🎯 Tutorial Objective

Some game servers, especially SRCDS or HLDS, may suffer from slight tickrate variations or CPU micro-lags, even after various optimizations.
This issue often comes from CPU state transitions (idle ↔ active) that introduce micro-latency.
This tutorial presents a simple yet effective trick: running a small program called idler that keeps one CPU core at 100% usage with the lowest priority, helping stabilize CPU behavior.

🛠️ Setup Steps

1. Create a file named idler.c

cd /home

nano idler.c

Copy the code below

int main() {
  while(1);
}				
				

2. Compile the program

gcc idler.c -o idler

3. Run it with low priority

nice ./idler &

The & allows the process to run in the background.

💡 Multi-core Tip (Optional)

On some multi-core systems, e.g., 4 cores, it can be useful to run one dedicated idler process per physical CPU core:

nice taskset -c 0 ./idler &
nice taskset -c 1 ./idler &
nice taskset -c 2 ./idler &
nice taskset -c 3 ./idler &			
				

✅ Expected Result

1. The idler process(es) keep the CPU core(s) constantly active
2. This reduces CPU frequency or C/P-state transitions
3. Can help smooth performance for more stable tickrates, especially on CS:S, CS:GO, CS2, etc.

❗ Don’t Forget

1. The idler process intentionally consumes CPU with no real purpose → avoid using it on shared or resource-limited machines.
2. It does not replace proper kernel optimization
3. Monitor your system load using htop or top

🧠 In Conclusion

This method can be a good temporary workaround, especially on Debian, Ubuntu or CentOS with a 100Hz/250Hz kernel.
It is useless and not recommended if you already use a 1000Hz + RT kernel, which provides optimized real-time behavior without such workarounds.

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- ✍️ Written on: 27/06/2025 à 00h16
- 🔄 Last updated on: 27/06/2025 à 00h16
- 🧠 Author: Slymer  | Idée originale par : BehaartesEtwas
- 💬 Community discussion: View the conversation