Hi uh umm, I've been rewriting my TCP wrapper library. I was using thread per client (plus WSAEventSelect and WSAWaitForMultipleEvents) but damn that's slow (My Client APP will NEVER go faster than 31FPS). Now I think if it's possible to make it single threaded. For the Client APP it's easy (as it's only one socket). But for server, how?? My friends suggested several solution:

1. Use non blocking socket and poll all client socket for data (recv until it says "WSAEWOULDBLOCK")
2. Use Async socket and tie them to Windows Message or use EventSelect. I dunno how to EventSelect for more than one socket per thread. How do I poll events for more than one socket?? how the WSAWaitForMultipleEvents works for more than one socket???
3. Use select(), still it's just the same as polling (well, it's selective polling) but it requires adding socket to a set and blah I hope to avoid them

My friend said that MUD-server works like no 1 or 3. And he said that polling 5000 sockets wont kill the server. I'd like to go to solution 2 but my school server PC uses Linux, but I'd like to support windows though(so I could test at home, then put it in the school server <hehe I sneak to the admin room once>).

Again, I'm not sure to use which one. Btw select() in windows is a hack (I guess I read that somewhere, as the first parameter is unused, included only for the sake of compatibility).

I need advice from u guys, I know some guys here are expert in those kind of things. And dont tell me to use IOCP, completion port or Use some existing library. Puh-lease, I'd love the experience I get by going thru the hard way.

Your friend is correct.

Those solutions are sufficient and can scale for most situations where processing is minimal. The network bandwidth will only handle a few Mbps on a consumer-grade Internet connection. That is likely where you will reach saturation first.

Even a high-capacity Internet connection with several million bytes per second is tiny compared to the billions of processor cycles per second with multiple cores and with RAM transferring at potentially several hundred Gbps.

Please read the links within the forum FAQ, especially A1, A8, and A11.

So which one do you suggest? Im kinda confuse at the moment. But if MUD in the past worked like no 1 I'll definitely go that way. Since it wont get bigger than 100 I suppose. I dont like the double work using select(loop all socket to put and test 4 events). Is it true MUD worked like no 1???

Oh damn, I wish I dont have to select. Well if it works that way, then I have no choice. Im writing a MUD server, and yeah hplus, all MUD server I found today run on UNIX (mostly). I havent found a windows portable version (damn, do they hate bilge gates??). And hey, they all have size < 16k (IMPRESSIVE!!)

So now Im looking for a simple single threaded chat server that use plain BSD socket function. If anyone knows a good example, please share. I think I'll post some of my search result here, too. Unh I wish I could use plain polling.

anyway, please correct me about how select() works:

-for i=0 to nclient
--add socket to fdset
-select()
-for i=0 to nclient
--if socket in fdset
---recv()

and for listening socket I have to
-put listening socket to fdset
-select()
-if listening socket in fdset
--accept()

am I right??Well that doesnt sound too bad(except for the double looping, once for putting socket, once for checking if socket in fdset)

Quote:Original post by Bow_vernon
-for i=0 to nclient
--add socket to fdset
-select()
-for i=0 to nclient
--if socket in fdset
---recv()

Correct, but even better, put as many descriptors as you can in the set. Basically, poll 64 sockets at a time instead of just 1 (assuming you have that many connections).

So, youre saying that MUD server in windows is ridiculous?oh damn, Im not used to using linux, I wish to program in windows but run it in linux. well I believe it can be done. And umm I think I found a practical and robust way of using select()...I'll try it at weekend...