Windows 2012 GMod hosting methods?

Garry's Mod help & support
#1

So, the physics on linux finally got me and I switched to a windows 2012 server. Sure, SRCDS.exe works fine… If I can connect to the VNC at all times. Oh, but lets not forget the complete inability to pass commands from anywhere else.

Having only some experience with windows server, I may be missing an obvious tool. But I’m looking for essentially a tool that can be used through commandline, remotely, and persist. (Basically for linux, SSH and Screen.)

For the remote access aspect, I think telnet is okay, and I even installed SSH. But neither can run .bat files inline, (or, so far to my knowledge, at all), and if they could, I imagine disconnecting would not allow me to see the console anymore afterwards, and even if THAT could be arranged, there is no way for a script to add input to it. (Such as screen -X).

How do people on windows do it? Am I missing something?

#2

I don’t follow at all. The physics on the Linux version of the game should not be any different than the physics on the Windows version of the game.

Why don’t we start there first, what on earth are you talking about? Show some examples.

#3

Maybe this isn’t this the case anymore, but for ages I’ve seen mention that vphysics on linux servers aren’t as good as windows, such as for large sandbox servers.

Edit:
In fact I’ve actually tested it. Maybe its because I use ubuntu, but windows outperforms linux in being able to deal with it.

#4

Can you post numbers? Screenshots? Examples? I can’t help you without anything like that because again this is the first I’m hearing.

#5

No, I don’t have access to a linux machine for statistical comparison at the moment.
Would you still be able help me with my original question of a screen-alternative/a better way to run srcds on windows server?

#6

If you’ve already swapped to Windows Server 2012 R2 I’d suggest looking at a process manager. There are free ones around as well as paid ones, it all falls down to preference.

#7

Just RDP into the box and run the bat files for SRCDS.
I mean if you really want a console style SRCDS just add -console at the very start to your SRCDS bat file or shortcut.

Side note:

This is also the first time I’ve heard of Linux behaving differently with physics compared to Windows as well.

I’m in doubt here and I don’t think I’d be alone in saying this but saying Linux physics perform differently to Windows there must be something wrong with your setup cause a stock install of GmodDS on Linux is exactly the same as Windows. The only difference are binaries and some mild performance differences.

#8

Any suggestions? A google search for “process manager windows” and “process manager windows server” yields no results.

[editline]12th October 2017[/editline]

http://forum.facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1576224

I guess it’s been resolved. Any issues that you can think of that would lower performance on a fully stock, Ubuntu 16 gmod server, using screen as the process manager?
And, should I use something other than Ubuntu? I heard CentOS and Debian are better, but if I’m remembering issues from 5 years ago this info may not be correct.

Edit: Tested myself, begrudgingly yes, there is not a whole lot of a difference. Why are props so slow on vanilla then? It used to be you could have a couple dozen players on, with many addons, different dupes, intensive wiremod, ACP stuff, etc. Now all it takes is a couple ragdolls to chunk the performance of a server? Wth?

#9

Linux used to crash a lot. It still does - as far as I’ve heard. Especially with the ragdoll physics. After getting dumps and backtraces with GDB, Facepunch said that it’s a source engine issue.

Performance has always been better imo for Garrysmod on Linux. I’d recommend disabling forced pre-emption in the kernel.

#10

Now this seems like an interesting suggestion. I’ll try to find the answers myself but looking now, I’m going to pre-emptively (heh) ask, what would it change and how would I do so?

#11

In the past, Linux has caused problems with Garry’s Mod servers. That should not be the case anymore.