I know it's just sv_public 1 to bring a created game online, but that is a difference from just clicking "enable public" - a huge one, believe it or not.
Before 2.4 came out we had much more experimental servers, and I liked them. Goofy maps, other gametypes...

Now we know how many are online because the name will always end with " 's Nexuiz Server" At the moment of writing there are 0 games running that aren't running with nexuiz-dedicated.
And if someone chooses to start his own server - why would we have to edit text files if there is a really nice gui for selecting maps, gametype, loading bots...

Apart from the fact that many people will simply accept that there is no public option, and even the ones who know how to make it public could use some more convenience. Yesterday I started a test server again with a friend... the skype call went something like this:

I think it's public underscrore 0
- Why would it be 0, shouldn't it be one? ... doesn't matter... command not found
No, there's a space before the 1
- command not found
I think it's sv dash public 1
- 'sv' command not found
You made a space... the command should be sv-public not sv
- still nothing
sv underscore public 1?
- Heureka!








unnecessary!


If you do bring it back maybe we'll finally see an onslaught server, or keyhunt and domination without bots, on a european server preferrably!

That is because listen servers (that also have run a renderer) have BAD performance, as the network layer can't deal with packets while it is waiting for the graphics card.

There is a way to search commands in the console. I don't remember off the top of my head. Johngalt showed it to me. It'd be nice if we could alias it with 'find'.

Oooooooh, that's why bougoserv is laggy...

Mh... Now one thing I dislike is how rcon or the console aren't user friendly... It would be neat to connect the engine and the dedicated's cvars together, for example, or to enable tab completion on the dedicated...

[-z-] wrote:There is a way to search commands in the console. I don't remember off the top of my head. Johngalt showed it to me. It'd be nice if we could alias it with 'find'.

Really?

Never noticed that in cmdlist.

divVerent wrote:That is because listen servers (that also have run a renderer) have BAD performance, as the network layer can't deal with packets while it is waiting for the graphics card.

There's ping for that. - You don't have to join a game with bad performance.

If either one of my friends creates a game it is usually the one with the lowest ping, or close to the top, and we never had any performance problems.
Also there are enough servers running with nexuiz-dedicated that have bad perfomance. Not everyone will go out and rent a dedicated server to set up their nexuiz server. Most of those run from home boxes, no?

I feel like starting a dedicated server with 32 unhuman bots in protest - runematch, augenkrebs only!

oskar669 wrote:

divVerent wrote:That is because listen servers (that also have run a renderer) have BAD performance, as the network layer can't deal with packets while it is waiting for the graphics card.

There's ping for that. - You don't have to join a game with bad performance.

Hmm, no I don't think ping is what he means. Ping has to do with the time it takes to send and receive a pack between you and another network location. That has more to do with internet connections and distance (number of hops) more than anything.

What he's talking about is the internal performance of the server with having to balance between the server (the network layer) and graphics at the same time. So running a dedicated server will make the it much more efficient because it cuts out the graphics rendering portion and then it doesn't have to perform that balancing act. That's my interpretation of what he meant.

One more thing...

oskar669 wrote: Not everyone will go out and rent a dedicated server to set up their nexuiz server. Most of those run from home boxes, no?

I have yet to play on a server running from a home connection that is playable. All of the playable servers are running on dedicated server or VPS. In the US, one of the more affordable options is slicehost.com where you can get a 256MB RAM VPS slice for $20/mo.

Also, um, can't think of the name right now, but someone recently told me that they were offering Nexuiz game servers for a fee to the Nexuiz community. It was one of the UT guys. I think his group is called "Midnight Gaming". Ahh, found it...
http://midnightgaming.net/billing/order ... p=2&pid=53
a 10-player slot dedicated Nexuiz server for $12.50 a month (US server).
You can ask them for more details in their IRC channel. irc://irc.us.gamesurge.net/#MidnightGaming

Just a note on the VPS.

We tried running 4 game servers on a VPS for ~a month. Overall they were fairly good, we were one of two clients on this system. The host complained of an I/O barrier that was lagging the system and overall wasn't worth it so we moved to a dedicated.

For one, low use server, it shouldn't be a problem but don't expect to scale.

I'm playing almost exclusively on servers that run on a friends pc - my router doesn't play well with nexuiz (port forewarded... some other issue) so I can't host.
And we're getting ping times below 50, no time outs, no lag. - On a cable connection - 1MiB down 500kiB up, that's pretty much the standard here for non mobile internet in the city.
And still - the 'good' servers would still be there - half of those are unplayable for me - The nexuiz ninja servers never get a ping below 150 here for excample.
Anyway the point is that you don't have to enter those servers... maybe they could be marked in some way - other than [player name]'s nexuiz server...

something like
*private* [server name]
So you could still put lms, kh, tdm and so on in the title so people can make a search if they want to play those.
And those who have had a bad experience with private servers could simply avoid those.

I do think that ping times are a good indication. I never get lag when the server has a low ping.
Don't you automatically get a lower ping if packages are dropped?

- for example just now another one of my friends hosted for the first time - when he had the graphics set too high on his side the ping went up to almost 200, when he turned it down all was fine... I think we were 8 people at one point, and it worked perfectly.

Dokujisan, there technically isn't much of a difference wether the server is in a server room, or a living room, and games are not very demanding on the traffic side, so I don't see the problem here.

oskar669 wrote:Dokujisan, there technically isn't much of a difference wether the server is in a server room, or a living room, and games are not very demanding on the traffic side, so I don't see the problem here.

Hmm. Data centers are often closer to trunklines which provide fewer hops and smaller latency (to everyone, not just certain people). That alone makes a big difference, but then you add in higher quality equipment (routers and switches), higher quality cabling and dedicated bandwidth, all of that adds up. If you're talking about running a server on the same computer that you play Nexuiz, then that brings up a whole other set of differences. A server setup is usually more refined where there are fewer background processes to randomly chew up resources, and the priority between processes is more balanced. A typical desktop OS tries to make the interface responsive (as it should) where a typical server tries to balance priority between processes.

My experience with home-based Nexuiz servers is that they play okay for about a minute but then they lag for whatever reason, and then they play well again for another minute. Iinconsistancy. I imagine this has as much to do with the system (OS setup) as much as the internet connection (Cable, DSL). Then there is shared bandwidth, cheap home routers, etc. The ping times seem to vary more compared to a typical dedicated server. One player will have good ping and another player will have horrible ping, where they would have similar ping on a dedicated server.

Then again, if you are lucky enough to have fiber optic straight to your house, then probably helps to relieve some of the latency.

After starting a server within the Nexuiz client, can you change the hostname using...

Code: Select all

set hostname "My Server Name"


(I'm at work and can't test this right now)

Thanks!

... I know what the potential problems are. I can only speak from experience.

A typical desktop OS tries to make the interface responsive (as it should) where a typical server tries to balance priority between processes.

A Desktop does this too. Windows maybe less than linux, but I think we have a fairly strong *nix crowd fraggin in nexuiz with proper process management

Yes they might be inconsistent... can't argue with that. The point is that I don't care personally - I can always change the server, and if you would allow them to name the server, but reserve a little space to indicate that it runs on a home pc - that might even be an improvement for both sides here, because now you can't tell which are which because most people start the nexuiz-dedicated if they want to start a private game.
There will be significantly less pre-schoolers trying to set up a dedicated server on a PII laptop, if the public option is readily available.

And the dedicated servers also don't work for all people. I guess the ones that have a very low ping here (Austria) are probably in the USA, China...

Ok, I just tested running a server locally through the Nexuiz menu and you can change the host name by using...

Code: Select all

set hostname "blah"

oskar669 wrote:

A typical desktop OS tries to make the interface responsive (as it should) where a typical server tries to balance priority between processes.

A Desktop does this too. Windows maybe less than linux, but I think we have a fairly strong *nix crowd fraggin in nexuiz with proper process management

A desktop can do that, but most don't. That's why I said typical.

But I don't think you want to hear opposing viewpoints, so I give up.

Here, the problem is different. The engine Nexuiz uses uses a single process for everything - which is good for singleplayer, but bad for a listen server. For a listen server, it'd be better if it would spawn a separate process or thread for the server stuff, and "connect" to it as a client - even though that means extra overhead.

But, as long as the engine isn't multithreaded for that purpose, listen servers will have bad and inconsistent performance. Basically, their performance is good when the owner of the listen server has good fps, and when his fps drop (like, when he's looking at complex geometry), the server lags out.

Thanks for the insight!

Just a thought: What if instead of setting the listen server public, the public option would pass on the settings to nexuiz-dedicated, and start it as a seperate process?
Does that make sense?

Dokujisan wrote:But I don't think you want to hear opposing viewpoints, so I give up.

wheee! victory!

It would be quite hard to code, but yes, if listen servers did that, it would be best.