homepage Forums Air Combat & Civil Aviation Rise of Flight - The First Great Air War A Major Want

This should be possible without much trouble -- depending on code of course which may be spaghetti.

If a sim with network capability and AI were to be compiled without player parts; graphics, controls,
many things that require expensive hardware THEN such an exe could be used to run extra AI on LAN
using older computer(s) or maybe just take the AI load off the players PC. WTH, such a supportive
version could run on net servers to provide AI support.

It would lower hardware requirements and improve the game if used. It would allow AI more resources
though I should worry about too-smart AI? Such would benefit offline players (the majority) as well
as online at least for those of us who have the older machines or cores of older machines. If you
don't then look around, cheaper PC's by far than gaming edge are available and have plenty of power.

Viks, ask your AI programmer(s) if a dedicated AI PC would not absolutely rock!

Back when I coded for a living there were compile toggles that would make such a thing easy enough to
do without needing two sources for two exe's.

If im understand correctly, you talkin about server/client controlled AI`s?

I think that's what he meant - the user's PC is one step up from a dumb terminal.

Instead of a server keeping track of positions and states of aircraft for all the folks on a server, in his scenario the server is doing the Big Math of AI as well as position and state tracking.

This would free up the terminal for graphics and localized FM/DM.

The problem is where the server is actually lower spec than the PC! My IL-2 server, for example, is a dinosaur - 1.3 GHz Athalon with (get this) 128 MB RAM. That's okay, as the computing needed to run a server is very low and the bandwith is a fire hose, so long as I don't have more than 25 in the server at one time.

It's actually pretty cool - the hosting service had it (literally, I'm sure) lying around, some space on the rack, and a killer per month price to set it up for me.

I've often thought it would be nice if each AI were a separate thread that could then be farmed out to any machine in a pool. So running a server with three clients attached, you would farm AI pilot threads out to all 4 machines according to CPU load. And as Neal suggests, if you had some extra machines you could then run headless clients in the grid who were only there to take on the load of AI pilot threads.

I'm trying to think if there are any other aspects that could be neatly farmed out like this - perhaps the actual physical behaviour (flight model) of planes?

Effectively you'd be operating all the computers attached to the server as a grid computer.

Peer to peer would work. Just another PC on network except it only runs AI.
If the network is LAN then you have home setup with zero lag.

It would have to use the same code as the full game only with most user parts stripped out.
Parts left in would be startup the game and choose action though it would be great if all that
could be initiated by one machine running the full game.
Anything more would require too much extra development and be undesirable.

I guess as server-client you might get away with not needing monitors on the AI-only machines.
I could see stacking up mobo's in a box for something like that.

Goodness, man....if one is going to spend the money for an in-home LAN, one can afford a high end computer and not have to run cable.

I'm trying to get my head around this thread.
I get the technical stuff, but where is it going to be hosted. In a managed server environment it is going to add a great deal of cost.
for home users how practical is it going to be? bearing in mind most people only want one PC in their home.
How many will actually take up this option?


In the past I have run IL2 COOPs on a spare machine, graphics turned right down and then joined that server as a client. How many IL2'ers do that? Not many I'd think, so how many would use it in RoF?
Is it worth Neoqb's time to code this for us?

If it's treating all computers attached to the session as a grid, then it should be fully scalable without adding cost to the server. If the server is very low powered then the work of running the AI pilots is balanced out to the high powered clients.

As for extra headless slaves - if you'd set it up as being able to run on a grid, it shouldn't be much effort to allow the slave processes to run without graphics and input. Not sure it would be massively useful because as you say it's doubtful how many people would have the spare hardware and bother to do it, but if the system were architected with this in mind it ought not to be a major development headache.

Of course this late in the development cycle if they haven't already gone down this road it's highly unlikely they will be in a position to do this without major refactoring work.

Ahhhh! I get it now, load balancing the AI calculations across the clients. How would high ping/bad connections be handled in that scenario. Would the main PC need to set a minimum requirement, so that a client with a bad connection doesn't pull the game down?

load balancing the AI calculations across the clients

So that's why I always end up against the reincarnation of the Red Baron, got it now. I must get a faster computer

Or possibly a slower one hmm

Ming

If done properly, the Pentium III guy on dialup wouldn't pay any processing tax.

The obvious problem is when the critical mass of computers sharing the load isn't met (or there is a severe inbalance), and the one guy with the T1 line and the Cray is running about as well as the guy with the Pentium III because of the computing tax being placed on his box and not the others.

(That's an extreme example, btw)

The big advantage with the sharing of AI and other processing is that the more players online, the more players one can have online with more objects. Server limitations as to the number of players and AI objects scales right on up with the number of people joining.

So imagine 50 people in a dogfight room (read persistant battlefield) all sharing the AI load, which increases with computing power, and one more joins. At first he's doing all the number crunching (computer of one connected to a server), but as he is acknowledged by the network and his connection/processing speed is determined, part of the computing is gradually placed onto his machine. More enemy AI planes are allowed to be spawned by triggers, random missions are generated for the AI, and maybe there's an Infantry rush across the front lines (with Artillery).

Now let's say folks start leaving the server, meaning the pool of processing ability decreases. Based on an order of merit, AI units begin to shut down. The Infantry hunker down (disappear), and AI flights that are well outside of visual range of players go into the void. Observation balloons are cranked back down to the ground.

Eventually there is just one person left on the server, and it's pretty quiet. A couple of recon planes and a small patrol....and then the second person joins, ratcheting up the processing ability and the number of AI.....

I wonder what the overhead would be. Two on a server does not double the AI, and two more doesn't double it again....

Anyhow, fascinating idea for online/LAN play.

One has two old PCs besides one's single-core AMD 2600 that will need replacing to run this sim.
Wouldn't it be nice if the 2600 and maybe the better older machine could be pressed in service
as AI support? I don't think that a well under $10 cable (www.cableclub.com) or even a hub as
major expenses compared to a much more powerful PC than a 2nd wave (year old technology) machine.

As to who would have a second computer -- how many people are having to upgrade to play RoF?
If you knew you could use your old machine to boost the new one -at home-, would you keep the old?

The biggest boost is for the home user but it should be possible for the home user to go online and
get AI support from another machine *if available* that plays exactly as a bunch of other online
players that are as good/bad as the AI. His PC would only see other players.

It's as scalable as multiplayer already is.

IL2 when online -already- shares out the AI load between machines, BTW.
That does nada for the offline user nor can it take the total AI load off anyone's PC.
I'd like to see what is go the next step.

Once again, how good might the AI get if it had a PC all to itself?
Isn't Artificial Idiot one of the big letdowns of most every flight sim out?
I'm just doing the math, gentlemen.

Dart - rather than deleting AI people on the fly, I would think that each AI thread would be a time synchronized loop running a decision tree. The more processing power "spare", the further down the tree it can go before the loop has to return a decision, so the cleverer it is.

On this basis, AI would get smarter or dumber as people join or leave the server and the grid's processing power increased and diminished, rather than AI units suddenly appearing or disappearing. Of course, the server could still take intelligent decisions as to whether or not it could afford to spawn new units depending on the power available to it.

I'd favour the F4 "bubble" approach to allow AI units to be treated in a vastly simplified way when no real person was within sight regardless - it ought to work better in WWI, to, where BVR combat isn't really an issue!

That would definately be a better option in design!

My way could have players witness a big *poof* of disappearing aircraft and objects.

Is it client-server to have support PC's? Maybe it is.

I think I know how to say it now.

The AI server should have configuration and then MP connect options on the Menu able to change by
operator or by bot/daemon. It connects just as a player would but supplies AI's instead of player.

First address I want it to use is LAN between my newest PC and the last one with all my 2nd best parts.

A big game server with a load of AI support PC's on LAN would not have any of those AI choking the
net connection bandwidth to real players. How much AI could an AMD 1700 with 1G RAM support?

A really major want is a simple little button that exports all your configurations as a backup file.
That's what I want.

For that you write a batch file and point a Windoze shortcut button to it.
You can make a restore button too.

Add: you might even write a little program allowing you to name the save and set the path while you're at it.

Yes, or I might let someone else do it...