Descriptive Problem Summary:

For a whole, I (Paradise) have had this issue where DD performance on Linux just sorta, sucked. The CPU usage and similar would be down at acceptable limits, but the game would be full of microstutters and impossible to play fluidly.

Our Russian downstream (who deserves all the credit for this, big shoutout to azisonkg) realised that linux DD does a ton of file IO constantly to .byond/cfg/ban.txt

https://i.imgur.com/JlFVSuA.png

This then led me to believe that this constant file writing was behind the game stutters, since File IO would be a blocking operation but wouldnt cause the CPU to be 100% loaded

https://i.imgur.com/2s9wA7L.png

Link to our world/IsBanned() call if it gives any pointers: https://github.com/ParadiseSS13/Paradise/blob/master/code/ modules/admin/IsBanned.dm

Numbered Steps to Reproduce Problem:

Not entirely sure. This has always been a difficult issue to check due to the fact it only seemed to occur for us, which I used to just think was Linux DD not liking >120 people on the same server, however, I can now believe otherwise.


Expected Results:

Not constant file writes with this

Actual Results:

This

Does the problem occur:
Every time? Or how often? Yes
In other games? No idea
In other user accounts? No idea
On other computers? Not on windows

When does the problem NOT occur?

Not on windows

Did the problem NOT occur in any earlier versions? If so, what was the last version that worked? (Visit http://www.byond.com/download/build to download old versions for testing.)

This was an issue all the way back in 2017 according to our host at the time

Workarounds:

- Use windows
- Make the ban file immutable as SS220 did