[MUD-Dev] World Persistence, flat files v/s DB v/s ??

[Ben Greear]

On Sun, 22 Mar 1998, Joel Dillon wrote:

> 
> > The game will need to update it's persistant storage very often
> > to make this feasible. 
> 
>   How often is very often? Wouldn't a backup and save to disk every
> half-hour or so be ok?

I might go with something like that.  I would like to update more often,
but it will probably induce quite a bit of lag (several seconds at 
least..)

> 
> > In my current game, I use ascii based flat files.  I don't think
> > this will work so well for the space game.
> 
>   Well, it depends on what sort of machine spec you have, but I'd
> have thought ASCII flat files wouldn't be a big problem as long as
> you load all the data into memory when the server starts up

It's writing, not reading that will kill me.  It will definately be held
entirely in memory, but I need a persistant image to reboot from.  The
other thing is, if I can get it to crash very rarely (less than weekly
at least) then just saving an image every hour or so might be workable..)

>   What's wrong with that? Threads aren't too expensive. Unless you're
> anticipating literally thousands of simultaneous players you should be
> fine.

I'll have to see on that.  Also, there is usually a 256 limit on
file descriptors (sockets).  Does java automatically mux/demux to get
around that, or do you have to write it yourself?  It wouldn't
be too hard, but it will need to be dealt with...

> 
> 	Jo


Ben Greear (greear at cyberhighway.net)  http://www.primenet.com/~greear 
Author of ScryMUD:  mud.primenet.com 4444
http://www.primenet.com/~greear/ScryMUD/scry.html