X99 is last gen. It's good if you need 64gb ram and are on a budget, it uses the older Ddr3 spec. For my money though, the new Z170 set is where it's at. $330 for the unlocked 4.0ghz i7?  Redic.. Yes it uses more expensive Ddr4, but I don't think you need that much for eqemu, 32 or even 16 should be enough to run 16-20 boxes. One of the pc I play ez on has 4gb and it's good for 8 boxes with still 20-25% ram free, and I haven't done any extreme stripping, just turned off all luclin models.. that's it.

You may want to review that - it's pretty much dead wrong on all accounts.  X99 current chipsets support DDR4 and in fact 4 channels of it versus 2 on the Z170. They also support more PCI-E lanes. From a future proofing perspective the X99 is the best bet - however if you want a very good budget system the Z170 is a good choice.

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/chipsets/performance-chipsets/x99-chipset.html

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/chipsets/performance-chipsets/z170-chipset-diagram.html

I'd love to see a monster missions/control implemented in whatever the top tier is at the time. That way you guys can grief each other all you like in those zones

Funny - didn't realize the move was taking place. I wouldn't have minded checking in on the hardware after shipment/racking, but I'm sure all will be smooth. I'd schedule some raid verifies if they haven't taken place since I shipped out however.

Hardware is pretty much done so some new pictures.


Front of the unit sitting on my bench - 4 of the SAS hot swaps are active on the 8 port raid controller (10k SAS) and one is a cold spare. If you look in the 5.25in bay you'll see a quad 2.5in hot swap mounted to handle the 4 data SSD's which are on the other 4 ports of the main raid controller. Just above them hidden behind the 3.5in bay cover are another set of mirrored 40GB SSD's on a secondary raid controller to handle the VMWare operations.


Two Raid 6 arrays - one on the 10k's and one with the 4 ssd's.

In case anyone is interested (large picture)



Server progress so far - It's been swung into a 2U Chassis. Motherboard was replaced (same model just new) as were CPU fans. I added another small Intel SSD to match the original one hopefully to have a mirrored set booting VMWare Hypervisor and had a custom plate cut for the RMM. There are 4 additional SSD's (Samsung 128GB 840 Pro's) waiting on a 5.25 hot swap mounting kit (waiting on it to arrive) - these 4 will be in a raid array on one channel of the new raid controller while on the other channel will be a total of 4 SAS 10k Disks hot swap disks (still waiting on the extras of these to arrive - some are original)

I've upgraded all the various firmwares - bios/fru/sdr/bmc/rmm/raid/both types of ssds etc to current. Once the remaining hardware arrives - hyper-v will get loaded and then some operating systems on top of that. I provided a few of the hardware items but the vast majority were provided by Akkadius via your donations - so good work to you all on that.

I'll post again when it gets closer to complete.

You just have to drop me a line letting me know what you want/need and I'll do my best. Obviously I haven't played for many years but I know the hardware that EZ runs on better than anyone else, so Akkadius and Hatebourne if you need any assistance with that aspect of it especially with configuring the lights out management tools that are built into it for the new environment just let me know. I did a SSD life check with Hunter not that long ago and it seemed there was plenty of life available there, but I'm a bit more concerned about the mirrored set of SAS disks I put in for OS functions at this point especially if the physical hardware is going to be shipped.

Haven't played in ages but I'm with whoever said that spells like DT/Fear/Charm have no place in EQ mechanics almost 100%. I'm not against some usage of Fear (light - long recast periods with ability to resist from the get go) but DT and irresistible charm really are bad spells/tools. I actually feel the same about root combined with knockbacks - yes there are game mechanics to prevent it from being a problem but it doesn't solve an issue in an encounter generally so why do it? Just to require more button mashings is how it feels sometimes.

So what if you read the same file located in the same cell 10,000x

Simple answer - no impact to the cell.

If you wanted to get super technical no appreciable impact to the cell which is slightly different.

Going to sound presumptuous, but are you considering it for server? I ask because I've heard quite a few horror stories of SSDs being used for highly active databases and the drives keeling over extremely fast. I have also heard stories of people popping a bone for SSDs as DB drives. It seems to be case by case thing at the moment. The main difference that I do remember from the two is that a standard HDD will slowly die down (decreasing in performance and slowly increasing chance for data corruption¹) whereas the SSD will work one and simply quit when it's dead.

There are also a few mentions of SSDs slowing down as they fill up. How true this is remains to be seen (as this was a common hearsay ~10 years ago with current hard drive types). The only substance seems to be enterprise level SSDs having much more "hidden" (for lack of a better word) space to allow for 'pinch hitters' when certain sections start to slow/fail than a standard consumer drive (numbers from a quick search seem to be 15-25% hidden for enterprise and 0-7% for consumer).

Finally, the one comment that I have seen repeatedly is avoid cheap drives and avoid OCZ's lower end. I hear nothing but horror stories about off-brand or inexpensive drives (being used for critical things ...dumbasses). It would also be a HIGHLY advisable suggestion to try and RAID the drives. RAID1 for small number (2-3) or RAID5 for three and above. The mirroring or drive replacement allows you to pop another drive in when one fails and not have to "OHSHI" restore from back up.


-Hate



¹ - This is not to imply that standard HDD is bad or that this is currently happening. Simply stating that data corruption occurs and slightly increases as the drive is pushed past it's rated life span. This should be nothing new though.

EZ Server in it's current generation has been running on a SSD for the database. That's what helps keep it so fast - the os and rest of the data are in a raid 1. It is not a cheap SSD however, that isn't to say it doesn't need maintenance from time to time, but it will show it's usable life cycle if the proper tools are loaded and used. Instructions have been sent for that in particular.

Check email for answers specific to EZ Server hardware.

Man the funniest thing I remember about him was from Vent, he used to make us all crack up hysterically (my wife included) when he would talk about what he most wanted to do in life (hint: deaf girl). The voices he would use... So politically incorrect, but so funny.

I'm ready no doubt, but haven't had the time to really log in for more than 5 minutes, let alone play.

Everyone wants a piece of the crab! 

So no indication as to what happend? or if any more damage was done?

Pure speculation but from what people are describing as happening ie the server coming online and going back offline yet still showing large chunks of population playing on it - I'd say it's a routing issue between Hunter's ISP and the Login Server ISP. Something must be impacting those routes so it may not show on the login server when the routes are down/congested but it wouldn't impact people's ability to play that are already logged in.

Hence it isn't a server issue.

I also crashed killing White last night..

i crash it around every 2.5 to 3 hours..
client SOF
8 toons in zone

basic MQ2 plugins loaded
--only non basic would be mq2spawnmaster on 1 or 2 of my toons but i doubt this would cause crashes

i still think its the client and i don't think anyone will ever be able to fix it..
it is what it is.. take it or leave it

I've endured it and completed T5

keep going guys.. did you try zoning out then back in every 2 hours?

interesting, I run titanium client with 6 toons (outside of zoning in looters at times) and I've run 15+ hours straight without a crash.