CS:S server rates settings

[LordMarqus]

Hello. I'm running my CS:S GunGame server for a quite long time and I was improving my server.cfg over that time. Now I'm wondering if I can do something better about server rates enforced on clients. Currently I have those values in my server.cfg:

Code:

sv_minrate 25000
sv_maxrate 35000
sv_minupdaterate 66
sv_maxupdaterate 67
sv_mincmdrate 66
sv_maxcmdrate 67
sv_client_cmdrate_difference 1
sv_client_predict 1
sv_client_min_interp_ratio 2
sv_client_max_interp_ratio 2
sv_competitive_minspec 1
fps_max 0

Server is running GunGame:SM mod on Linux Debian 5.0 OS. It has 14 slots, no DeathMatch. I'm not sure about sv_minrate and sv_maxrate, also not sure if sv_client_cmdrate_difference is needed (just set min and max to 66). If there is something what I can do to make rates settings better please give me an advice. Thank you!

[lol554]

Are you using deathmatch on your servers? Im running a deathmatch myself, and im just having the rates like this:

Code:

sv_minrate 10000
sv_maxrate 100000

It may sound like its too much, but sometimes im experiencing a traffic of 40KB/s (seen in netgraph).

[LordMarqus]

(11-15-2010, 05:07 AM)lol554 Wrote:  Are you using deathmatch on your servers? Im running a deathmatch myself, and im just having the rates like this:

Code:

sv_minrate 10000
sv_maxrate 100000

It may sound like its too much, but sometimes im experiencing a traffic of 40KB/s (seen in netgraph).

No, as I wrote before we don't use DM on our servers. We like classic gameplay and believe it's more competitive and still fun . We have DM mode in warmup, so might be a good idea to set sv_maxrate higher. Thanx, I will check netgraph on small maps with dynamic gameplay.

[lol554]

Oh sorry, i missed that line. The sv_min- and maxrate really depends on how many players that are playing on your server, and what theres "happening" on your server, like if many kills happens at the same time on my server, the server sends alot more KB's out to the players, which would result in choke if your rate wasn't high enough to handle it.

[LordMarqus]

(11-15-2010, 05:17 AM)lol554 Wrote:  Oh sorry, i missed that line. The sv_min- and maxrate really depends on how many players that are playing on your server, and what theres "happening" on your server, like if many kills happens at the same time on my server, the server sends alot more KB's out to the players, which would result in choke if your rate wasn't high enough to handle it.

Yes I understand that, thanx for reminding . But rate is given in bytes per second right? So, even rate of 100000 is about 100 kb/s and only people with very slow connections won't be able to handle that. Am I right?

[lol554]

Uhm.. To be honest i don't really remember.. It could be.

About handling rate 100000, a very few amount of players can't do this. Everyone can set their rate to 100000 without any problems, but it can be a problem if the KB/s gets very high (which i don't think it will do on your server).

[LordMarqus]

Yeah, I've checked that on full server and crowded map. Seems like 25 KB/s will be close to the maximum and more in rare cases so I guess sv_minrate is right as well as sv_maxrate.

What about lerp guys? I've set it so everybody have it 30.3 ms on my servers. Should be okay to avoid shots behind the walls and stuff like that. Is it okay? What settings do you use?

[BehaartesEtwas]

the trick about the right net settings is not to enforce them too much. sv_minupdaterate and sv_mincmdrate determine actually the minimum bandwidth you players must have to play on your server. especially people living in a longer distance from your server might easily get a high ping if you force them into high rates. keep that in mind and don't shout at people lagging around on your server if you use such settings.

(11-15-2010, 07:09 AM)LordMarqus Wrote:  What about lerp guys? I've set it so everybody have it 30.3 ms on my servers. Should be okay to avoid shots behind the walls and stuff like that. Is it okay? What settings do you use?

high lerp values do not allow people shooting around the corner. it only seems to the victim that way, as the kill is delayed by the sum of attackers and victims lerp and ping values. so the victim can still walk around the corner after being killed.

of course very high lerp values (i.e. 200ms or even a second) make the game play ugly, but they do not present any advantage for any side (just try it out). on the other hand, low lerp values also make the game play ugly, but only for the one who has to play with a too low lerp. if the lerp cannot "buffer" ping variations etc. hits will no longer be registered correctly.

[LordMarqus]

(11-15-2010, 07:26 PM)BehaartesEtwas Wrote:  the trick about the right net settings is not to enforce them too much. sv_minupdaterate and sv_mincmdrate determine actually the minimum bandwidth you players must have to play on your server. especially people living in a longer distance from your server might easily get a high ping if you force them into high rates. keep that in mind and don't shout at people lagging around on your server if you use such settings.

I actually don't see that often. There are more problems with people living close to the server but having bad internet connection. All my servers are hosted in Germany and we have ping limit of 140 ms. People from eastern States or Canada can play on our servers and can handle those settings. Often players from Germany are lagging around with ping < 20 ms, because of laggy net or low fps. I also have SM plugin which checks incoming packets, players with very low values get short ban. Players with decent connection and hardware never have this problem if they live close enough. I think there is no sense to let people from Japan join server in Europe .

(11-15-2010, 07:26 PM)BehaartesEtwas Wrote:  high lerp values do not allow people shooting around the corner. it only seems to the victim that way, as the kill is delayed by the sum of attackers and victims lerp and ping values. so the victim can still walk around the corner after being killed.

of course very high lerp values (i.e. 200ms or even a second) make the game play ugly, but they do not present any advantage for any side (just try it out). on the other hand, low lerp values also make the game play ugly, but only for the one who has to play with a too low lerp. if the lerp cannot "buffer" ping variations etc. hits will no longer be registered correctly.

So, do you think 30 ms is enough for server with ping limit of 140 ms?

[BehaartesEtwas]

I think you should keep things on valve defaults. They are pretty good... Valve is not stupid and they know what they are doing. Sometimes they have not very strict limits that require leagues to pick other settings, but a public server is not a league...

If you have people lagging with 20ms, it's probably due to netsettings (either theirs or your server's). The question is, do you want to lock out players who live in regions with bad Internet connections (yes, in Germany those reasons still exist!), or do you want to allow them to adjust their rates so they can actually play on your server with the best performance their particular line allows. Keep in mind, most people do not have a bad Internet connection by choice.

Regarding the lerp limit: Valve already limits the lerp value on client side AFAIK. There is no point in limiting this any further. I think 30ms is the valve limit on a tick 66 server.

[LordMarqus]

(11-15-2010, 10:42 PM)BehaartesEtwas Wrote:  If you have people lagging with 20ms, it's probably due to netsettings (either theirs or your server's). The question is, do you want to lock out players who live in regions with bad Internet connections (yes, in Germany those reasons still exist!), or do you want to allow them to adjust their rates so they can actually play on your server with the best performance their particular line allows. Keep in mind, most people do not have a bad Internet connection by choice.

It's almost always low FPS. Rest is laggy connection (some like to play with Torrent for example, or ISP can't handle traffic). I'm pretty sure about that, I did tests and talked with players having those issues. I think server rates have nothing to do about this. If players can't handle server rates they will send/recieve as much as they can, right? And once again, players with good connection and PC don't have problems. So, default values let them use low rates settings when they can use proper ones. Or I'm totally wrong about all of this .

(11-15-2010, 10:42 PM)BehaartesEtwas Wrote:  Regarding the lerp limit: Valve already limits the lerp value on client side AFAIK. There is no point in limiting this any further. I think 30ms is the valve limit on a tick 66 server.

I think default is 100 ms and you can set it as you like. Without forcing lerp, it may differ for every player. I don't think that's good.

[BehaartesEtwas]

Quote:It's almost always low FPS.

true. but you cannot help this with server settings. fps limit the actual cmd rate, so the cmd rate can go below sv_mincmdrate.

(11-15-2010, 11:25 PM)LordMarqus Wrote:  If players can't handle server rates they will send/recieve as much as they can, right?

that is the problem. if a line is close to 100% load (at any point between client and server, this doesn't have to be the DSL connection!) the ping gets up and becomes very unstable. lowering rates in that situation actually improves the game play dramatically. if you force minimum rates of 66, your players cannot lower their rates and thus have lags. this is cause by your improper server settings which do not allow the optimal settings for that particular line. even slightly lowering rates can sometimes improve the situation much.

lags are always cause by congested lines, there are (virtually) no intrinsically bad lines...

Quote:And once again, players with good connection and PC don't have problems. So, default values let them use low rates settings when they can use proper ones. Or I'm totally wrong about all of this

yes of course not. but you don't only have people with a good connection on your server apparently. else you won't post here

Quote:

(11-15-2010, 10:42 PM)BehaartesEtwas Wrote:  Regarding the lerp limit: Valve already limits the lerp value on client side AFAIK. There is no point in limiting this any further. I think 30ms is the valve limit on a tick 66 server.

I think default is 100 ms and you can set it as you like. Without forcing lerp, it may differ for every player. I don't think that's good.

cl_interp_ratio can be 1 or 2 only afaik. 2 means lerp is twice the time between two ticks, which is 2*1/66 s = 2*15ms = 30ms
but I can be incorrect if cl_interp_ratio can somehow be deactivated (I thought there was an update some time ago that prevented that actually).

[LordMarqus]

(11-16-2010, 07:12 PM)BehaartesEtwas Wrote:  

Quote:It's almost always low FPS.

true. but you cannot help this with server settings. fps limit the actual cmd rate, so the cmd rate can go below sv_mincmdrate.

Sure, I can't help them and because they lag in a visible way they get short ban with explanation.

(11-16-2010, 07:12 PM)BehaartesEtwas Wrote:  

(11-15-2010, 11:25 PM)LordMarqus Wrote:  If players can't handle server rates they will send/recieve as much as they can, right?

that is the problem. if a line is close to 100% load (at any point between client and server, this doesn't have to be the DSL connection!) the ping gets up and becomes very unstable. lowering rates in that situation actually improves the game play dramatically. if you force minimum rates of 66, your players cannot lower their rates and thus have lags. this is cause by your improper server settings which do not allow the optimal settings for that particular line. even slightly lowering rates can sometimes improve the situation much.

lags are always cause by congested lines, there are (virtually) no intrinsically bad lines...

Honestly, what is the difference in up/down bandwidth between full and capped rates? I think it is very small and if they play with 100% load of the line then this is wrong not server rates. Anyway in such situation ping limit kicker removes them from the server.

There are bad lines. Not permanently usual but it happens. I have a friend who has this kind of problems and one clan member who have this all the time. In the first case ISP was doing some maintenance to handle more traffic. But my clan member have problems all the time. He starts to lag in random periods of time on every server he joins no matter where this server is located. Some players have also random FPS drops. That are situations which I guess cannot be even detected. I tried to write plugin which measures ping samples and calculaes standard deviation . But this is too random to detect.

(11-15-2010, 10:42 PM)BehaartesEtwas Wrote:  

Quote:And once again, players with good connection and PC don't have problems. So, default values let them use low rates settings when they can use proper ones. Or I'm totally wrong about all of this

yes of course not. but you don't only have people with a good connection on your server apparently. else you won't post here

I think rates settings are good but it's always good to see some opinions.

(11-16-2010, 07:12 PM)BehaartesEtwas Wrote:  

(11-15-2010, 10:42 PM)BehaartesEtwas Wrote:  Regarding the lerp limit: Valve already limits the lerp value on client side AFAIK. There is no point in limiting this any further. I think 30ms is the valve limit on a tick 66 server.

Quote:I think default is 100 ms and you can set it as you like. Without forcing lerp, it may differ for every player. I don't think that's good.

cl_interp_ratio can be 1 or 2 only afaik. 2 means lerp is twice the time between two ticks, which is 2*1/66 s = 2*15ms = 30ms
but I can be incorrect if cl_interp_ratio can somehow be deactivated (I thought there was an update some time ago that prevented that actually).

The sv_competitive_minspec do that.

[BehaartesEtwas]

sorry, you are mistaken. if you put a line close to congestion, the ping goes up dramatically (like a factor of 5) and begins to vary very strongly (which is actually the bigger problem, as the lag compensation no longer works then). even a slight reduction in the rate can then help, eliminating all the lags (with the trade-off of a slightly more imprecise game play). and those are your server settings that force the players into those high data rates. lower rates do not create lags, that is simply (a very common) misunderstanding. you can play with 30/30 rates completely lag free. only the precision is a little lower of course, but that is a very minor issue!

what I meant regarding bad lines: bad lines are only bad due to an overload. in some countryside regions this might be caused even by your neighbors, so reducing the rates actually does not help always. but in the majority of the cases it helps very much. and especially allowing the players to reduce the rates does not really hurt!

and beware that not everything in this world is an opinion ;-) some things are actually true or false. false is for sure that "low" rates (I mean like 30/30, which is the lowest rate allowed by valve) produce lags. it is simple logic that dictates that. please do not conclude the opposite direction. lagging people might very well have low rates. but increasing the rates never helps (why should it, the reason for the lags is somewhere else).

do whatever you want on your server, that's why you are running your own server. but don't complain about lagging players if you force everyone into high rates.

[LordMarqus]

Well, I choose more precise game and practically CS:S alone will never cause 100% use of line, so I will keep high rates. If I will allow standard rates which are low, then 90% of players will use this because they don't know how to change it. And if they know they change it to high anyway.

Now lets say that they change it from 66 to 33 and it is updaterate. Average bandwidth is let's say 18 kb/s so they get 9 kb/s (can we calculate it like that?). So I don't understand how 9 kb/s less may help. If they download something it will use 100% anyway (usually).