My F.E.A.R server- Getting started

[effect]

Hi there , ive succesfully gotten my server up and running, we've been playing in it for a few days now and its great, but its really laggy and its running off my internet, is there something i could do to get the lag down? because the server sucks when it lags bad.

[Bulld0g]

Hi there , ive succesfully gotten my server up and running, we've been playing in it for a few days now and its great, but its really laggy and its running off my internet, is there something i could do to get the lag down? because the server sucks when it lags bad.

 

Running your own server has some pitfalls. It uses your bandwidth of course to allow players to connect. On older games that ive hosted like ET. They used to say allow 50kbs per person upload speed, as without dsl max etc the upload speeds are sometimes 260k only 4 players could use it.

 

Secondly, fear is a very ram/processor/gfx intensive game and will eat a good system just playing never mind hosting a server, are you using the same box to play on?

 

It would be better if you reply with some stats like connection up/down speeds and what you are hosting it on and some more techy types here will assist you if they can. Bearing in mind we are a ban site not a support site ofc :P

Edited August 24, 2006 by Bulld0g

[5chaap2k]

try to find a friend with a university or company internet connection (with more bandwith as you)

give him a free happy meal each week in exchange for him keeping your dedicated server in his room on his better-then-yours internet connection

 

use a 2nd machine to host the server ;)

 

or.. try to get some ISP convinced that they should host some gameservers to broaden their offer to the younger public, and announce that you're willing to voulenteer for as game-admin for them :lol:

Edited August 28, 2006 by 5chaap2k

[5chaap2k]

try to find a friend with a university or company internet connection (with more bandwith as you)

give him a free happy meal each week in exchange for him keeping your dedicated server in his room on his better-then-yours internet connection

 

use a 2nd machine to host the server ;)

 

or.. try to get some ISP convinced that they should host some gameservers to broaden their offer to the younger public, and announce that you're willing to voulenteer for as game-admin for them :lol:

 

just to give u the idea of the bandwith-use of a 16player fear public:

22:00 2 players

22:30 4 players

23:00 10 players

23:30 8 players

 

this is on a windows based server directly colocated at a dutch ISP close to AMS-IX

[Toothless]

Hi, and this is my first post :)

 

I have FEAR Combat and hosting off my home pc. I downloaded the FREE game about one week ago, (noob <---). Here are my observations of hosting off my home pc AND playing at the same time:

 

1-Internet speed: 10meg down, 1 meg upload. Actual speed test are: 9.7-9,8meg download/1.012meg upload. I am set up for a direct connect to the cable modem. Games are all about the upload! when hosting. I am playing the game while hosting.

 

2-After hosting for 5 hours or so, I would send out approximately the following TOTAL data quantity: Upload 7.4GB, Download 3.8GB. (its all about upload). This info taken from the WinXP local network connection "general" tab. I hope my internet service provider is not observing my upload :) Even tho your ISP package is, say....... 10/1 doenst mean that your are getting those speeds. When peeps say their speed package, the real number is what is the true actual speeds your are gettting.

 

3-Server game type: Control 15 player-25min games/400pt total

 

4-when server is full (15), I am uploading approx 800-875K, with bursts up to 1.3megs (not very often). 14 person server I noticed 750-800K. I have ran a 16 person server DM style at 1.5 speed, but some bitch about lag on small maps, when I check the current upload, it is not near the max of 1meg upload. I think this maybe video card related for some without high end pc's. But. I would prefer a "no lag" server, and at 15, I may not hear one person say anyting about the lag for "days" :)

 

5-One game option that may reduce lag is extending the time to respawn after death. When I hosted DM, 1.5 speed, I had respawn set to 0 secs. That means 16 players in the game at all times. If you add seconds to the time to respawn say 8 sec, you may have 11-14 playing at any one time. The remaining players are "dead" waiting to respawn.

 

6-people playing on my server show pings mostly under 100ms. I only see 1 maybe 2 with pings at low 200's. But most players are around 50-125ms. Server Located in St Louis MO.

 

7-netstat live is a very good tool (and free) that I use to see how my down and upload if preforming while hosting. This little freebie can be found at:

http://www.analogx.com/contents/download/network/nsl.htm

 

8-Netstat Live will also show you your CPU usuage. With FEAT Combat it indicates about 28-30%. Which is surprising low. Of course this can be different from one system to another. My rig is a Dell XPS Gen2 purchased in May of 2004.

 

9- With PB enablesd you do have serveral options to reduce the number of checks PB doesn throughout the game so that the game play on your home pc will run a bit smoother while hosting.

 

So when a server lags, it could be one of many reasons. What I can control is the data being transfered and make game adjustments where needed. If your pc is running smooth and the internet connection doesnt have any issues, then it could be that your rig has limitations. I know for a fact I can not host a 32 person FEAR game because of my "limitations" :)

 

Hope one or more of my comments can help someone if they are experiencing issues while hosting FEAR from a home pc :)

 

Toothless

[-B.O.W.-@nimine]

I'm also hosting a F.E.A.R. server from home and don't have any problems with lag, but I got a 20Mbit connection at home, limited to 41Gb download and 13Gb upload with a static ip.

 

The only bottleneck I have is with my cpu, which tends to go higher in usage when server is completely full with players, then it's constantly @ 80%, simply because I'm also playing the game myself on the same machine.

 

Best thing is to host the game on a different machine, as said before and make sure you have a fast network and some decent hardware.

 

grtz

-B.O.W.-@nimine

[5chaap2k]

i convinced an ISP to offer FEAR servers and directly became their fear/ut2k4/rune/bf2142 admin

 

http://games.xs4all.nl is game-subsite of dutch isp http://www.xs4all.nl

 

i currently have 1 machine running 2 FEAR dedicated servers installed as shown in my guide

costom content is downloaded via redirect (turkeyfiles)

 

server is a: Dual Xeon 3,2Ghz with 3,5Gb Memory

connection is 100Mbit Full duplex directly into AMS-IX

 

stats n figures:

Edited November 8, 2006 by 5chaap2k