PricelineNegotiator wrote:I don't know if this was Dev top secret information, but one of the devs told me it had to do with the Refractor engine's limitations with handling memory server-side. Essentially, the server never dumps, or at least does a poor job of dumping information from the server memory. After a while (5-6 maps), the server crashes because it can't hold all of these limes. It sounds like a rather sensible cause for the issue, as the people who wrote the engine probably didn't plan on huge maps, objects, etc etc having to be loaded constantly.
I could be completely wrong, but someone definitely said that to me at one point in the last 6 months. The cause was known, but a fix was not.
This is precisely what I alluded to in my post but I would expect anyone with minimal knowledge to be able to test this and would fit with the ever increasing size of maps, variation and so on.
Adding even more without optimizing anything, hacking the source-code or god knows what the issue is just going to get worse, if this is true.
By the way, I think we're down to 3-4 maps nowdays.
I used to play this game most during 0.8-0.9. I can't remember many crashes back then.
The maps were a bit smaller, there were some quite simple maps.
But I think the biggest difference is the smaller amount of variation and fewer assets.
Battlefield 2 had to load alot of different maps too, they weren't that small. But the server had to remember fewer asset locations.
Speculating in how memory works and what gets flushed after what is always difficult (some people love doing it in simple console games to achieve all sorts of cool effects) but I would start by trying to run perhaps somewhat less detailed maps with few or no variations between the teams and disabling certain assets.
One server should follow my advice or some similar advice by someone who knows more about this game and see how it goes.
For example: Run only US vs MEC maps (to be safe, the older ones that didn't crash like K-desert) with minimal vehicles and disable the majority of assets you can place except for fobs and what ever you deem absolutely necessary. Then run the server for one day and see if it crashes.
