Testing tools for my game server - any recommendations?

[mikoil]

Hello gurus!

I don't know where to ask about it.

I'm not a professional but I've made some decent game (TCP client/server) which I want to test before I put it up.
It has it's logic (pretty big one), and some complex data structures, utilizing C++ at it's extreme (I think)..

At the moment what I do to test the server is simply making the client auto-play (it's a turn-based game), running several clients at once..... but as you can imagine, it's slow, and how many clients can I run concurrently? 10? I don't think it's enough.. Note that I have one PC, even though it's 4GB one, still, the graphics (and maybe Winsock's operations, although I don't think so) eats a LOT of processor power.

TO THE POINT:

I know there's this field called "QA", and I assume they got some really neat tools to test a software from the very first op-code to the core of it's bones!
Tried to look for some, without finding something really helpful.

So, those "QA" guys probably know how to automate operations, in cycles, which is exactly what I do at the moment, although not so efficiently.

Please consider that I might have not expressed myself very well or I'm not in the right direction, just because I never went into this... You know, I don't even know what to ask you!

Thanks for taking the time to read this text..

[Onbeygir]

id love to see some screenshots of the game
it sounds fun. sorry for posting without helping anything

[Kheun]

I think you are taking the right path in automating client to stress testing your server. In addition, you can create a console mode for your client to tale commands and avoid rendering graphic. In this way, you should be able to run multiple clients on the same PC without using too much PC power.

You may also like to explore using software like Virtual PC and VMWare which allows you running your client on multiple OSes (different versions of Windows or Linux) all at the same time.

[mikoil]

Haha Onbeygir thanks, I'd love to post a screenshot although it cannot be done right now!

Well Kheun, it makes real sense, what you're saying.
I thought about it but I'd expect those QA pros to be doing things otherwise, more sophisticated way... I just don't know how

VMWare & Virtual PC would take CPU power exactly as if the program would run at the "host system", if not even more (virtualization overhead..).

By the way, since the client is a Flash game then it would be wise to test it on Linux, with VMWare... That's definitely something I'm about to do.

[Speedo]

Honestly, why not just involve a few friends and get them to help with the testing? That would also give you the benefit of seeing how the server performs under "real-world" network conditions, rather than just under ideal settings (a LAN).

I'm sure the "pros" have some tools that help them with automated testing, but I'd expect most of them to probably be either custom-made or big $$$ commercial software. There are certainly things you could do yourself like writing a non-graphical client, but is it really going to be worth the time and effort it will take?

[mikoil]

Believe me that through the past several months I've been asking myself the very same questions..

Well, eventually we'll see, this is all I can say.

I guess I was hoping that someone will reveal "gold" to me concerning this subject.. well, who knows