I've always used MySQL for 'heavy duty' database work as it's easy to interface with from Windows/C++ but, forgive me if I'm mistaken, I get the impression that you're requiring a database for real-time access?

MySQL runs as a seperate process connected to using TCP/IP (I'm pretty sure of this anyway) and although there is a cache, the data is stored on disk and I wouldn't think it would be as efficient as some data accessed internally from the server.

I would suggest looking into some data structures that you can employ to maximize access efficiency to your data:

I currently like hash maps, where you maintain a number of linked lists (typically a prime number count) and you create a hash of the 'key field' modulo the list count to hopefully distribute the data stored into shorter lists which will mean less time iterating through the linked lists looking for your data.

There are definitely more efficient structures than this... for example red-black trees, but you'll have to use Google because you'll find better explanations elsewhere than I can give!


Anyway I hope this helps, apologies if I've completely misunderstood what you were asking for, I don't known anything about the back-end of WoW or Everquest I'm afraid.

In my experience, MySQL is ok for small projects, but is hard to keep stable for larger projects. If you need a separate database server, try PostgreSQL.

On the other hand, if your server is a single process and doesn't need an external database server, SQLite is a very handy database-in-a-library that writes out to local files.

Quote:Original post by justinian
In my experience, MySQL is ok for small projects, but is hard to keep stable for larger projects. If you need a separate database server, try PostgreSQL.

Hi, can you elaborate on what you mean by 'stable'? To me MySQL and PostgreSQL (which I've merely 'heard of') are the same - established, mature, etc. I don't want to be ignorant of issues that might sting me down the line!

Quote:Original post by justinian
On the other hand, if your server is a single process and doesn't need an external database server, SQLite is a very handy database-in-a-library that writes out to local files.

Thanks for recommending this, I hadn't heard of it before and I like the idea of a nice little compact library you can throw around when you need a quick DB.

Try not to access the database so much. I mean if your game is running you're storing a lot of the data in RAM and such. Just update when important things happen or when you need to get player info. Copy the data to RAM then use it, then when needed copy it back to the database to "update".

Quote:Original post by Hidden Asbestos
Hi, can you elaborate on what you mean by 'stable'? To me MySQL and PostgreSQL (which I've merely 'heard of') are the same - established, mature, etc. I don't want to be ignorant of issues that might sting me down the line!

When under heavy load, I've seen MySQL start dropping connections, or even start sending bad packets to the client. Obviously, there are a lot of large websites that put MySQL through some heavy load, so it seems this is more of an issue for longer-lived connections rather than short-lived connections like a web-app would use. I also know it's possible to use MySQL under heavy load, but it seems that it takes more configuration and active administration/maintenance.

My experience with PostgreSQL has shown it to be more robust and stable under load - it feels much more like a mature commercial database like Oracle.

Quote:Original post by BladeStone
I've worked with databases but this game will push the envelope of what I've used a database for, so .... is 3000 calls to a database per second 'small' or how do I determine the database needs?

I've never pushed SQLite that hard, so I couldn't say. That doesn't sound 'small' to me, though. ;) Unless that number represents many thousands of users doing lots of database-intensive like logging in and out a lot, you might want to re-design the way you access the database.

Quote:When under heavy load, I've seen MySQL start dropping connections, or even start sending bad packets to the client. Obviously, there are a lot of large websites that put MySQL through some heavy load, so it seems this is more of an issue for longer-lived connections rather than short-lived connections like a web-app would use. I also know it's possible to use MySQL under heavy load, but it seems that it takes more configuration and active administration/maintenance.

My experience with PostgreSQL has shown it to be more robust and stable under load - it feels much more like a mature commercial database like Oracle.

Ah, right - thanks for the information. I've only ever used it as a game server back-end so only one connection is being used. I guess it would be worth switching over if the SQL server was more client facing...

Quote:Original post by BladeStone
I guess the question to ask now is, where do I turn to learn about ram and character ram volume. Any advice on where to look?

Look at your code. The amount of RAM your characters take up is entirely down to how you coded it. All you have to do is ensure that you don't use the database when you can just use the data already in memory.