Hosting since PF

[:FI:Genosse]

Folks!

I´m still looking for some answers to a certain question ... maybe you can give me a little help ...

This is the situation. I can still remember when I first got connected to ADSL ... instead of warping around with my former 56k modem I was now able to join servers without having any/less lags which I enjoyed very much. I was even able to host some dogfight/COOP mission up to 16 people. Yeah, the good old days of Forgotten Battles! *sigh*

Since then there´ve been Aces Expansion Pack and Pacific Fighters coming with lots of new maps/aircrafts and objects (not to forget the DCG!) ... well, besides the fact that I began to use the FBDaemon script nothing else has changed on my side:

1.9 GHz AMD Athlon 2600+
9500Pro ATI Radeon 128 MB DDR-RAM
768 download/128 upload connection

But when I host now a mission (you remember my latest Walking the Casbah mission?) I´m able to host it for a maximum of six players only ... and I do have lags and stutters (!!!) ... not to mention that FBDaemon stats that a lot of players have high pings (I set the ping kick up to 600 which is already pretty high, isn´t it?) so they get kicked by my machine ...

What the heck has changed since the old days? And more important: what can I change besides my connection to the internet (better connection = paying more money monthly) in order to avaid that people got kicked?

Any help and answers desperately needed, folks!

[Grecian]

I,m not expert Gen for what it's worth, I am in the same situation

Your upload speed is 128, same as mine, I changed ISP recently before I had 512 down 256 up, as u know I could host 8 x 8 on VWF np.

Now I have 1mb down 128 up, tech people via a post put up by Baderslegs say 256 up will host only 4x4 comfortably

I dont have an answer for u, can only confirm that something has radically changed since PF.

More money for higher up-load speed seems to be the only solution

[:FI:Genosse]

Hello, at the weekend flew on our server also of 64 people !
The next time go we by DirectIP into this server.
Seemingly there are problems with that, that the new HL version in the HLpro editor that put ClientRate on 8000.
I asked about this problem already once, but one does not presumably get answers here?

I know several hosts the at the moment problems have . ...

Bibi

source: Hyperfighter.sk

Could it be that it has soemething to do with the ClientRate? I´ll do a bit of investigation in this point ...

[:FI:Genosse]

Ok, Jiri, thank you again.
This is different now in FB then it was in IL2. In Il2 when i was hosting, the network setting did definitely influence the hosting a lot, When i was setting anything more then 14.4 k Network as a host i got immediate stuttering of my own plane (i was flying myself too and i got fps drop to 2-16), if more then 10 players were in. If i was resetting iit to 14.4 it went all fine with even up to 14 players. According to you this has been changed now in FB, that was the reason of my confusion/question.
So the NEtwork setting has no influence at all if being a host, FB will use all available up- and download bandwidth disregarding the Network setting. Network setting just is working when i am a client and clients should thus make sure their Network is set to 14.4k as default and not change it.
Did i get it right ??
Btw, where do you get all this information from ? Oleg ? Did you find out yourself ? Just curious and full of admiration.

Yours,
II/JG54_Zent

Is the same as i wrote Smile Only one thing is that network settings can be change during game in the host session (bug ?). but changes not affect anything .... When you have look in to hlpro.ini you can found that those HL forced settings are fully adjustable for client and server session ( in all hl versions ). I think in FB are not changet anything , regarding those informations...

Btw, to get those informations i spent some hours of testing with my friends (some are listed in the credits) and remember that i had IL2 and FB beta version a lot of moths before public release ... I had few exchanged emails with Oleg but it was not regarding getting his information for me, but with providing my ideas for his ... When u want explore IL2/FB netcode functionality you can use some IL2 console commands (session, sockets, etc). The rules i was used here are the same for Quake games, Unreal, and other multiplayer titles, and generally used by all online games with more advanced net engines. Only one diference are that i have forced those "optimall and minimnal" settings directly in to the game by HL

[:FI:TacticalS!]

Well I feel you must know more about this stuff than me mate but here are some thoughts just in case.

Indeed I remember a number of times earlier on when you hosted and the games were both enjoyable and performed well. I must say seeing your hardware and Internet specs I am a bit surprised that everything played so wonderfully - you must have did some nice tweaking back then mate.

I offer this information as a means for comparison.

My dedicated Aliant High Speed Internet provides me with 1.5 Mbps download and a 640 kbps upload speed. While both are important, for hosting, as you know, upload is critical. Unless you can get a better connection, here are two options that immediately come to mind:

(a) Disable skin downloads to reduce network traffic.

(b) As I posted elsewhere, try the following:

"For all hosts, as suggested in online wars such as Bellum, edit your HyperLobby settings (hlpro.ini) as follows -

[Forgotten Battles]
joinDelay=20
clientRate=3000
serverRate=3000
;Determine the client source port. Useful when is more that one user behind the NAT router.
;Must be different for each user behind the same NAT router
localPort=21000
;This detecting right IP address for systems with more that one network adapters
;Default is 1 (on)
DetectLocalIP = 1
Order=20
Description=
MaxPlayers=12
Difficulty=3
serverPort=21000"

The client and server rate will help manage network traffic much better by limiting bandwidth to players.

-----------

Tweaking to ensure minimal resources are being used always helps. I usually play the game on High graphics only (even though I can normally play it on Excellent/Perfect). Minimal background stuff, especially that take up bandwidth (TS overlay?).

I think the problem you might be having in particular Gen is CPU. I believe one needs to be targeting 3 GHz+ for the Pacific theatre due to the higher processing demands (i.e., water, trees, and ship flak). I suspect if you played a winter map in the Eastern front your hosting performance would be good opposed to a PF mission.

Therefore, consider the design of the mission. I use ROF @ 100 for all my missions to reduce ship flak. Not much can be done regarding water (except play the game on a lower graphic level - High mode).

------------

I have noticed that Snoop has been away on Sundays. As a Squad we certainly need to fly together and not be separated like I read last week. Having several folks prepared to host scripted DF missions or COOPS would be ideal.

When I get back into online gaming I will certainly see if there is any interest in a new dynamic campaign. Unfortunately, this will only be primarily available to our North American guys sometime during the week (probably Friday evening if there is interest).

TactS!

[:FI:Gurberly]

I think the general rule is you allow 14.4Kb upload for every player, hence 8 players on a (4x4) and 16 (8x8) ona 256Kb upload.

Those are the minimums though. As usual machine and connection reliability/ISP bottlenecks all come into play.

Must admit I thought Gen was on a 256kb connection back then?

G

[:FI:Genosse]

Must admit I thought Gen was on a 256kb connection back then?

Nope ... just a simple 128kb one ... since my ISP has changed the perfomances and prices for ADSL I´ve been looking to upgrade my connection but it´s still pretty expensive for my taste (and purse) ...

And of course, Tactical! A faster CPU would it be ... after my next win in the lottery ...

Ty for your help, folks!

[:FI:TacticalS!]

While I am fortunate to have some funds available to do a little upgrading, why do you think I'm so into tweaking?

Necessity is the mother of invention - and poor people with computers.

Tact - "tweak guru" - S!