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Going Dark....


DeHammer

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So our gaming group is disbanding and we're cancelling our server. Why? Because Genesis 2 turned out to be a memory hog according to our host service. Days after Genesis 2 released, our hosting service 'Host Havoc' decided the map was sucking too much memory and they began to demand 16 GB minimum memory for their Ark servers. That wouldn't have been so bad had they at least given us time to get our stuff off the map. Nope. They just began killing the game's service whenever we fire it up. Their claim is that Wild Card Studios is to blame. So our game was held ransom for the last couple of weeks. 

So after paying for Genesis Season Pass and waiting all this time to play... we get caught up in a squabble between Wild Card & Host Havoc over the Genesis 2 map leaking memory.

Done with both companies. 

596400892_arkissue-Copy.JPG.3d83e4e1b94ffea99ad5eac274f8ca8f.JPG

 

I was hoping to change hosts, but I think everyone else in the group is done with all the BS. 

 

 

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10 minutes ago, DeHammer said:

596400892_arkissue-Copy.JPG.3d83e4e1b94ffea99ad5eac274f8ca8f.JPG

The real issue here is them portraying the fact that a map is using more memory than another as an "issue". There is much more going on in Gen2 than any other map. Just compare their folders size which, by itself isn't a representation of the memory used but gives a good idea of the resources scaling difference needed to run it compared to the others:

  • Aberration: 550 MB (577,758,287 bytes) + 176 MB (184,621,540 bytes)
  • Extinction: 664 MB (696,829,967 bytes) + 262 MB (274,901,945 bytes)
  • Genesis: 869 MB (911,787,939 bytes) + 427 MB (448,507,274 bytes)
  • Genesis 2: 2.90 GB (3,118,933,599 bytes) + 566 MB (593,834,198 bytes)
  • Scorched Earth: 447 MB (469,408,955 bytes) + 95.8 MB (100,476,711 bytes)

And that do not include all the cross-shared assets from the base game and/or other maps, etc. that are also being used. The reality is that; it is a bigger map. That requires more resources. Could WC push optimizations and improvements to reduce the memory consumption? Certainly. Does the current usage is an "issue"? Nope.

26 minutes ago, DeHammer said:

over the Genesis 2 map leaking memory.

I don't think you understand what a memory leak really is. A process using more memory than another is not a memory leak. A memory leak is when a process is constantly allocating memory and never release it causing a constant memory grow over time which is not the case here; it is just a bigger map using more resources to run.

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From the host's point of view there has to be enough RAM available to accommodate the largest amount the map uses. On my server (5-member tribe), Gen2 sucks up 12GB after starting up. It'll settle down to 4-6GB, but not for a few hours.

I don't know what Host Havoc charges, but it might be worth sinking the cash into building your own server. It'll cost more up front of course. Could pay for itself in the long run though.

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On 6/17/2021 at 8:48 PM, invincibleqc said:

The real issue here is them portraying the fact that a map is using more memory than another as an "issue". There is much more going on in Gen2 than any other map. Just compare their folders size which, by itself isn't a representation of the memory used but gives a good idea of the resources scaling difference needed to run it compared to the others:

  • Aberration: 550 MB (577,758,287 bytes) + 176 MB (184,621,540 bytes)
  • Extinction: 664 MB (696,829,967 bytes) + 262 MB (274,901,945 bytes)
  • Genesis: 869 MB (911,787,939 bytes) + 427 MB (448,507,274 bytes)
  • Genesis 2: 2.90 GB (3,118,933,599 bytes) + 566 MB (593,834,198 bytes)
  • Scorched Earth: 447 MB (469,408,955 bytes) + 95.8 MB (100,476,711 bytes)

And that do not include all the cross-shared assets from the base game and/or other maps, etc. that are also being used. The reality is that; it is a bigger map. That requires more resources. Could WC push optimizations and improvements to reduce the memory consumption? Certainly. Does the current usage is an "issue"? Nope.

I don't think you understand what a memory leak really is. A process using more memory than another is not a memory leak. A memory leak is when a process is constantly allocating memory and never release it causing a constant memory grow over time which is not the case here; it is just a bigger map using more resources to run.

I work in IT as a sys admin. So I understand everything very well. These aren't my words, they are the host's words. I was reading through some of their discussions online with clients, and that's exactly what they've been claiming... the Gen 2 is 'leaking memory' and needs patching by WC. Meanwhile WC's response is to assign a 'team' to investigate, and their initial finding... "it's a big map". Clearly Host Havoc have no idea what they are talking about, which makes this whole thing even more annoying. 

Frankly, I wouldn't want Genesis 2 to be just another Ark map. I'm glad it's as big as it is. Also, no complaints from me about it requiring 16 GB.

What I am complaining about is that these two companies, like many tech based companies make the same mistakes over and over again, when they should know better, and their customers deserve better. If it were my ship, heads would be rolling. To release a product that requires a change in system requirements, you need to plan & prepare. You can't just drop a bomb like that on people with no discussion, blind siding business partners and customers alike. Or is someone going to argue that WC had no clue their Gen2 map was going to have increased requirements? On the other hand, in fairness to WC, I'm not privy to the nature of communications they did have with hosting partners pre-release. Even worse... how can you run a hosting service that specifically advertises hosting for a particular game, and not have any clue that a new map coming down the pipe might need a second look to see if it's operational requirements can easily be met within the framework of your business offerings. After all, WC was telling customers in advance that this was the biggest Ark map ever. Surely, that alone would have warranted some examination pre-release. 

The fact is, we played on Gen 2 for days before the hosting company suddenly decided to attach a memory requirement, and it was running perfectly for us as well, on an 8GB server. To top it off, there was no notice to existing customers... nothing.  They just started auto-killing the game service when it fires up with only 8GB allocated. They didn't even bother to tell their existing 8GB customers that they needed to upgrade the server to 16GB; not in advance, not when they made the decision, not even two weeks post-map release. So now all our stuff from years of playing Ark is over on a hosted server that we can't access. Plus the cost for the additional RAM is robbery. Our game admin is not about to pay $50 a month to have someone host Gen2. Essentially they were holding our game hostage. There are plenty of better hosting services out there. But ultimately our group & admin are tired of all the BS and just want to walk away. I can't blame them but I still would like to at least play on Gen 2 some more. I'm tempted to rent a server myself (obviously with a better hosting service), but not sure any of our group would re-join. Maybe I'll just play non-dedicated for now. 

 

 

  

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22 hours ago, zero064 said:

From the host's point of view there has to be enough RAM available to accommodate the largest amount the map uses. On my server (5-member tribe), Gen2 sucks up 12GB after starting up. It'll settle down to 4-6GB, but not for a few hours.

I don't know what Host Havoc charges, but it might be worth sinking the cash into building your own server. It'll cost more up front of course. Could pay for itself in the long run though.

I checked some other hosting services out that offer far better options - fewer slots but more memory, and we'd be paying less than we were for Host Havoc. So that might be the way I go, if I rent my own server.

It's the terrible customer service, lack of communication, misrepresenting the issues, and tossing each other under the bus... it's the piss poor business practices that drive me nuts. Having your hosting service essentially hold your game hostage sucks. I can only assume they thought they could leverage us into paying twice as much for their terrible service. But cancellation noticed has been filed. Good riddance Host Havoc.

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I run my own server and was a little surprised at first at the RAM usage. I can confirm that, without me logging into the map and just after startup, that the RAM is at 13.4GB out of the (previously overkill for other ark maps) 16GB I'd given it. For comparison, if I spin up Ark Gen 1 it uses 7.05GB. Both of these include the WIndows Server OS.
In response I've expanded the server to 20GB. Fortunately, it's a VM on a 64GB host which doesn't run anything else when I'm playing Ark so easy to expand.

I'm not super surprised Gen 2 requires more RAM given the fact that each map is very large, but also that there are two of them in one - so I get why this has happened.

The issue is the hoster imho. Might be WC if, and only if, WC told them it used the same resources or agreed to let partners know if the game might cause resource issues but didn't. But even if that were true, the hoster not letting you know ahead of time they were going to change their policy seems quite shoddy and disrespectful.

Are they at least letting you download your ark files so you can move them?

 

[edit] The Windows OS uses roughly 1.6GB (I can certainly imagine linux having a smaller footprint so I would think that would be probably 512MB-800MB). So it looks like Gen2 uses about 11.8GB and Gen1 uses 5.4GB without included the OS. Obviously this is without looking at swap file usage etc so a rough estimation.

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On 6/20/2021 at 9:00 AM, banedon said:

Are they at least letting you download your ark files so you can move them?

It didn't sound like they were being very cooperative. Our admin said they basically blamed us for not appreciating what the server required to run the map. Which is hilarious. 

The one thing in my favor is we were running a non-clustered server, which meant we had freedom to transfer between dedicated & non-dedicated servers. So I've been backing up a lot of the stuff while moving between servers, by saving the PlayerLocalData.arkprofile files on a secondary drive. 

So while everyone in the tribe lost everything they brought over, I can simply drop in a backed up data file and download my stuff again, either to a non-dedicated server or a new non-clustered dedicated server. 

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