Is 30 just too big?

[Fatty]

Has anyone found a 30 slot server that doesn't have lag and warping?

We're reducing ours to 24 as I type to save a quality game.

I've now started bouncing around the servers that are upwards past 26 and they all display the same symptoms.

Anyone else seeing this?

[Cain]

For ONS or Assault, I am afraid it is..

I would love to run 28-30, but cannot on a Dual Xeon 3.33 !!

[Iceman]

what type of internet connection do you have?

[beren]

We have a 3.0 HT P4 with a gig of ram on a DS3, and are realizing that we don't have a big enough box. We just migrated from a 1.7 Celeron that was hosting a 26 player ET server. We figured with the new server, we should be able to run the ET server and a small UT2004 Server.

Nope.

Uh-Uh. :sigh:

No way. :angry:

We found that UT2004 chews up between 2-2.5x more CPU/player than ET does. We run a linux (RH9 ) box and with a 26 player ET and a 20 player UT2004, the box is pegged. If we drop to a 26ET and 12UT, we're still pegged most times, and in both situations, UT is laggy and jumpy.

I'm hoping there is a patch for UT soon, as we'd like to run both, but until there is, we're probably going to hold off on running UT2004. It's too expensive from a CPU standpoint. :angry: :angry:

[Fatty]

We dropped to 24 players and it runs perfectly. 12 v 12 is quite enough for that mayhem anyways!

Anyone else having similar issues?

Better yet...can you point me to a 28-32 player server that runs smoothly?

[Cain]

Better yet...can you point me to a 28-32 player server that runs smoothly?

Yes I can.

TokyoServer2
202.210.227.50

32 players, and smooth as silk.

I have no idea how this guy does it. He is running it on a Laptop, Pentium M 1.7

If anyone figures out how to get in touch with this guy, please, please post it here..

Thx!!

-- Cain

[Fatty]

I just tried the server at lanmasters.net (32 man) and it was warpy/laggy.....it's amazing how people will play through that.

I see this TokyoServer2 up there all the time in my list....but I ping 284...dunno why.. 8) I don't use that as an example because my ping to it becomes an issue.

Let me rephrase: Anyone have an example of a big server here in the states?

**Ok tried out TokyoServer2....it IS very smooth for me...however, I didn't play long enough to notice the effect of a 300 ping on where my shots actually hit, etc. I wonder how it's so smooth, and if it's smooth for someone that is pinging <100 to it? Perhaps the 300 ping is so smooth because it's all in the past and it just flows in....no clue.

[Fatty]

LOL I just bit on a 32 man server with 32 bots.....and I still lagged. Guess this guy wants to have his server on the top all the time. I won't even bother pluggin the name here.... :roll:

[Cain]

Hey Fatty,

That Tokyo server seems laggy for us because we are pinging 250-350 to get to it, so it is laggy. He does not have warping or rubber banding at all.

You will notice that many players in there are pinging in the 40's and 50's consistently, and the pings are not going up and down at all. These players must be more local to Tokyo than we are.

If you started playing these games with a 300 ping you will quickly adjust and then you can see the server is very good. If not than a ping over 250 is really difficult to adjust to.

It said it was a test server tho, so it may not be up very long.

I have no idea how he does it though, I wish I could ask him !!

-- Cain

PS I agree 100% about lanmasters, and I am amazed that people will play on many REALLY warpy servers.

[Fatty]

Yes, it is AMAZINGLY smooth.

At first i thought I saw the numbers dropping...thought it was people moving away from the larger servers like we were......but now I'm seeing big servers, many of which are filled with bots nearly to the brim to entice the client (client must highlight the server to tell & check the settings). We have our 22 at 15 min now. It runs 24/7 that way so I figure that's enough.

ATM I see a Tokyo-toServer3 server up there at 23/24. There's also a Tokyo FAST 100mbit RETAIL that's 10/32....wonder if that's new.

I wish there was a quick way to tell where these servers are (while in the browser). Would be interesting to see.

PS. Do you have a server out there too?

[AdminKickAss]

Check out www.kickassservers.com test servers for 32 players, I've seen it (almost) max out at 29 players and run smooth. Send me an e-mail when you connect and I'll load it up with bots if no one is there for testing.

IP's are Invasion: 216.117.135.106
CTF: 216.117.135.114

I don't mean this to be a lame ad trick, I have seen the invasion server almost maxed without lag.

[Fatty]

I think we're generally talking about ONS servers. ONS is just very demanding. I was on TeamSpeak last night with a guy, and we're talking FPS in UT, and he's talknig about 90-100.....and I toss mine up and see 40's and 50's!!! I'm like whoa! Well, he's in a DOM server and I'm in ONS. I pop over to visit him and badaboom...my FPS is up in that 90-100 range too.

I doubt me playing with 31 bots would be a good comparison. There's no in or out-bound traffic at that point. Aer you running any 32 man ONS servers? I'll check your link.

Also, if you are an owner of kickassservers, would you be interested considering a sponsorship for our LAN? We're sold out for this year ( www.fragfestohio.com)...check out the other various sponsorships that we have and let me know if you are interested! Thanks for considering...this is our first year for actual sponsorships.

[AdminKickAss]

Sponsorship? Gimme some details, what's in it for you? what's in it for me?

That site that is there now is only a temp, waiting for professional one to be done sometime this week, SSL encryption, real time credit card, online order fullfillment, etc..etc..etc..

Tell, you what I'll switch the CTF server over to ONS and you can feel free to test it out. I generally see pings of about 30 in there.

ONS: 216.117.135.114

PS: Anyone got a weblink that works? You know click on a link and it launchs UN2k4 and connects you to the server?

Also: This site totally rocks!! Thank you for what you've done here.

[Fatty]

I just noticed on the top of my ONS servers list: Buzzards 100 Mbit Dedicated Linux Box running ONS-RedPlanet at 28/32....Woohoo, right? I joined. I warped.

(side-conv: for you? publicity...we have a fairly decent sized community, and guranteed attendance at our LAN...for us? Maybe some sort of package as a prize at the LAN...maybe you'd wanna out do our other ISP sponsors ...up to you. Consider it and email me at if you are interested....and thanks for considering)

[HolyCrusader]

What/how is everybody trying to connect to these servers anyway? And does anybody know how fast the upload speed is on these servers? The problems everybody experiencing sound more like bandwidth problems than CPU power. The server's upload speed now adays is more important in determining the maximum number of players can play on a server. The dedicated server doesn't require nearly the CPU power of the client - a good game can be run on less than a 2GHz system.

As a test last night, I loaded up ONS-Severance on my personal server, set the bot count to maximum, and played via my LAN. My server is simply a Athlon 2500+ Barton w/512 megs of RAM. I had no problems at all.

If I try to have people playing on my server via the internet, I can only get about 4 people playing on it before the warping and lagging happens, because I have only 128kbps upload.

I certainly would like the opportunity to see how the game would perform in a massive LAN Party setup, but there's not many people where I live for that type of thing [/b]

[Coda]

Originally Posted by HolyCrusader

What/how is everybody trying to connect to these servers anyway? And does anybody know how fast the upload speed is on these servers? The problems everybody experiencing sound more like bandwidth problems than CPU power. The server's upload speed now adays is more important in determining the maximum number of players can play on a server. The dedicated server doesn't require nearly the CPU power of the client - a good game can be run on less than a 2GHz system.

As a test last night, I loaded up ONS-Severance on my personal server, set the bot count to maximum, and played via my LAN. My server is simply a Athlon 2500+ Barton w/512 megs of RAM. I had no problems at all.

If I try to have people playing on my server via the internet, I can only get about 4 people playing on it before the warping and lagging happens, because I have only 128kbps upload.

I certainly would like the opportunity to see how the game would perform in a massive LAN Party setup, but there's not many people where I live for that type of thing [/b]

I don't think this warping you are seeing has to do with the CPU either. If you fill a server up with 32 bots and you play on it single player it would be my guess that you wouldn't see warping. According to you guys though you would. 32 bots is worse than 32 players on a server. For 32 bots the server has to calculate their behaviour and what they're going to do not just where they are and what they're doing.

My guess is you guys have a bandwidth problem. I've never seen the UT server take more than 50 % of the cpu usage on my P4 3.0 server even with bots.

[50BMG]

UT2K4 is unlike other members of the UT family in it's consumption of CPU.

In other versions of UT, bots cost more CPU than actual connections. Not so with this one.

With an OS that's able to track and display the CPU usage, you can SEE it taking 100% of one CPU with more than 24 players on an ONS server.

This is a result of COMMUNICATIONS load, true, but it still happens on servers that TEST in excess of 5Mbits of up, so it isn't bandwidth.

Something is going on that we don't understand.

To add to the confusion, there are credible (or incredible) reports of servers with PIIIs that have no problems supporting 32 players.

[Fatty]

Good post.

I've tried to start this same discussion on the Atari forms because "Atari cares about our feedback." (Isn't that what it says on the community section of our game?

Nothing there yet. I would like to hear an explanation/hypothesis/answer from the actual source.

[slimjack]

We run an ONS server on an OC12 and it runs GREAT with 16-20. However, anything over and the laggy skippy crappy starts.

Gonna' try the Tokyo bit tonight.

Also would love a link that launches UT2k4. Looks like my sig looks for UT2k3. heheh.

[Beezer]

slimjack try: ut2004://216.37.64.68:7777