[MUD-Dev] Modular Design Issues RFC

[Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com]

Ryan Rhodes wrote:

> Your point about Multi-processor machines being able to take
> advantage of multiple threads is correct.  I had forgotten this in
> my argument for threads.  I would point out though that java has
> already forced us to a separate thread for every connection, so in
> the context of that system I don't feel multiple threads handling
> events could do anything but degrade performance further.  With 99
> connections and 1 thread for the game loop, a machine with 4
> processors would already have 96 threads in a wait state.  Our
> system aside, I really liked your idea of being able to configure
> the number of threads on a per system basis.

Do remember however that a Java thread doesn't necessarily correspond
to an operating/cpu level thread. Its all completely implementation
specific and in fact tends to change from version to version. I think
currently under win32, they don't equal 'real' threads (or at least
aren't guaranteed to).  Thats probably a good thing as context
switches are relatively expensive in win32, but then again an inherent
lack of control of such things is something that troubles me;
especially if performance is an issue. I honestly wonder how well Java
scales to a system with as many users as say Everquest or Ultima
Online. Having said that Everquests clustered setup with zones
supporting generally no more than 100 players suggests that it isn't
terribly complex.

Dan
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