Tutorials

When 100% CPU on hlds_linux is normal busy-waiting and when it is a real problem - pingboost modes, a runaway plugin, empty-server spin, and how to tell them apart.

What CPU steal time is, how to read the %st field in top and vmstat, why an oversold VPS lags exactly at peak, and what you can actually do about it.

How Linux CPU frequency governors work, why ondemand costs a game server latency, and how to set the performance governor so the core runs at full clock continuously.

How to pin an HLDS or ReHLDS instance to a specific CPU core with taskset for better cache locality, and why it matters most when packing many servers on one box.

Yes, one HLDS instance runs on a single core, why more cores never speed up one server, and how that reshapes how you size a VPS, pin instances, and read CPU graphs.

Why per-core clock speed and IPC decide CS 1.6 server performance far more than core count, and how to read a CPU spec sheet for a GoldSrc host.