[Poll] What emulater do you like best?

[Apoc]

I've seen many applications that use TCP do this method, but for UDP?

For applications that use UDP thread pooling is better because the amount of overhead you create when you create/destroy a thread counter acts the niceness of having it in it's own thread. The only viable method for a server that will scale beyond a couple hundred users requires a pool of worker threads that grab the packets from a Queue and then fire it back into another Queue for the network thread to send out. They start when the server starts, and the amount of them you run depends on the the number of packets currently waiting to be processed at a specific interval. (Main is nice for this)

Using this method you not only gain a speed boost by removing the overhead created in the creation/destruction of a thread, but you also save overhead from the massive number of threads that are in existence when there are many users online at one time.

Threading is nice so your service/application quality degrades more slowly until you over do it, and creating a new thread for each connection is server suicide if you need to have connections on the scale of WoW retail servers.

Here is a nice article summing it up (excuse the fact that it's Wikipedia ) : Thread pool pattern - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

AFAIK, WoW uses TCP, and not UDP. (Correct me if I'm wrong, and oh boy do I hope I'm wrong.) I haven't honestly looked into WoW's entire CNet class yet.

I agree completely. If WoW does utilize UDP, I'll move eWoW immediately to a proper threading structure. Until then, I'll stick to the TCP setup we have at the moment.

[Powerking89670]

AFAIK, WoW uses TCP, and not UDP. (Correct me if I'm wrong, and oh boy do I hope I'm wrong.) I haven't honestly looked into WoW's entire CNet class yet.

I agree completely. If WoW does utilize UDP, I'll move eWoW immediately to a proper threading structure. Until then, I'll stick to the TCP setup we have at the moment.

Well, I'm coming from the SWG emulation scene where SWG IS UDP. I've never seen an MMO to date that uses TCP. It's just bad for an MMO because a packet cannot drop whereas with UDP if you lose a packet for most things here or there it's not a big deal.

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I just looked it up. WoW uses TCP so you're in the right, but perhaps you could still consider a thread pooling method where one thread handles several clients instead of one per client?

I still feel that the implementation is far more important than the protocol. And I will go on the record and say that there is no way Blizzard is making a new thread for each and every player because that is just simply infeasible (at least when you start to approach the number of users per server that many of their servers have...I hear some get about 3,000 or so on at a time with an unbelievable number of packets per second which is purely amazing. That takes some skill to do.). It's too much for one server, but I do think that each of the WoW server's are indeed server clusters, so perhaps it is POSSIBLE they are using that method. But based on the fact that server space is very expensive, and they are a company who in the end must obey their shareholders I imagine they are trying to cut as much cost while still providing a playable game.

[mgX]

Yes wow uses tcp... Some things in wow wouldnt be possible without the use of tcp really... You see, because of wow's encryption, was it blowfish or something? there is a keyrotation, and if you dont recieve all the packets, youre sorta cut short and wont be able to decrypt packets untill you caught up with the keyrotation again. Also, wow uses some compressed packets, which cant be uncompressed without having the entire packet. But i agree, i would use UDP for most of the tough work like movement updates myself, since you would lose the 15-20% TCP overhead there is, making better use of resourses and BW.

But i must say, that with the right approach, using a threadpool is still the right way to go, since you would handle regions 1 at a time completely independantly. It requires a bit more work, but it'll pay off.

[~Keric Vi Britannia~]

While I'm not exactly familiar with all the other cores and different emulators out there, (Ascent, Antrix, ArcEmu, Trinity Core? Mangos and the like) The ones I do know, would atleast be ArcEmu, Ascent, and Mangos. I'd have to give ArcEmu my vote, because it's fluent enough for me to use, commands are easy for me to memorize, and all.

Mangos, would be getting my down vote (If there were such a thing) Because even if I stay on one server, as a GM or Administrator, or just someone with powers, or even on normal, I have the odd feeling of being uncomfortable. I hear alot, that Mangos is a stable, and great engine/emulator, and that it's one of the most blizz-like engine/emulators out there, I've just never been comfortable with the system, nor the commands. It gets a bit funkier too, when you see some random monster come out of nowhere, and hit you for (etc etc, really low damage) and you die for no apparent reason, when you're at the top of your game. And I see that a lot, in Mangos servers, so I just tend to just be a bit persnickity, and stay with ArcEmu.

^
| Reason. =D

[uxo]

Ascent (BURLEX-FAN LOL)

[Sharido]

ArcEmu myself.

I mainly screw around with different builds and such.

[Vindicated]

ArcEmu myself.

I mainly screw around with different builds and such.

You can screw around with different builds for any application

[Lulzi]

Other - I luv Trinity

[brian1775]

WoWBeeZ's private emulator; beezemu

[Algorithm]

Aspire Hearthstone, best working 3.1+ support , the most stable emulator out there right now.

Arcemu sux, uses like 40% more resources then aspire and has to much freaking lag with 1000+ users.

tested over 100 times.

1000+ online (Hearthstone core) average latency 178ms (uptime 5+ hours) (cpu usage 24%)

1000+ online (Arcemu core) average latency 478ms (uptime 1+ hours) (cpu usage 64%)

[AzolexX]

Aspire Hearthstone, best working 3.1+ support , the most stable emulator out there right now.

Arcemu sux, uses like 40% more resources then aspire and has to much freaking lag with 1000+ users.

tested over 100 times.

1000+ online (Hearthstone core) average latency 178ms (uptime 5+ hours) (cpu usage 24%)

1000+ online (Arcemu core) average latency 478ms (uptime 1+ hours) (cpu usage 64%)

Lies, there is no server with 1000+ players that use HS or ArcEmu, also your numbers are static, made up things.

[stoneharry]

Please, personal opinons, no need to contridict even if he is lieing of the top of his head

[Henkke]

Please, personal opinons, no need to contridict even if he is lieing of the top of his head

Statistics don't belong in personal opinions.
Especially when they are written as true (as in the post this refers to)

And offcourse if you bring up "statistics" like this:
"
tested over 100 times.

1000+ online (Hearthstone core) average latency 178ms (uptime 5+ hours) (cpu usage 24%)

1000+ online (Arcemu core) average latency 478ms (uptime 1+ hours) (cpu usage 64%)"

Especially the "Tested over 100 times." Part, im sure that you will have a graph/pictures/spreadsheet/something else, where you bring up the differences

[stoneharry]

Well the reason I created this thread was I was just interested in which people thought was the best emulater (in there opinions) and I knew some people were going to go "Oh Mangos has never crashed, more blizzlike than blizzard, Aspire is fail, doesn't even load up" and stuff, but just try and ignore it else you get pages of people argueing

[2dgreengiant]

ClainEmu is awesome tbh.