OT: /proc, top, ps broken in some linux kernels?

[Steven Hartland]

Ok Im trying to get some comparison results between OS
on the same machine running the same game servers.
I've got my results for FreeBSD 5.2.1 and have just switched
to Suse 9.0 i386 running kernel 2.4.21-215 ( stripped down
compile ).

The results Im seeing in top / ps appear to be just blatant
crap. I've got a 32 player COD server with 32 players in
it with when I load top will sometimes show as using 25%
and sometimes show as using ~0% and not just for a few
seconds either for minutes. Next I have a 32 player MOHAA
server which again has 32 players in it and is only using
2% CPU.
As you will appreciate I don't believe this for one minute.
But I have seen over the years people report just this type
of usage on this list.

So the question is /proc and hence ps / top broken in this
kernel version? Is this some type of integer overflow in the
kernel so instead of reporting say 66K of something its
rolling over and reporting a very small number?

Anyone how has posted CPU loads before that seem
way too low I would be very interested to hear what
kernel version / machine spec u are running ( could be
a combination of a fast machine + specific kernel version
that brings this to light ).

Note: the kernel I had originally had the 10% @ idle
issue till I recompiled is this an indication of the issue?

    Steve / K



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