tickrate loss, help

[romalittle]

hi

im running a dedicated box with 4 css servers, teamspeak and web.
but i always get tickrate drop on my 100 tickrate bhop server. please help me to fix it.

server box specs:
Dual Core AMD Athlon 64 X2 5600+
2GB DDR-2
2x 400GB SATA-2
100 Mbit
Debian 4.0

css server which gets tickrate drop: 78.46.97.131:27017

[janne]

tried higher rates?
sv_maxrate 50000
sv_minrate 50000

[romalittle]

no, should i?

[romalittle]

ok, we have figured out that the configuration of the box is actually not optimized for source dedicated servers.

[Branti]

When you run the 100 tic is important that the server keeps fps
Run with the + fps_max 600 in the startup command

[BehaartesEtwas]

try my kernel optimization howto (link in the signature) :-)

"sv_minrate 50000" is nonsense btw. this would produce severe lags on any players with a slow connection.

[css]

BehaartesEtwas Wrote:"sv_minrate 50000" is nonsense btw. this would produce severe lags on any players with a slow connection.

Are you sure? Doesn't the "sv_minrate 50000" mean that the server wants clients to have "rate" set to at least 50000. Sv_maxrate vice versa limits the high limit for the client rates, so clients don't send too much data to the server (which should not be problem on a good server).

The rate setting at 50000 doesn't mean that the client would be required to send that much data all the time. It's just that the client is prepared to send that much if the game situation requires it.

All players should have these rates set to unlimited (how?) or >30000, which is probably the maximum anyway. In theory the server should be able to force the setting with sv_*rate, but even though Valve has fixed it couple times it still doesn't seem to work.

They say that SourceTV causes fluctuating FPS and/or tickrate. Try to disable SourceTV if you have it. I think BehaartesEtwas can say something concluding to this. Have you seen solid 1000 FPS server with SourceTV?

[janne]

Spot on css!

I've been forcing these values on my deathmatch server for over a year now.
I have a rock solid 100 updates/sec due to the fact I'm allowing a little bit higher bandwidth per client so the server don't have to choke.
It's become a very popular server for many European top players because of it.

sv_maxrate "50000"
sv_minrate "35000"
sv_minupdaterate "80"
sv_maxupdaterate "100"
sv_mincmdrate "80"
sv_maxcmdrate "100"

Lowest sv_maxrate for 100tick 10slot cs:s server should be at least 35k. Not 25k like for cs1.6 which requires half the bandwidth

[Doggie52]

Woah woah hang on here... I've heard the maxrate for CS:S is 20000... Mine is set at 8000, is that extremely low? I'm getting fairly good pings!

[BehaartesEtwas]

css Wrote:The rate setting at 50000 doesn't mean that the client would be required to send that much data all the time.

true

Quote:All players should have these rates set to unlimited (how?) or >30000, which is probably the maximum anyway.

untrue. the rate command is there for a reason. if you try to send more data than your connection can handle, your ping will get high and you get loss and very unpredictable behavour. to avoid this, valve introduced a client side limit that should be set to the available upload bandwidth (better slightly below to be sure). than you will get just choke if more data than possible should be send, which is much better than loss+highping!

Quote:In theory the server should be able to force the setting with sv_*rate, but even though Valve has fixed it couple times it still doesn't seem to work.

it works perfectly. only those nice tools like zblock or mani display the values of the client config before being forced to some other values. if you look at the real rates (I have modified a sourcemod plugin for this) you will see the difference (unless the client is not able to get higher rates, e.g. due to low fps).

Quote:They say that SourceTV causes fluctuating FPS and/or tickrate. Try to disable SourceTV if you have it. I think BehaartesEtwas can say something concluding to this. Have you seen solid 1000 FPS server with SourceTV?

not if there are many spectators in the sourcetv server. it is always better just to provide a relay slot and use some external tv server (which can run on the same machine e.g. with a lower priority).

[css]

BehaartesEtwas Wrote:

Quote:All players should have these rates set to unlimited (how?) or >30000, which is probably the maximum anyway.

untrue. the rate command is there for a reason. if you try to send more data than your connection can handle, your ping will get high and you get loss and very unpredictable behavour. to avoid this, valve introduced a client side limit that should be set to the available upload bandwidth (better slightly below to be sure). than you will get just choke if more data than possible should be send, which is much better than loss+highping!

True, but who wants to play with player whose connection sucks anyway? People are talking here about few millisecond FPS boosts and unstable tickrate, so it doesn't make any sense to then have some noob with less than the maximum rate on the server.

BehaartesEtwas Wrote:

Quote:In theory the server should be able to force the setting with sv_*rate, but even though Valve has fixed it couple times it still doesn't seem to work.

it works perfectly.

I wouldn't say perfectly. I've got good settings on my server, but still players report time to time that there's someone lagging like hell.

Partly because of the uncertainty I also created the player rate tracking system. I can see that there are many players who are not doing even the 50 updates that the server forces. How's that forcing? I'm not expert on hacks, but I'd say it's possible to create rate hack that does the same effect without the downside of bad FPS.

I've understood the SourceTV problem as general FPS downer. Server admins enable SourceTV with autorecord and after that they never get to solid 1000 FPS. There doesn't need to be any spectators. This is the picture I've got reading these forums and reading server admins whine in general.

@janne
What's your server address?

[janne]

css Wrote:

BehaartesEtwas Wrote:

Quote:In theory the server should be able to force the setting with sv_*rate, but even though Valve has fixed it couple times it still doesn't seem to work.

it works perfectly.

I wouldn't say perfectly. I've got good settings on my server, but still players report time to time that there's someone lagging like hell.
Partly because of the uncertainty I also created the player rate tracking system. I can see that there are many players who are not doing even the 50 updates that the server forces. How's that forcing? I'm not expert on hacks, but I'd say it's possible to create rate hack that does the same effect without the downside of bad FPS.

I would say perfect also. It forces the values of the cvars. Not kicking if you can't live up to it.
Usually the problems you describe are because of the clients poor internet connection and/or fps-issues. Not that they try to rate hack.
A clients updates/sec can never be over his fps, even if you enforce a higher min value.

css Wrote:@janne
What's your server address?

its @ galvanized.se:27016
Welcome in =)