[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Cool new idea for Civserver

[paulz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

On Wed, Jan 26, 2000 at 12:27:40AM +1100, dnh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> I was thinking about how brilliant the civserver is and I got a really
> good idea.
> I have noticed that games have started to be deleted from the top....
> Would it be possible to begin filing these games....
> 
> The Directory structure  could go along the lines of.. 2, 3, 4, .....
> player games....
> Gen 1, 2, 3, 4
> Or the other way round. Is that info stored in the files, I beleive it is,
> so it wouldn't be that difficult to automate it...
> 
> It would make a great reference... and somebody with alot of time *could*
> go through and analyse some of them =)
> 
> Just a thought.... Darth bob
> 
> p.s. I really like the Civserver... it is great to go over your games once
> they are finished... especially after a great victory =)... but why does
> it take so long to process? thanks
> 

Well a few comments here from me ;)

I am not sure I understand the meaning of your second paragraph above
so I can't comment on that.

My goal is to put all of the game information into a database.  Each game
would be a row and we could store all the other information about the
game in a seperate field.  This way someone could really over analyse
the games.  (e.g. "show me all the games with 500 huts on gen 2 with a
map size over 80x50 that lasted past 1000AD")  However there are a few
obsticles to this, the biggest one being time.  Reinier Post and I have
written most of the code that controls civserver, and we are both rather
busy right now.  We have talked about releasing the code but even doing
that would require a bit of time.  (If anyone ones to help with it, let
me know and we can all talk about what best to do.)

Regarding the speed of civserver, it is slow because its running on
an old P166.  Also the algorithm to create the information is far from
optimized.  It would be best to be creating the animated map on the fly
as the game is being created, then leave the graphs for processing when
the game has finished.  But a note about the game finishing.  It is
only done when no one is connected to the game for over 60 seconds.
Once the game is "over" a cron job comes through and clears out some
temporary information.  Then later another cronjob comes through (only
every 15 minutes and at a nice -19 so as not to disturb anyone playing)
and creates all the graphics.  So thats the long version as to why its
so slow.

-- 
Paul Zastoupil