebJ mentioned performance settings. they help a lot. Check this forum sections very old and simple "Server performance settings"

If things don't improve start with vanilla and work your way up a few mods at a time until it gets bad.

You hit the nail right on the head, my friend!

I built MT 5.6.1 from source on both the kid's laptops to replace the apt-installed version 5.1.1 and observed noticeable improvement from this alone, but once I logged them in, I noticed one had his view range set to 190 and the other to... get this... 350!!! What the heck! I figure they must have just been fumbling with the keyboard, because neither had any idea what the +/- buttons do lol. Needless to say, with 5.6.1, and tuning view range down to 50 on each, both laptops have now been running smoothly since yesterday!

Thank you all for all the wisdom and laughs, and my apologies to those I seem to have offended.

[Festus1965]

I make it short:
mt is not using several Threads, MAX 2 as I see on my server, more are threads from the ONLY as of mapgenerator,
but most time using on here now 24 days are just 2 mt threads, run most time

so not the amount of Threads is important, it is the GHz of it. I have a 3.4 GHz.
And with 2 player just now both are switching between 7-10% with some peaks reach 12%.
So just from this compare to your told % your mt server is very busy already.
And that can be lower Freq or more hard impact mods.

And if I would look for another CPU I would look for 4 core max, but as highest Freq I could get.


/profiler is build in already, you need to activate in minetest.conf

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profiler = true
profiler.load = true
profiler.default_report_format = txt

restart server to activate
and the longer the server run, the better the result about what mods are working most will be.

look this post about result from my server, and how I sort the extract to read it easier.

[Blockhead]

Yes. I was running stock sqlite3 for a while, but I've become quite the worldedit master, and larger operations would eat up about 24GB of memory then crash with a table overflow error, so I recompiled with pg support and set up Postgre. Now I can do massive worldedit operations (copying 1024 x 128 x 1024 chunks, for example) with no problem, and it's way faster, too.

To be pedantic, sounds like a software issue. If something is too big to do all at once in memory, you chunk it up into manageable bits of work and iterate through the chunks. Instead of asking Minetest to emerge the whole area at once and set all the nodes, emerge it in smaller areas, say 128x128x128, and set all of those. Sure it's nice that your database can take care of it for you, but I'd just like to point out the learning opportunity was there for you instead of third party, if you had wanted to go that route.

350!!! What the heck! I figure they must have just been fumbling with the keyboard, because neither had any idea what the +/- buttons do lol. Needless to say, with 5.6.1, and tuning view range down to 50 on each, both laptops have now been running smoothly since yesterday!

Why exactly did we start investigating network issues if we knew it was framerates all along? This is what makes me hate the word 'lag', because you never know what the person on the other end means. Network latency, or poor framerates?? Or did the client (your kids) just have trouble communicating that to IT support (you)?

All's well that ends well I suppose. Enjoy :)

[snoopy]

Hi,

@nocturnalwizard - You are welcome. This was a funny topic and I enjoyed it very much.

THANK YOU to EVERYONE who posted!! Wow! I'm so grateful for all of the input!

. . .

Thank you all for all the wisdom and laughs, and my apologies to those I seem to have offended.

No offence taken or learning of here. But I almost never take the time to read all the replies in a topic like this. Likewise my sincere apologies to any person who might feel ignored or misunderstood.

Please all be aware I myself mostly write texts with some greater anonymous audience in mind. I might quite seldom address directly to rather unknown people being hidden behind some avatar's name. We all should be just friendly MT players with observing some issues if technical and/or not.

Have fun with MT and your kids in particular.

[monkeypox]

Glad to help (:
I guess bad grades, low income = 2nd hand 1 GB ram laptop when I started minetest better than computer science degree? lol. Also, I ran my craptop as the server to be certain what the client would experince then moved that tweaked minetesst.conf to the real server.
Check out the other key binding that could cause problems.
"P" pitch move messes with direction control and can be a headache if you're unaware it's activated.
Also beware/teach of "F1","F6" or even "C"
You can configure the clients then remove their key bindings to be safe for kids.

[CalebJ]

Great to hear you've solved the issue. Viewing range can indeed be a big problem. I wish minetest made it more obvious that rendering so many blocks can cause a lot of lag!!

Happy playing to you and your kids.