Friday Facts #315 - New test servers

[csduff]

This FFF really makes me want to build a new computer. I mean, I don't even think all my computers at home add up to 18 cores.

[Azzinoth]

But server room... Airco, UPS, sealed temperature controlled room, backup system please.

Lol, why would they need that? They aren't hosting anything critical.

[bluerock]

I was watching some old Command and Conquer: Red Alert videos and noticed that even though the game is very old, there are some basic animations on the edges of the bodies of water that help to give the illusion of the passage of time in the game. Factorio has the nice cloud shadows that pass overhead, but no water motion (except for occasional fish). There have been a lot of graphical updates, and was curious if the water was already considered complete or if there might be an update in this area? (or if someone might be able to mod in a coastline animation?)

[eradicator]

Ok, the toolbox i understand. But why the jerrycan?

fuel.png (209.66 KiB) Viewed 8021 times

[Inglonias]

I was watching some old Command and Conquer: Red Alert videos and noticed that even though the game is very old, there are some basic animations on the edges of the bodies of water that help to give the illusion of the passage of time in the game. Factorio has the nice cloud shadows that pass overhead, but no water motion (except for occasional fish). There have been a lot of graphical updates, and was curious if the water was already considered complete or if there might be an update in this area? (or if someone might be able to mod in a coastline animation?)

They mentioned something about this in a previous FFF. Not that they're doing it, but that they're aware of how nice it would be.

We also wanted to allow transitions from any terrain type and water. With some adjustments to our new alpha-masking capabilities we were able to create few sets of transition sprites, most of which are shared by multiple tile types. The new problem now is that the transitions are screaming for animated water now. Oh, well...

[BlueTemplar]

Oh my, that is your server room.... Ordinary shelving. Window open for cooling. No UPS, or are those the 2 boxea at the bottom. Come on guys you should be doing better than this.

Former Network Manager.

I forgive you so long as you keep producing such an awesome game. But server room... Airco, UPS, sealed temperature controlled room, backup system please.

, automatic doors gates, biter anti-defense system...

Ok, the toolbox i understand. But why the jerrycan?

fuel.png

For the aforementioned biter defense system (flame turret!). Also, what do you think that spidertron runs on ?

[BlueTemplar]

Would you be willing to benchmark some CPUs you have to show how Factorio behaves on different CPUs? I'm planning to build new computer and Factorio is basically the only CPU heavy application I use. So I'd love to know how current CPUs handle Factorio, but it's superdifficult to get any relevant information.

What are you missing from already created benchmarks ?

[BHakluyt]

I only caught one word...

"spidertron"

Yes please!

[luc]

Read spidertron, stopped reading, read comments, disappointed, will now continue reading.

[ledow]

Oh my, that is your server room.... Ordinary shelving. Window open for cooling. No UPS, or are those the 2 boxea at the bottom. Come on guys you should be doing better than this.

Former Network Manager.

I forgive you so long as you keep producing such an awesome game. But server room... Airco, UPS, sealed temperature controlled room, backup system please.

Same (but not former).

I'm disappointed that they haven't just got a blade setup for everything. Having "test" machines that are off-the-shelf servers is an expensive game to play, especially as they obsolete.

Buy a blade system - every time things take too long, shove in another blade, or another processor into the blades. If you have any kind of parallelism in the process, and buy decent blades in the first place, it'll walk over i9's in a box. Not to mention can be pulled for other things via virtualisation etc.

I wouldn't be surprised if they haven't spent more, and got less, than just buying a blade system in the first place and using it for everything.

[BlueTemplar]

Guys, they have to test on hardware approaching what the buyers of the game will have... if you start talking about "blades", aren't you going into very specific server hardware ?

[DaleStan]

But server room... Airco, UPS, sealed temperature controlled room, backup system please.

Lol, why would they need that? They aren't hosting anything critical.

"Not critical" doesn't mean "no backups". This forum isn't critical, but it should still be backed up. mods.factorio.com isn't critical, but it should still be backed up. Your family photos aren't critical, but they should still be backed up.
(This post has been brought to you by the backup software your favorite podcaster, Twitch streamer, or Youtuber recommends.)

And Wube probably is hosting critical things. Even if their source is cloud-hosted, they probably still store authentication secrets, RSA private keys, and similar things locally.

[MasterBuilder]

Ok, the toolbox i understand. But why the jerrycan?

lol. Thanks for the laugh, but that black one's a toolbox too. I'll bet money there's another red tab on the other side like on the green box.

[Inglonias]

But server room... Airco, UPS, sealed temperature controlled room, backup system please.

Lol, why would they need that? They aren't hosting anything critical.

"Not critical" doesn't mean "no backups". This forum isn't critical, but it should still be backed up. mods.factorio.com isn't critical, but it should still be backed up. Your family photos aren't critical, but they should still be backed up.
(This post has been brought to you by the backup software your favorite podcaster, Twitch streamer, or Youtuber recommends.)

And Wube probably is hosting critical things. Even if their source is cloud-hosted, they probably still store authentication secrets, RSA private keys, and similar things locally.

I fully agree with you, but given how thorough they are, I can't possibly imagine that Wube doesn't have the required backups.

I really don't want to be wrong here.

Be sure to keep at least some of your backups off-site, by the way. That way, if your office burns down (god forbid), you still have backups. This goes for everyone. Whether you're using cloud based storage or just keeping flash drives in your friend's closet, having an off-site backup is a really good idea.

[xeln4g4]

Nohintg in particular just want to congratulate with all you guys ... you are doing an excellent job! Nice video!

[seePyou]

So basically you found out what we knew, that on the same memory dimms, intel processors work better. That is because Factorio is not a highly core dependent game, but very memory hungry; the faster the memory and the higher the single core GHz, the better.

Now imagine what the intel rig will do with better memory modules!

[malventano]

So basically you found out what we knew, that on the same memory dimms, intel processors work better. That is because Factorio is not a highly core dependent game, but very memory hungry; the faster the memory and the higher the single core GHz, the better.

Now imagine what the intel rig will do with better memory modules!

In addition to this point, and in-line with my own observations while saving the map, I'd venture a guess that you would see the fastest possible heavy mode performance with a (far cheaper) 9900K system. 9900K gets a higher turbo as well as a higher all-core frequency compared to the other parts. Also, some of that bottleneck may be storage IO, so it may be worth a look at potential boost from lower latency storage. If the map is small enough, save to a RAMdisk, or to Optane, etc.

There may also be some performance being left on the table during the saves themselves, as evidenced by observed stalls while saving larger maps or even just quitting a map that has lots of RAM allocated (without saving).

[TatsuZZMage]

Careful with RGB lit equipment there is an ssd with RGB lights that makes it heat up to temps that cause it to throttle to a standstill and crash windows.

[ske]

Spidertron should be an Easter egg in 1.0

[eradicator]

Careful with RGB lit equipment there is an ssd with RGB lights that makes it heat up to temps that cause it to throttle to a standstill and crash windows.

Spidertron eggs need to be kept warm.