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<H1>Re: [MUD-Dev] Collecting ideas for a MUD server... (fwd)</H1>
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<LI><em>To</em>: <A HREF="mailto:mud-dev#kanga,nu">mud-dev#kanga,nu</A></LI>
<LI><em>Subject</em>: Re: [MUD-Dev] Collecting ideas for a MUD server... (fwd) </LI>
<LI><em>From</em>: J C Lawrence <<A HREF="mailto:claw#kanga,nu">claw#kanga,nu</A>></LI>
<LI><em>Date</em>: Wed, 22 Dec 1999 23:38:09 -0800</LI>
<LI><em>Reply-To</em>: <A HREF="mailto:mud-dev#kanga,nu">mud-dev#kanga,nu</A></LI>
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<PRE>
On Wed, 22 Dec 1999 21:54:37 -0500 (EST)
Rahul Sinha <rsinha#glue,umd.edu> wrote:
> On Wed, 22 Dec 1999, J C Lawrence wrote:
>> On Wed, 22 Dec 1999 13:54:23 -0800 Justin Rogers
>> <justin#mlstoday,com> wrote:
> keep in mind, multiple threads ought not seperate themselves on
> seperate cpus due to cache coherency issues...
Careful there. Cache coherency is important, yes, but depending on
the volatility of your working set flushing your local caches may
not be a significant factor in your general performance. Given a
reasonably large and active world in fact, this is almost
guaranteed.
> the only reason to have threads is to eliminate wait for blocking
> operations.
Not so fast. That is one reason.
One reason which I use is so that different operations may run
simultaneously at different process priorities. Another reason is
to allow more fine grained process scaling on MP boxen. Yet another
reason is to help give a facility to present a seemingly fine
cooperative grained parallel process model without actually having
to implement it or its complex lock semantics. A yet further reason
is to gain the simplicity of inherently supporting the same data and
process model for local threaded operations as I do for distributed
processing operations.
> If you have one thread-per-zone, each thread can iterate across
> the actions provided by the users, and any blocking that needs be
> done (eg database access hits, which are fast, but if you want
> your ticks to be under a second, should be considered blocking
> operations) does not stop the entire program, the cpu can go work
> on another zone.
Ahem. Consider the following, taken from a rather old post
describing my approach and minorly edited:
The server itself knows nothing about the game it is representing. It has
no parser, game knowedge, or anything else application specific. All it
does is represent a database and provide a scripting language.
The database consists of records. Each record defines an object in the
MUD world. An object may have attributes, methods, verbs defined
on it, an inheritance structure relating its content to other
objects.
The server is entirely event driven. The definition of "event"
below is not the typical systems definition of "event", but rather
is used to reference an atomic processing action that occurs
within the game-world's purview. It is an "event" in the sense
that it is a "happening", or an instance of a state change.
Every event executes asynchronously in its own thread using a lockless
data model.
I don't guarantee order of execution of two unrelated events.
The server core consists of the following base units:
-- DB
-- Dispatchor
-- Executor
-- Connector
The Dispatchor consists of two threads which own and operate the Event List.
The Event List contains an entry for every event which has been logged
with the system but not processed yet.
One thread in the dispatchor handles placement of new entries onto the
Event List. The other thread processes the list looking for "ripe" events
(ie ones ready to be executed).
Ripe events are sent to the Executor where they are placed in an Event
Queue. The Event Queue is a priority queue with events ordered by their
own execution priority.
The Executor manages the Event Pool, a local pool of threads (the number
dynamically grows and shrinks at runtime depending on load) which are used
to execute the events pulled off the Event Queue. Threads in the Event Pool
are re-used to execute ripe events.
Events are pulled off the Event Queue in priority order and handed to the
first available thread in the Event Pool.
Events that fail to commit are rescheduled with the Executor at a
different priority and re-enter the priority queue and scheduling
as appropriate.
Event's have no effect upon the DB or state until and unless they
commit. (see C&C and the lockless model in general)
Compleated events can log futher/later events back to the Dispatchor for
subsequent animation. This is how mobiles are animated for instance.
User IO arrives thru the Connector. The connector is essentially a pool of
threads which asynchronously manage the general pool of outside connections.
A seperate monitor is responsible for keeping the IO network tree happy.
User commands arrive at the Connector and are immediately sent to the
Dispatchor as Execute-In-Zero-Time (ie no delay) events. The event logged
is actually to parse the command as entered. The dispatchor then routes
the event to the Executor, it runs the event and the resultant parse creates
a new event which is logged with the Dispatchor to actually execute the
intended action.
You can read about the lockless DB model in the list archvies or the
list FAQ (recently posted).
> data coherency important, many threads accessing one datapoint
> bad.
Amusingly for the general case the C&C model explicitly loses this
by making most data event-local. Where you get nasty cache
contention is for actively referenced objects in the DB copy cache
that don't actually get modified by anyone -- but I don't seem to
run into that case too too much, especially given the fact that I'm
only running on 2-CPU boxes.
--
J C Lawrence Home: claw#kanga,nu
----------(*) Other: coder#kanga,nu
--=| A man is as sane as he is dangerous to his environment |=--
_______________________________________________
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<li><strong><A NAME="00763" HREF="msg00763.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Collecting ideas for a MUD server... (fwd)</A></strong>
<ul compact><li><em>From:</em> Rahul Sinha <rsinha@glue.umd.edu></li></ul>
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<ul><li>Thread context:
<BLOCKQUOTE><UL>
<LI><STRONG>Re: [MUD-Dev] Collecting ideas for a MUD server... (fwd)</STRONG>, <EM>(continued)</EM>
<ul compact>
<ul compact>
<ul compact>
<LI><strong><A NAME="00732" HREF="msg00732.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Collecting ideas for a MUD server... (fwd)</A></strong>,
Justin Rogers <a href="mailto:justin@mlstoday.com">justin@mlstoday.com</a>, Wed 22 Dec 1999, 21:58 GMT
<UL>
<LI><strong><A NAME="00746" HREF="msg00746.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Collecting ideas for a MUD server... (fwd)</A></strong>,
J C Lawrence <a href="mailto:claw@cp.net">claw@cp.net</a>, Thu 23 Dec 1999, 01:41 GMT
<UL>
<LI><strong><A NAME="00750" HREF="msg00750.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Collecting ideas for a MUD server... (fwd)</A></strong>,
Rahul Sinha <a href="mailto:rsinha@glue.umd.edu">rsinha@glue.umd.edu</a>, Thu 23 Dec 1999, 05:36 GMT
<UL>
<LI><strong><A NAME="00756" HREF="msg00756.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Collecting ideas for a MUD server... (fwd)</A></strong>,
Christopher Kohnert <a href="mailto:cjkohner@brain.uccs.edu">cjkohner@brain.uccs.edu</a>, Thu 23 Dec 1999, 07:34 GMT
</LI>
<LI><strong><A NAME="00757" HREF="msg00757.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Collecting ideas for a MUD server... (fwd)</A></strong>,
J C Lawrence <a href="mailto:claw@kanga.nu">claw@kanga.nu</a>, Thu 23 Dec 1999, 07:38 GMT
<UL>
<LI><strong><A NAME="00763" HREF="msg00763.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Collecting ideas for a MUD server... (fwd)</A></strong>,
Rahul Sinha <a href="mailto:rsinha@glue.umd.edu">rsinha@glue.umd.edu</a>, Thu 23 Dec 1999, 17:00 GMT
<UL>
<LI><strong><A NAME="00772" HREF="msg00772.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Collecting ideas for a MUD server... (fwd)</A></strong>,
J C Lawrence <a href="mailto:claw@kanga.nu">claw@kanga.nu</a>, Thu 23 Dec 1999, 17:48 GMT
</LI>
</UL>
</LI>
</UL>
</LI>
<LI><strong><A NAME="00764" HREF="msg00764.html">[MUD-Dev] Two threads forced to one CPU? (was: Collecting ideas for a MUD server...)</A></strong>,
Wesley W. Terpstra <a href="mailto:terpstra@iota.dhs.org">terpstra@iota.dhs.org</a>, Thu 23 Dec 1999, 17:00 GMT
<UL>
<LI><strong><A NAME="00771" HREF="msg00771.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Two threads forced to one CPU? (was: Collecting ideas for a MUD server...)</A></strong>,
J C Lawrence <a href="mailto:claw@kanga.nu">claw@kanga.nu</a>, Thu 23 Dec 1999, 17:31 GMT
</LI>
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