Managing Choke

Jak · September 2003

Hi,

I was looking for some opinions on managing high choke in game. I'm on a 1mb up/down line but lately, while I suffer no loss generally, and have a relatively good ping, I still experience very high choke of 70-100 in battles on every server I have tried lately.

I am really just wondering what other possible configs changes or tweaks I could use. At present updaterate and cmdrate are set at 55 - with rate set at 7500. Anyone have any ideas what else could be responsible or other things I could test to fix it?

Cheers,

JayK.

Novis · September 2003

You will find tons of tweaking guides about choke and the cl_cmd/updaterate etc. settings in the net - use a search engine, and don't wait until others do it for you <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'> !
Most of them are related to counterstrike, but they're valid for all HL mods.

The usual procedure is to decrease the cl_cmdrate and/or cl_updaterate settings while watching the netgraph.
Other factors are cl_cmdbackup and the rate limit of the server - btw., did you try using the default values (iirc it's cl_updarate 20, cl_cmdrate 30) ?

chowder · September 2003

First recheck your line speed at dslreports or somesuch. Once you're satisfied that this problem is only in NS and not other HL mods, then try more servers using the default rates.
I think choke has a lot to do with the config of the server you play on. If the choke is more in a heavy battle, or around a dense turretfarm, or later in games, it's the server.
Run net_graph 3 and keep an eye on choke.
Changing those rates in game can lessen the problem, but it's only treating the symptoms.

MrMojo · September 2003

There are some HL config guides out there. Googl for some.

criticaI · September 2003

omg config h4x!!!

I'll go ahead and scream it before the lamers show up and begin whining that you have an unfair advantage if you change those values <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'>

The ways I've managed choke:

rate - 7500 sounds just about good for your connection, but it won't hurt to toy around with this
cl_updaterate -
cl_cmdrate -
fps_max - try setting your fps_max equal to your cl_updaterate. If you still have heavy choke, lower your fps_max incrementally and see if that helps

For a brief time over the summer I was playing on 56k and I found it was quite reasonable with the following values:
rate 3500
cl_updaterate 80
cl_cmdrate 80
fps_max 35

The fps setting was really important for eliminating choke on my connection over the summer.

That_Annoying_Kid · September 2003

agreed

<img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'>

dude, critical, I've been looking for a settings to lower choke on 56.k

big pimpin for sure

thrazz · September 2003

7500 is too low for upd 55, try raising up it to 15000 or 20000, then if you continue getting choke try lowering your updaterate.

This may seem weird, as you probably think if he is getting choke he should lower his rate, but this is the same trouble cpl had with sv_lan 1, which cuts the rate on 10000, causing choke on 101/101 configs.

JimBowen · September 2003

for a total rates n00b would anyone care to explain what changing rates does, and exactly how it can give you an advantage?

Jak · September 2003

Cheers for the replies lads,

Yah the problem as far as I saw was exclusively in NS - and as my connection is pretty stable and it was isolated to fight situations, I figured it was NS/NS config specific. As it turns out - I think the choke issue as critical said was more to do with FPS settings and gfx card settings.

I messed around with a few of the suggestions - and just for the record - turning off lag compensation and upping cmd_backuprate had kind of strange effects on play. I just started messing around to see how it works for myself in game.

The results I found after searching around (which could still be wrong) ... were ...

cmd_rate should be set around your average fps ... now I used to have steady 100 as I'm on a radeon 9800 pro, but in the new builds it fluctuates a good bit more. So I set this to 78. (I also read some crazy bloke who was obsessed with the idea that you should not use multiples of 5 <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'> - no harm in trying). As for what cmd_rate is, the amount of packets you use to send your data update to the server. So I believe the reasoning was that the closer it is to your fps - the more of what you do is what the server sees you do.

cl_updaterate is kind of the reverse of cmd_rate. It's the amount of updates you take from the server as to what is going on there. I set this to 57. I have no real idea why.

Incidentally - do I have this backwards - as you suggest updaterate = fps in your post critical - but some random pages i found said cmd_rate. Maybe both should be close to it?

Finally rate is at 9850. For now it seems to be working.

The one thing I would say though, is there seems to be a lot of conflicting info out there on tweaking connections to solve issues.

Anyhows,

Cheers.

Ovaltine · September 2003

It isn't really an exact science and is fairly dependent upon each user's situation, hence the conflicting views as to what is ideal.

MrMojo · September 2003

They just present ranges of what would be the best for a certain connection. There's probably a number that's much better for you specifically.

Managing Choke

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