Map Download - Everytime you play the map?

[NetNut]

Hello all,

I am hosting my maps on my domain on the internet. Well it appears that the source engine requires that a player download the map everytime they encounter the map in a new game. Meaning.. On a map switch. If you already downloaded it a few matches back, you have to download it again.

It appears that when its downloaded and placed in cache, the cache is not referenced before the download.

I have a 35GB download cap on my hosted account and I had to stop hosting the server for a few days as I was at 83% of my bandwidth limit in the month on Jan.

When I took a look at the webalizer logs and stats and was amazed to find 11000 hits from my game servers IP and user agent of "Half-Life 2".

Now its Feb and I enabled the server again on 2/2/05. I just checked my bandwidth usage and I am at 11% in 4 days.

I am an experienced game admin in Quake, JA, JO, UT, UT2004. I have also ran HL with the AdminMod. I have never seen such an issue.

I know that in UT the community has a couple of redirection servers that very nice people run that allows admins to point to for content downloads so you do not have to burden your connection or self with the bandwidth additions.

Is such a thing being planned for SRCDS?
Am I the only one who has this issue?
Have I set up this redirection wrong? (I assume not as it is working).

Cheers to all!

[PhatBoy]

Hmmm this doesnt sound right. I've set up the http downloading of maps on my server and I'm pretty sure from checking the logs that the clients are only downloading the maps once.

Are you sure it's the same clients downloading the maps multiple times? Also, I have noticed that the game downloads a .ain file every time you join a custom map irrespective of whether or not you've been on the map before. These files aren't big though so it shouldn't really eat into your bandwidth cap.

[Stealth]

hows the map on your server instead?

[NetNut]

Stealth Wrote:hows the map on your server instead?

Yea. and lag my server and eatup my upload bandwidth which is already a premium resource.

[Stealth]

Dont run off cable then :S

[NetNut]

Stealth Wrote:Dont run off cable then :S

Hey Thats a thought.. If it was cable. I have since moved it to a DSL connection. Thanks for the information.

Maybe I just need to co-locate the server @ and ISP for $150+ a month. It is only a hobby so I can afford that, everyone should be able to afford that.

[Stealth]

$150 = (around) 80 amazingly great british pounds.

Thats very expensive for colocation is it not? :-/

[NetNut]

Stealth Wrote:$150 = (around) 80 amazingly great british pounds.

Thats very expensive for colocation is it not? :-/

It can be, but game servers are usually high bandwidth utilization (for busy ones).

[Stealth]

Not in my experience.

[NetNut]

Ok.. I have a different experiences.

I know that my clans co-located HL, JO, UT2003, Tribes server takes a lot of bandwidth for our clan. I guess we are odd and no one has ever had this issue. We must run an odd server as its always busy and the download of maps and addons on each server add to the bandwidth.

It been up for some 5 years with various game servers on it. Its now a Dual Xeon 3GHz server running Windows 2003. Maybe thats it.. Its Windows 2000 and 2003 we ran on it. Thats the bandwidth hog.

[nitromullet]

On a related topic... How does one set up http map downloads instead of having players download the maps directly from the game server? Is there a specific way the map directory has to be set up on the web server?