Help fill the servers

[Dead(+)Eye]

Been wanting to post this. If you have any spare time to idle your game, plz take the time in our servers. Even the shortest while makes the difference.

It would appear that our most cherished servers have been shedding over the past 1/2 year. Various lag problems (I blame valve) have kept people, even regulars from popping on.

 

[Blindy]

I'd seed the servers but I am on a 65gb cap every month, so unfortunately, I can't.

 

[VizierKane]

I will try to go on today! but I'm not making any promises, if I go home after work and fall asleep not my fault! LOL

 

[ronpaul]

I'd seed the servers but I am on a 65gb cap every month, so unfortunately, I can't.

my friend, where you have a problem I have a solution.

create a file in your dods cfg folder called "seed.cfg" and put the following in it.

rate 1
cl_updaterate 1
cl_rate 1
cl_cmdrate 1
fps_max 90
fps_modem 90

Rate is the number of bytes the client can accept from the server and cl_rate is the number of packets the client can send to the server. It's all per second. cl_updaterate 1 will only request 1 packet of information from the server every second and cl_cmdrate 1 will only try to send 1 packet of information to the server.

So, doing the theoretical math... you seed for 12 hours at night, that's 720 minutes and 43,200 seconds. One byte a second and you've sent 42.2kbytes during that 12 hour period of time. Allow for a very generous packet overhead and let's assume you send 15x the data payload so 633kbytes. If you seed for 30 nights a month at 12 hours per night, you use 18,990kbytes, or ~20 MEGABYTES a month! Out of 65 GIGAbytes, that's a drop in the bucket. Load up a game, type "exec seed.cfg" in the console and blammo, rates nerfed. When you're ready to play, do "exec config.cfg" and everything is right as rain.

Now, assume standard rates (that you all should use by the way), eGO's servers are 66tick:

rate 20000
cl_updaterate 66
cl_rate 20000
cl_cmdrate 66
fps_max 100 (can be 66 really)
fps_modem 100

This is what eats your bandwidth, sending a max of 66 game packets per second with up to 20,000 bytes of payload per packet... and so...

In short, unless you're approaching 40 GB, nerf your rates and you should okay.

EDIT: Yes, there is packet overhead that will bump up usage somewhat significantly but even in the worst case retransmission and overhead usage we're talking around a gig or two per month, is that impossible?

EDIT Again: this is assuming you have 65gB for both upload and download

EDIT Again again (BAD math, yuck)

EDIT: listen, just ignore the math and focus on the bottom line

 

[homosapien15]

I know I haven't been on them as much cause I miss my pistol. Rifle without a pistol...not gonna work for me

 

[Blindy]

my friend, where you have a problem I have a solution.

create a file in your dods cfg folder called "seed.cfg" and put the following in it.

rate 1
cl_updaterate 1
cl_rate 1
cl_cmdrate 1
fps_max 90
fps_modem 90

Rate is the number of bytes the client can accept from the server and cl_rate is the number of bytes the client can send to the server. It's all per second. cl_updaterate 1 will only request 1 byte of information from the server every second and cl_cmdrate 1 will only try to send 1 byte of information to the server.

So, doing the theoretical math... you seed for 12 hours at night, that's 720 minutes and 43,200 seconds. One byte a second and you've sent 42.2kbytes during that 12 hour period of time. Allow for a very generous packet overhead and let's assume you send 15x the data payload so 633kbytes. If you seed for 30 nights a month at 12 hours per night, you use 18,990kbytes, or ~20 MEGABYTES a month! Out of 65 GIGAbytes, that's a drop in the bucket. Load up a game, type "exec seed.cfg" in the console and blammo, rates nerfed. When you're ready to play, do "exec config.cfg" and everything is right as rain.

Now, assume standard rates (that you all should use by the way), eGO's servers are 66tick:

rate 20000
cl_updaterate 66
cl_rate 20000
cl_cmdrate 66
fps_max 100 (can be 66 really)
fps_modem 100

This is what eats your bandwidth, sending a max of 20,000 game packets per second with 66 bytes of payload per packet... and so...

In short, unless you're approaching 40 GB, nerf your rates and you should okay.

EDIT: Yes, there is packet overhead that will bump up usage somewhat significantly but even in the worst case retransmission and overhead usage we're talking around a gig or two per month, is that impossible?

EDIT Again: this is assuming you have 65gB for both upload and download

EDIT Again again (BAD math, yuck)

Thank you for the very informative post Ron!! Much appreciated!

+1

 

[ronpaul]

I... honestly I don't know what I was typing earlier. It was all wrong, lol, especially the math. The bottom line is the same and the seed.cfg and calculated figures are accurate (I think) but the standard rate bandwidth usage is all jacked up. Don't ask me to calculate it please ><

 

[Skipper Finny]

I've been idling Colmar quite a bit lately.

 

[I SURVIVED LONDON BLITZ]

65 gig WOW I have only 20 gig, when I play for 4 hours I use 60 mb max a day and that includes my wife using the net on her comp for 6 hours a day. I stopped seeding some time ago when our State Government increased our power charge by 60%.

 

[H-Bomb]

I usually go on... Hope my presence helps!

 

[jeod66]

Ladies and gentlemen, I think we just discovered the secret of Ron's skills.

Not really.

I wish it were only that easy. I've already copied it all into my autoexec.cfg file to try it out, and hopefully there will be a difference. Great post (math doesn't matter, I think we all get the point), and it's very clear on what to actually do here. Thanks!

 

[ronpaul]

Ladies and gentlemen, I think we just discovered the secret of Ron's skills.

Not really.

I wish it were only that easy. I've already copied it all into my autoexec.cfg file to try it out, and hopefully there will be a difference. Great post (math doesn't matter, I think we all get the point), and it's very clear on what to actually do here. Thanks!

thanks man! and it is my secret! Good rates will optimize your hit registration (ever see a blood splatter on an enemy's face without getting the kill?). That's why it's recommended to lock your fps at your cl_updaterate so that theoretically everything you see on your screen will be sent to the server (like shots to the face). For 66 tick servers, max_fps 66, for 100, max_fps 100.

You can also make yourself lag by dropping your rates extremely low. Some people give themselves pings of 200+ artificially because they think it affords some advantage.

Keep in mind that your rates may need to be adjusted. Use net_graph 3 to get information on choke and loss. If you're experiencing choke you have to lower your rates because you're asking for too much from the server, either up or down. I'm sure eGO's server has sv_maxrate set but I don't know what it is, so if 20,000 is higher than that it will reduce it to match the best possible rate from the server, nice! Loss cannot be remedied through rates.

If you really want to figure your precise usage, don't try the math route >< download a packet sniffer like Wireshark, play a game and filter out the packets on the game port, figure out size and number of packets and multiply, take that and divide by time and poof! Actual throughput rate. Alternative, download a bandwidth monitor (http://www.bwmonitor.com/), lockdown all other web applications and there you have it.

At the very least a placebo effect, I promise your game will improve with optimized rates.

 

[Maneki Neko]

So what's the deal with seeding now. This thread got me interested in seeding to help out the servers when I'm not playing, so I did a forum search. I came across the thread that started the Seeding Teams and thought, alright, I'll start seeding. Then I came across another thread with a poll and arguments to stop seeding. Sooo ... should I seed or should I not seed?