"Added as many UTF8 characters as possible to all fonts. This makes you able to chat in cyrillic."
We are so screwed
Edit:
Seriously though. Wonderful patch, performance is great in game. I won't ask for all the extra little fixes i'd have like to have seen because you guys are obviously working very hard and i've already reported the issues, but i'd like to offer some encouragement and hope this awesomeness keeps up long enough for more of the big things to get sorted.
different sensativity settings for aliens and marines when.
Good patch! I've only played a few games and, like you guys promised, the game feels much smoother. I think I also gained more fps.
My marine aim is like 15% better... I was preparing to shoot a running skulk (that I did massive DMG to) around pipes... but.. he had actually died from my past shots hitting him. That surprised the hell out of me. My bullets were actually landing lol. And now those evil whips that I complained about being weak can do work.. took me a minute to realize you couldn't easily run past them. Good job with making them useful.
Usually I'm a dick on here but you guys did a great job, especially without getting any pay. :-bd
Huge player count servers serve no purpose but to harm the community. The gameplay on them is absurdly bad. Because of the way the server browser works they gain a natural popularity advantage as well... im fine with seeing them staying far in the realms of unsupported...
McGlaspiewww.team156.comJoin Date: 2010-07-26Member: 73044Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Squad Five Gold, Reinforced - Onos, WC 2013 - Gold, Subnautica Playtester
Asking for a significant increase in available player counts is also asking for the entire game (costs, res rates, HP/AR, tech-flow/unlocks, etc) to be rebalanced. I do not see this ever changing for the entirety of NS2's life either. Far, far too many issues that come along with it. Not too mention the technical limitations. Sorry if you feel that way @the_tick, but it is what it is.
IeptBarakatThe most difficult name to speak ingame.Join Date: 2009-07-10Member: 68107Members, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Diamond, Reinforced - Shadow
@the_tick Yeah, the community is awfully stubborn so you can bet on not getting any official support when it comes to that. People will continue to vehemently keep it locked to 24 players despite plenty of us hailing from large public games back in the day.
Though it's not going to make much of a difference in their eyes, could you limit your server to 32 players at most? That seems to be the standard for large public multiplayer games these days. It should also provide a marginally better experience for the people in your server. Just sayin'.
Is it just me or does the game feel completely different now? It's like I no longer fight the hundreds-of-ms-later version of my opponent. Now it feels much more close to real time. Reaction times are shortened for everyone and now I have to be more careful and deliberate with juking, choosing engagements, and tracking opponents as aliens. This makes the game much more challenging and I wouldn't have it any other way. Also, the buttery smooth frame rate is amazing to see on a LightBoost/ULMB-enabled monitor. Just tremendously awesome work, CDT.
Well, I finally had a chance to get in to NS2 for a proper session tonight, after some long shifts at work the past couple of days.
As a player who's put in well over 1000 hours now, the difference in performance has been very noticeable (though casual players may not see it) and i never imagined it'd feel so much smoother for me given my set-up (higher-end pc) as the focus has been on improving things for older hardware users.
I've still experienced the odd hitch on it's highest graphics settings (2g+ Vram, Physics Multi-threading off). Unfortunately I can't comment on the improvements here as i've almost always had things set to the lowest settings for various reasons.
In it's lowest settings, everything just felt smoother.. I don't recall having many micro-hitches before build 267, but evidently I must have just got so used to them they barely registered (and I've got a terrible monitor which probably doesn't refresh often enough to really highlight them).
I love the addition of hit sounds, and more bullets seem to be finding their targets now. I expect to see many more competent/dangerous marine players popping up over the next few weeks thanks to the performance and audio cues (helping them to improve their aim). I hope this leads to improvements in alien teamplay as rambo skulks are going to have a real tough time now.
It's a shame whips still need some work as i'm looking forward to seeing how they affect balance and strategies now they'll be more effective. The foundations are there though, and I wouldn't be able to tell it's a complete rewrite of their code. You've done a great job ensuring it still behaves the same...just better.
Overall, this is an Amazing patch, with a surprisingly few number of bugs slipping by the play testers. A huge thanks to all those involved in the creation and testing of build 267. You guys rock!
I've also been blown away at the support of the CDT in particular during the immediate aftermath of the launch, immediately providing tech support, workarounds, fixes and incredible patience towards the repeated questions and mod-enabled users with issues. UWE is lucky to have such a dedicated team of volunteers working on NS2. And I have no doubt you've proven to them they made the right call trusting you with their baby.
about 40ppl on my steam friends list 'own' the game. I'm hoping i can talk some of them, complaining about performance or the 'feel' of the game, into giving it another shot with this latest patch.
_____
System Specs:
i5 4670k @ 3.8Ghz
8GB DDR3 Ram
GTX 770 (2GB)
240gb Crucial M500 SSD
1x Cheap 27" T.V hooked up as a monitor
I just want to point out that the community is actually the only reason or hope that any bug-fix you'd like to see would come about at this point. Pathetic is the polar opposite of how I would describe the community.
That said, I appreciate the CDT soooo much for all their efforts so far! Epic patch, crew! I have definitely noticed less hitching, and though not necessarily more fps, it's staying up more consistently. You guys did a little bit of everything (map fixes, so many features, performance, etc), and it's dope-a-lope. Thank you, seriously.
It looks like the issues come from outdated mods, so no hotfix in order
Not all of them. I doubt that broken localization in Linux can happen because of mods. It obviously wasn't tested even once, you just can't ignore the empty main menu when switching the language to Russian. Especially after this many playtests. Why everybody ignores that report, answering other people in the thread but not me? Or answering something completely unrelated. Yes, I know that Linux devs are on board, maybe they'll drop a line or two regarding this issue? People without mic now started writing cyrillic all the time and I have to open the console just to read what they say. I see only overlapping players names in chat without the messages themselves.
Huge player count servers serve no purpose but to harm the community.
This is incorrect. Large player count servers offer a different, and popular, version of the game. You are welcome to a disagree with it, but around 18% of the player base is enjoying them at any one time. If they weren't enjoying it, they wouldn't be playing there. If you understand this you'll realise large player count servers are in fact serving the community, and keeping people playing.
Asking for a significant increase in available player counts is also asking for the entire game (costs, res rates, HP/AR, tech-flow/unlocks, etc) to be rebalanced.
I won't comment on the technical aspects, you know better than anyone else. I just want to point out that for large player games little if any balancing needs to be done. The only change on Wooza's 42 player server is starting marine IPs scaling with player count (1, 2 or 3 at start). That's it. The games play remarkably well like this and every night we have some incredible matches.
We're finding, in fact, that the major limitation for large players is not the mechanics, but the maps. Some maps play really well with large player counts, others not so much. Those that really don't work well can be removed from the rotation.
Incidentally, I believe there are maps in progress specifically designed for larger player counts now. This game style is growing. Anything you can do on your side to help this in future (like making it easier to alter player cap, Tick's original complaint) is appreciated, though we also understand your energies need to be focused on the core game first. And that's fine, that's as it should be.
Just never say never Survival is any any sphere is about adapting to change.
Asking for a significant increase in available player counts is also asking for the entire game (costs, res rates, HP/AR, tech-flow/unlocks, etc) to be rebalanced. I do not see this ever changing for the entirety of NS2's life either. Far, far too many issues that come along with it. Not too mention the technical limitations. Sorry if you feel that way @the_tick, but it is what it is.
Short version -
* There are no technical limitations anymore
* I have developed a balance mod to address large server balance issues, which pretty much makes that argument invalid
* there are only 2 servers who make use of this
Long version
Anything above 20 is fucked in ns2 without rebalancing simply because at that level the game becomes a JP GL spam shitfest. (*And yes, the magic number is 20) (** Talking out of experience) This is why some simple value's are changed. For example, the grenade launcher costs 30 instead of 15, and does less overall damage. Which makes it for marines harder to spam with a GL. And this is not the only change I have made. There is a whole array of balance changes but keeping the balance intact. Also I have made some changes to improve the quality of the server, and by this I mean making some simple changes to reduce the overall entity count on a map. So that even in long games the server client does not suffer as much as you see with other large server(s)
There are a whole balance changes, and improvements, for example webbing, who's idea was it to put it on biomass level 7 make give it an amazing 50 HP, make the web so long even the most exprienced players would kill themselves by attempting to use webbing. And as a final measure, let's make the webs more visible then a stop sign, but wait, that is not all, To really really make sure you won't get webbed anymore, make sure I can still shoot in the astronomical chance when I am drunk I might step on to one. But make sure gorges pay hefty fines on using webbing, this way it never pays off to place webs.
Anyways...
Technical limitation, please enlighten me about that, because I am getting sick and tired of that argument, server is handling it at a tickrate of 30, even on long games. with over 1250 objects on the map. My client rate is doing fine +100 fps average, on a average up to date pc.
a just say the game is designed for 24 players, Remove the limit any server player account above that and it is at your own risk in inbalancing the game, problem solved. All I am asking
AsranielJoin Date: 2002-06-03Member: 724Members, Playtest Lead, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow, Subnautica Playtester, Retired Community Developer
The 40 player argument should be taken to a different thread. That said, the CDT wont support nor hinder the 40 player servers. Maybe that changes one day when performance increases dramatically, but as it is now, nothing will change in that regard
PelargirJoin Date: 2013-07-02Member: 185857Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, WC 2013 - Silver, Forum staff
edited August 2014
Is that question about servers is really necessary? You cannot force people/players to not invest money on >20 slots servers. So yeah, that's a shame for some people, in my opinion, performances & balanced gameplay for public reach their paroxysm on a server with only 18 slots, if it's less, this is not even funny for public, if it's more, that's just a mess. That doesn't mean I have no fun here, it's only different & not my preferences.
That said sentence about servers added thanks to the b267 is very helpful & definitely enough for now, at least. People joining such servers are immediately warned about performances issues, etc.
And the question about balance, something that I can understand, truly seems out of subject whether players usually connect to these servers, like/enjoy to play on, that's also create a kind of community, it's often the same players who are joining the same servers, for 24/42 or even less like HBZ servers.
And with all these improvements thanks to the b267, issues performances are getting closer to the host, and not to the number of slots.
The 40 player argument should be taken to a different thread. That said, the CDT wont support nor hinder the 40 player servers. Maybe that changes one day when performance increases dramatically, but as it is now, nothing will change in that regard
I agree, and it's been done to death anyway. I hope I didn't de-reail with my post, just wanted to point out balance is not as large an issue as it may seem, speaking from months playing on these servers (though tick's approach and Woozas is quite different. Wooza aims to be as vanilla as possible), and should not be a disincentive to avoid looking into large server support at some point in future.
SewlekThe programmer previously known as SchimmelJoin Date: 2003-05-13Member: 16247Members, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, Subnautica Developer
one argument that speaks for unlocking player counts above 24 is simply for mods: there might be a mod which depends on 20vs20 (and wont function below that)? for vanilla ns2 itself i agree, doesnt make so much sense, but modded ns2 is a different story
dePARAJoin Date: 2011-04-29Member: 96321Members, Squad Five Blue
If so many players enjoying warpin skulks, rubberbanding from hell and half possible fps cause doubled entity amount the CDT should stop wasting time in optimizing this game.
These players wont see the difference anyway.
matsoMaster of PatchesJoin Date: 2002-11-05Member: 7000Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Squad Five Gold, Reinforced - Shadow, NS2 Community Developer
Asking for a significant increase in available player counts is also asking for the entire game (costs, res rates, HP/AR, tech-flow/unlocks, etc) to be rebalanced. I do not see this ever changing for the entirety of NS2's life either. Far, far too many issues that come along with it. Not too mention the technical limitations. Sorry if you feel that way @the_tick, but it is what it is.
Short version -
* There are no technical limitations anymore
Ah ... not quite sure about that. The limited bandwidth causing 100% choke 100% of the time in endgame battles was probably the most significant reason for why endgame play in Woozas has been pretty bad.
It will be interesting to see how the endgame looks once that's fixed.
* I have developed a balance mod to address large server balance issues, which pretty much makes that argument invalid
Actually, you are agreeing with mcglaspie that YES, NS2 needs rebalancing for large player counts, and disagreeing that it would be too much of a job.
Though McGlaspie is probably saying that it will take a lot of work to do it as WELL as McGlaspie wants it done :-)
Technical limitation, please enlighten me about that, because I am getting sick and tired of that argument, server is handling it at a tickrate of 30, even on long games. with over 1250 objects on the map. My client rate is doing fine +100 fps average, on a average up to date pc.
When it comes to performance, you need to measure the performance of the server at the highest possible load to ensure that it can still respond swiftly to player input even when the game is at its most loaded - the highest load is possibly when the game is at its most intense, and players need the best possible performance.
The server kinda starts sucking badly when it gets overloaded; it's only way of saving CPU is by lowering the tickrate, and as the tickrate also limits the sendrate (how often the clients gets updated), you will start to get into some real trouble with the interp buffer.
The interp[retation] buffer variable is set at 2/standard sendrate or 100ms to ensure that what you see on the screen is INTERPOLATED between two known network update states. Using 2/sendrate allows you to compensate for a bit of network latency variance/loss.
If no network update arrives in time (ie, the interval between two updates are >100ms) to fill up the known network states when the client needs to see it, the client will cross its finger, and simply EXTRAPOLATE from the last two packets. Ie, it will show things in positions it GUESSES them to be in.
Once a new network packet comes in, then the client will show things in the new known position , which may not have been at all like what the client guessed at, resulting in the entities instantly moving from one point to another - this is what is behind teleporting/rubberbanding.
Guess what happens when the server tickrate drops below 10, and the sendrate interval then goes to > 100ms? You will have interp overrun pretty much constantly... resulting in everything teleporting all over the place, and the game becoming an unplayable mess.
So it is INCREDIBLY important that the server tick interval NEVER gets close to 100ms - that's not an average, bw - that's the absolute upper limit of the length of a server update tick; if ANY server tick takes longer than 100ms, you WILL get a MASSIVE BUNCH OF RUBBERBANDING AND TELEPORTING FOR EVERY PLAYER ON THE SERVER.
To ensure that does not happen, you want the server ticking along at a stable, relaxed 33ms per frame - or 30 ticks. If you start dropping below 30 ticks, then you don't know if you seeing 29 ticks at 30 ms and one tick at 110; the load each tick can vary quite a bit.
Now, that being said, the ability to monitor server load in 267- pretty much ... isn't there. Sure, you can see the server ticks and all, but lower tickrates don't really give you enough information to accurately judge just how overloaded the server actually is.
Anyhow, we are going to need a new way to measure server performance, because with tickrate unlocked, we can't judge server performance by comparing actual tickrate to 30 anymore (and lowering tickrate is actually a good way to increase server performance; In NS2, tickrate only* controls non-player unit actions).
* Well, it also limits max sendrate, but for this purpose it's irrelevant; if you are going for maximum players, you do not want to increase sendrate. Actually, you might want to DECREASE sendrate and increase interp if you really want to save CPU cycles.
The server is already accumulating "idle" time, ie time where it is just waiting for more player input to come in, so it should be possible to use that to show the actual server load - a 75% loaded server would have 25% margin until it starts running flat out. Should be able to do some fiddling with seeing how long time incoming player move packets are queued up to indicate how much > 100% the server is running at as well.
In addition, some kind of "bad frame" measurement; ie the worst server-tick-length for the last 10 seconds or so can also be reported. And logged if > the interp setting.
Once we have that, we don't need to argue about if a server is running well or not - everyone will be able to see it.
And yea, there are things that can be tweaked for overloading servers - you can set mr/interp dynamically for example, so if the server is getting overloaded, you can lower the client moverate / increase the interp buffer. Should be pretty easy to add a Lua interface to the server performance indicators so you can run a Lua script to take action before the server croaks.
This patch is awesome, i never drop below 120 FPS now on 18 player server, any higher and it stays around 100, so this is great, game feels and plays like it should have from the start
And as for The big servers kinda are a bummer, to a point that, when new players join them, they are not getting the Best EXP from the game, either it be, rubber banding, lower than normal FPS, More Hitching, and off course they may even crash.
Servers with that high a player count, why not just divide the server and make 2 servers, its a win win for everyone
GhoulofGSG9Join Date: 2013-03-31Member: 184566Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Reinforced - Supporter, WC 2013 - Supporter, Pistachionauts
edited August 2014
Please stop derailing this thread with debating about the 24 player count limit. There are technical reasons we have that limit as matso points out with his post.
We might look into it in the future but at the moment it's off the table. As we don't have the time to investigate in something while there are so many other things we still want / have to do.
Just adapt the Server Browser player sorting to show 24 slot servers on top then decreasing to servers with 1 player on, then only comes the listof 24+ servers. Problem solved. Now b2t :P
Comments
We are so screwed
Edit:
Seriously though. Wonderful patch, performance is great in game. I won't ask for all the extra little fixes i'd have like to have seen because you guys are obviously working very hard and i've already reported the issues, but i'd like to offer some encouragement and hope this awesomeness keeps up long enough for more of the big things to get sorted.
different sensativity settings for aliens and marines when.
My marine aim is like 15% better... I was preparing to shoot a running skulk (that I did massive DMG to) around pipes... but.. he had actually died from my past shots hitting him. That surprised the hell out of me. My bullets were actually landing lol. And now those evil whips that I complained about being weak can do work.. took me a minute to realize you couldn't easily run past them. Good job with making them useful.
Usually I'm a dick on here but you guys did a great job, especially without getting any pay. :-bd
Standing behind a decision that is quite clearly in the best interest of the community.
Things that are pathetic:
Resorting to name calling because you didn't get your way.
Though it's not going to make much of a difference in their eyes, could you limit your server to 32 players at most? That seems to be the standard for large public multiplayer games these days. It should also provide a marginally better experience for the people in your server. Just sayin'.
As a player who's put in well over 1000 hours now, the difference in performance has been very noticeable (though casual players may not see it) and i never imagined it'd feel so much smoother for me given my set-up (higher-end pc) as the focus has been on improving things for older hardware users.
I've still experienced the odd hitch on it's highest graphics settings (2g+ Vram, Physics Multi-threading off). Unfortunately I can't comment on the improvements here as i've almost always had things set to the lowest settings for various reasons.
In it's lowest settings, everything just felt smoother.. I don't recall having many micro-hitches before build 267, but evidently I must have just got so used to them they barely registered (and I've got a terrible monitor which probably doesn't refresh often enough to really highlight them).
I love the addition of hit sounds, and more bullets seem to be finding their targets now. I expect to see many more competent/dangerous marine players popping up over the next few weeks thanks to the performance and audio cues (helping them to improve their aim). I hope this leads to improvements in alien teamplay as rambo skulks are going to have a real tough time now.
It's a shame whips still need some work as i'm looking forward to seeing how they affect balance and strategies now they'll be more effective. The foundations are there though, and I wouldn't be able to tell it's a complete rewrite of their code. You've done a great job ensuring it still behaves the same...just better.
Overall, this is an Amazing patch, with a surprisingly few number of bugs slipping by the play testers. A huge thanks to all those involved in the creation and testing of build 267. You guys rock!
I've also been blown away at the support of the CDT in particular during the immediate aftermath of the launch, immediately providing tech support, workarounds, fixes and incredible patience towards the repeated questions and mod-enabled users with issues. UWE is lucky to have such a dedicated team of volunteers working on NS2. And I have no doubt you've proven to them they made the right call trusting you with their baby.
about 40ppl on my steam friends list 'own' the game. I'm hoping i can talk some of them, complaining about performance or the 'feel' of the game, into giving it another shot with this latest patch.
_____
System Specs:
i5 4670k @ 3.8Ghz
8GB DDR3 Ram
GTX 770 (2GB)
240gb Crucial M500 SSD
1x Cheap 27" T.V hooked up as a monitor
I just want to point out that the community is actually the only reason or hope that any bug-fix you'd like to see would come about at this point. Pathetic is the polar opposite of how I would describe the community.
That said, I appreciate the CDT soooo much for all their efforts so far! Epic patch, crew! I have definitely noticed less hitching, and though not necessarily more fps, it's staying up more consistently. You guys did a little bit of everything (map fixes, so many features, performance, etc), and it's dope-a-lope. Thank you, seriously.
Too scared.
"Obviously... girls can't throw an axe
I won't comment on the technical aspects, you know better than anyone else. I just want to point out that for large player games little if any balancing needs to be done. The only change on Wooza's 42 player server is starting marine IPs scaling with player count (1, 2 or 3 at start). That's it. The games play remarkably well like this and every night we have some incredible matches.
We're finding, in fact, that the major limitation for large players is not the mechanics, but the maps. Some maps play really well with large player counts, others not so much. Those that really don't work well can be removed from the rotation.
Incidentally, I believe there are maps in progress specifically designed for larger player counts now. This game style is growing. Anything you can do on your side to help this in future (like making it easier to alter player cap, Tick's original complaint) is appreciated, though we also understand your energies need to be focused on the core game first. And that's fine, that's as it should be.
Just never say never
It is known and is already fixed for 268 where you will experience to glory of the new quick play
Short version -
* There are no technical limitations anymore
* I have developed a balance mod to address large server balance issues, which pretty much makes that argument invalid
* there are only 2 servers who make use of this
Long version
Anything above 20 is fucked in ns2 without rebalancing simply because at that level the game becomes a JP GL spam shitfest. (*And yes, the magic number is 20) (** Talking out of experience) This is why some simple value's are changed. For example, the grenade launcher costs 30 instead of 15, and does less overall damage. Which makes it for marines harder to spam with a GL. And this is not the only change I have made. There is a whole array of balance changes but keeping the balance intact. Also I have made some changes to improve the quality of the server, and by this I mean making some simple changes to reduce the overall entity count on a map. So that even in long games the server client does not suffer as much as you see with other large server(s)
There are a whole balance changes, and improvements, for example webbing, who's idea was it to put it on biomass level 7 make give it an amazing 50 HP, make the web so long even the most exprienced players would kill themselves by attempting to use webbing. And as a final measure, let's make the webs more visible then a stop sign, but wait, that is not all, To really really make sure you won't get webbed anymore, make sure I can still shoot in the astronomical chance when I am drunk I might step on to one. But make sure gorges pay hefty fines on using webbing, this way it never pays off to place webs.
Anyways...
Technical limitation, please enlighten me about that, because I am getting sick and tired of that argument, server is handling it at a tickrate of 30, even on long games. with over 1250 objects on the map. My client rate is doing fine +100 fps average, on a average up to date pc.
a just say the game is designed for 24 players, Remove the limit any server player account above that and it is at your own risk in inbalancing the game, problem solved. All I am asking
That said sentence about servers added thanks to the b267 is very helpful & definitely enough for now, at least. People joining such servers are immediately warned about performances issues, etc.
And the question about balance, something that I can understand, truly seems out of subject whether players usually connect to these servers, like/enjoy to play on, that's also create a kind of community, it's often the same players who are joining the same servers, for 24/42 or even less like HBZ servers.
And with all these improvements thanks to the b267, issues performances are getting closer to the host, and not to the number of slots.
These players wont see the difference anyway.
How does this work? In what format do the parameters need to be?
Ah ... not quite sure about that. The limited bandwidth causing 100% choke 100% of the time in endgame battles was probably the most significant reason for why endgame play in Woozas has been pretty bad.
It will be interesting to see how the endgame looks once that's fixed.
Actually, you are agreeing with mcglaspie that YES, NS2 needs rebalancing for large player counts, and disagreeing that it would be too much of a job.
Though McGlaspie is probably saying that it will take a lot of work to do it as WELL as McGlaspie wants it done :-)
When it comes to performance, you need to measure the performance of the server at the highest possible load to ensure that it can still respond swiftly to player input even when the game is at its most loaded - the highest load is possibly when the game is at its most intense, and players need the best possible performance.
The server kinda starts sucking badly when it gets overloaded; it's only way of saving CPU is by lowering the tickrate, and as the tickrate also limits the sendrate (how often the clients gets updated), you will start to get into some real trouble with the interp buffer.
The interp[retation] buffer variable is set at 2/standard sendrate or 100ms to ensure that what you see on the screen is INTERPOLATED between two known network update states. Using 2/sendrate allows you to compensate for a bit of network latency variance/loss.
If no network update arrives in time (ie, the interval between two updates are >100ms) to fill up the known network states when the client needs to see it, the client will cross its finger, and simply EXTRAPOLATE from the last two packets. Ie, it will show things in positions it GUESSES them to be in.
Once a new network packet comes in, then the client will show things in the new known position , which may not have been at all like what the client guessed at, resulting in the entities instantly moving from one point to another - this is what is behind teleporting/rubberbanding.
Guess what happens when the server tickrate drops below 10, and the sendrate interval then goes to > 100ms? You will have interp overrun pretty much constantly... resulting in everything teleporting all over the place, and the game becoming an unplayable mess.
So it is INCREDIBLY important that the server tick interval NEVER gets close to 100ms - that's not an average, bw - that's the absolute upper limit of the length of a server update tick; if ANY server tick takes longer than 100ms, you WILL get a MASSIVE BUNCH OF RUBBERBANDING AND TELEPORTING FOR EVERY PLAYER ON THE SERVER.
To ensure that does not happen, you want the server ticking along at a stable, relaxed 33ms per frame - or 30 ticks. If you start dropping below 30 ticks, then you don't know if you seeing 29 ticks at 30 ms and one tick at 110; the load each tick can vary quite a bit.
Now, that being said, the ability to monitor server load in 267- pretty much ... isn't there. Sure, you can see the server ticks and all, but lower tickrates don't really give you enough information to accurately judge just how overloaded the server actually is.
Anyhow, we are going to need a new way to measure server performance, because with tickrate unlocked, we can't judge server performance by comparing actual tickrate to 30 anymore (and lowering tickrate is actually a good way to increase server performance; In NS2, tickrate only* controls non-player unit actions).
* Well, it also limits max sendrate, but for this purpose it's irrelevant; if you are going for maximum players, you do not want to increase sendrate. Actually, you might want to DECREASE sendrate and increase interp if you really want to save CPU cycles.
The server is already accumulating "idle" time, ie time where it is just waiting for more player input to come in, so it should be possible to use that to show the actual server load - a 75% loaded server would have 25% margin until it starts running flat out. Should be able to do some fiddling with seeing how long time incoming player move packets are queued up to indicate how much > 100% the server is running at as well.
In addition, some kind of "bad frame" measurement; ie the worst server-tick-length for the last 10 seconds or so can also be reported. And logged if > the interp setting.
Once we have that, we don't need to argue about if a server is running well or not - everyone will be able to see it.
And yea, there are things that can be tweaked for overloading servers - you can set mr/interp dynamically for example, so if the server is getting overloaded, you can lower the client moverate / increase the interp buffer. Should be pretty easy to add a Lua interface to the server performance indicators so you can run a Lua script to take action before the server croaks.
And as for The big servers kinda are a bummer, to a point that, when new players join them, they are not getting the Best EXP from the game, either it be, rubber banding, lower than normal FPS, More Hitching, and off course they may even crash.
Servers with that high a player count, why not just divide the server and make 2 servers, its a win win for everyone
We might look into it in the future but at the moment it's off the table. As we don't have the time to investigate in something while there are so many other things we still want / have to do.
It tells you when you use it with no parameters
Ah ok, would be cool to have this in the changelog