Fps: How Do I Lower It?

Depot

I plead ignorance on this subject. A search turned up nothing, so here we go.

<b>1.</b> When is the best time to check FPS, void of players or under full load?

<b>2.</b> What is a healthy range for my FPS to run in?

<b>3.</b> What are some good ways to lower the FPS on my server?

Zamma

Higher FPS = better...

Bry

serverside fps is controlled by sys_ticrate (Not sys_tickrate) in hlds and fps_max in srcds.

The default value is 300 but for some reason the max you get with this is about 250

If you are running a server on windows you will find it to be capped to 64 fps.
This is due to the Windows Multi Media Timer and can be solved in a few ways. The easiest is to simply open windows media player and minimise it (no need to actually load/run a file).

Typicaly you should go for now less than 100 and no more than 300, for the lower it gets the worse the reg and 'feel' of your server.
Be warned though the higher the fps the more cpu you will use.

However, ive noticed that fps can drop into 20s even with only 20% cpu usage.

You can check server fps ingame via rcon stats.

so in essence:

1)Best time to test is with server full and lots going on. This will be the time your server is more liekly to struggle and therefore would be running at a low fps.

2)64+ (i say 64 because most windows servers are capepd to this due to most admins not knowing how to raise it) But imo its 100+

3)You can lower it by setting a low sys_ticrate remember though the actual fps is proportionately less so 300 fps = about 250

modie

I know it's not popular, but I'll say it anyways and then everyone can crap about it. We're using booster_mm with a bit of success. Our frame rates don't drop below 100 and we don't have any issues with it. On the down side, the server still tends to crash with the ns.dll error and we only have the one server on the box.

While I'm sure you'll see lots of people saying don't do it, I would suggest at least trying it and seeing what happens, you can always turn if off later.

Bry - I'm interested to know if you'd share your ban list?

Depot

Thanks Bry, most excellent post! <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->

With several players in the server, FPS is just a hair below 100, with or withOUT Windows Media Player minimized.