Create a client test application

[mike]

Problem

There needs to be a way to simulate clients connecting to a server that doesn't involve any graphics. This will be useful to a) add a unit test that will prove a client can log in to the server, and b) so the server can be load tested and we can see what effect additional clients have on it.

[mike]

Design

Check out ClientTestApplication?.

[mike]

Solution

Just as described above. Unfortunately, getting any sort of threading working was impossible due to Ogre's non multi-threading. If you want to take advantage of multiple cores or CPUs, just run multiple processes. It's also a little hard on the client. Running 50 test clients (in one python instance) stressed the machine the clients were running on (P4) more than the server they all connected to (P3). It took about 20 minutes to complete the test, during which, the client machine was at 100% CPU usage while the server went from 80%-98% (mostly around 80%). However, the server was down to 3 ips or a little under at its worst.

[mike]

Milestone beta-test deleted

[mike]

Setting the milestone back