[Discussion] CMO performance on EC2

Matrix Games Forums

Forums Register Login Photo Gallery Member List Search Calendars FAQ

My Profile Inbox Address Book My Subscription My Forums Log Out

[Discussion] CMO performance on EC2

View related threads: (in this forum | in all forums)

Logged in as: Guest

Users viewing this topic: none

Printable Version

All Forums >> [New Releases from Matrix Games] >> Command: Modern Operations series >> Tech Support >> [Discussion] CMO performance on EC2

Page: [1]

Message

<< Older Topic Newer Topic >>

[Discussion] CMO performance on EC2 - 3/6/2021 12:15:41 PM

caohailiang

Posts: 48
Joined: 6/7/2020
Status: offline

Hi
if we run CMO on an EC2 instance on AWS, which instance type would you recommend in order to have a really smooth performance? is it gona be signficantly better than on a laptop with i7-9750h/32G RAM?
Thanks in advance!
//Hailiang

< Message edited by Rory Noonan -- 3/9/2021 6:12:43 AM >

Post #: 1

RE: CMO performance on EC2 - 3/6/2021 12:57:29 PM

thewood1

Posts: 6529
Joined: 11/27/2005
Status: offline

I have a hard time imagining getting the overall throughput you need in even HPC cloud configurations, as compared to a 4-5 GHz Intel processor and SSD. Unless you have a direct and very highspeed pipe, the bottleneck is going to be the transport. Not to mention the amount data of needed to move the map tiles back and forth as needed.

I haven't done anything with AWS's compute capabilities with something like CMO, so I could be wrong, but every benchmark my team has run has shown that elastic compute can rival local processing on large data-intensive analytic apps and workloads, but in single apps with low to medium workloads, EC is not anywhere near cost effective for long operations. And it also became VERY transport dependent with smaller workloads. If you have a edge gateway, it becomes more feasible. But at that point, just run it locally. Its mainly the overhead that limits it.

Just dropped an email to my HPC analyst. He says, based on my very poor parameters I gave him for CMO operation, M5, with potentially M5n or M5zn. I don't know enough about it myself and had a hard time laying out the operating parameters for CMO. He did mention you'll probably need 3-10 Gbs bandwidth.

< Message edited by thewood1 -- 3/6/2021 1:04:01 PM >

(in reply to caohailiang)

Post #: 2

RE: CMO performance on EC2 - 3/6/2021 1:21:53 PM

caohailiang

Posts: 48
Joined: 6/7/2020
Status: offline

thanks! m5zn does make a lot of sense, in its description:
"M5zn ... the fastest Intel Xeon Scalable processors ...with an all-core turbo frequency up to 4.5 GHz. ..an ideal fit for applications that benefit from extremely high single-thread performance and high throughput, low latency networking, such as gaming...and simulation modeling ..."

and how many vCPU can the CMO software utilize?

i have tested on large instances (24~48vcpu) on M5 and Z1d family earlier but the performance is not ideal. however i dont think the bottleneck is at the network bandwidth from the cloud to my own home (is that what you meant by bandwidth?), because i just rtp to the remote windows instance on aws, the bandwidth should be only used for sending back the screen

< Message edited by caohailiang -- 3/6/2021 1:23:02 PM >

(in reply to thewood1)

Post #: 3

RE: CMO performance on EC2 - 3/6/2021 1:43:35 PM

thewood1

Posts: 6529
Joined: 11/27/2005
Status: offline

Its not just the bandwidth, although its a factor, its the overhead associated with moving the results back and forth. I would think you would need a very high bandwidth to limit latency. Thats why edge devices are used in a lot of applications. It can pre-process and and buffer. It smooths everything out.

Frankly, I'm not sure what the point of using EC is. You are basically renting a CPU. If you do a clean start on almost any modern Intel chipset, you'll get better and more consistent performance on prem or on the edge.

< Message edited by thewood1 -- 3/6/2021 1:44:05 PM >

(in reply to caohailiang)

Post #: 4

RE: CMO performance on EC2 - 3/6/2021 2:19:13 PM

Dimitris

Posts: 13282
Joined: 7/31/2005
Status: offline

If you really need the highest possible performance, and if this for a professional workload (and you are eligible), you could consider Command PE: https://www.warfaresims.com/?page_id=3822

It has two performance- and automation-oriented modes (Monte-Carlo and CLI) which both offer substantially faster performance and scalability than the full-GUI version (especially CLI).

< Message edited by Dimitris -- 3/6/2021 2:20:16 PM >

_____________________________

Facebook
Twitter

(in reply to thewood1)

Post #: 5

RE: CMO performance on EC2 - 3/6/2021 2:19:59 PM

caohailiang

Posts: 48
Joined: 6/7/2020
Status: offline

but it is not sending the result back and forth, just the screen, more like a video

(in reply to thewood1)

Post #: 6

RE: CMO performance on EC2 - 3/6/2021 2:22:38 PM

caohailiang

Posts: 48
Joined: 6/7/2020
Status: offline

no, this is just for my personal use.
But i did suffer a lot when running the large scenario that i am working on

(in reply to Dimitris)

Post #: 7

RE: CMO performance on EC2 - 3/6/2021 3:01:09 PM

thewood1

Posts: 6529
Joined: 11/27/2005
Status: offline

As I said you would. EC is not some miracle HPC platform. It has its own workload issues. Lower end EC states explicitly that compute demand will impact your individual performance.

And even if you are just displaying it, your personal bandwidth still effects performance. The final throughput, including overhead is going to be much faster for a smaller workload on the bus of your PC, if its a relatively modern PC, than over a 1-2 Gb line. That 1-2 Gb line in your house or office isn't giving you a full 1-2 Gb. Even if speedtest says it is. By the time the packet leaves AWS and gets to your screen, there are 10-25 different switches and buses it goes through.

That is why any cloud app that is latency sensitive has an edge device locally or retains some portion of on prem capability. Its why Amazon Prime still buffers a lot of the video you are watching.

(in reply to caohailiang)

Post #: 8

RE: CMO performance on EC2 - 3/7/2021 2:55:50 AM

Zanthra

Posts: 122
Joined: 2/6/2019
Status: offline

The nice thing about AWS is that with per hour pricing, it really would not be unreasonable to try with a low cost system, then move up to a higher one if the performance is not what you are looking for. For ease of moving between instance types use an EBS backed instance.

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/ec2-instance-resize.html

Using RDP for playing CMO will be fine, you may see some latency, but that�s not a big concern. RDP is pretty bandwidth efficient for multimedia stuff, compared to other remote protocols like VNC, and scales very well with the available bandwidth.

< Message edited by Zanthra -- 3/7/2021 3:00:05 AM >

(in reply to thewood1)

Post #: 9