[Ragman]

New Server Box

is now up and running, the ip is 87.117.217.42 and if you use the dyndns that has been changed as well.

There was no player testing necessary as we did a primary test and all went well.

If you do have any problems please contact one of the admins for help...

Rags

[Ringy]

C'mon people! This Admin team have worked there butts off to get this together lets see our members playing on the new server PLEASE!!!

It's the least the commuinty can do to repay them.............. y'never know you might find a new lease of life especailly you BS fighters

Ringy.

[Fleainator]

I admit that I feel a wee bit let down (was excited about the testing), but I'll get over it soon enough, at least, once I find the time to sit down and log on for a few hours.

[GOF]

I was on and it's great!!!!!!! Get your heads out of your ????????????????????????????????????? Get on the new server and have some funnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WOW nice JOB Ragman and the rest of you admins........ Loose the twix crap though...... Well done gents

[DSTRYR]

YIPIEYEYOOO!!!!!!
Tested the new server yesterday with umts connection! Absolutely no lag for me in Germany!!
Before i got timeouts with UMTS and played by friends and stay at work to play after finishing
This time is over!
Now I can stay at home or go to supermarket and play freelancer! YES!
I love the new Server!!
I was so upset yesterday that i didnt pay tax and attack an pirate...well of course i lost but now i can fight without lag on umts!!!
great job all modders and admins!

[Sn0w]

I was on yesterday too great to see my ping below 200! Very smooth just had some yellow lag when my wife got to playing with downloads but that used to kill my connection!

GOF, on Feb 14 2010, 10:27 PM, said:

WOW nice JOB Ragman and the rest of you admins........ Loose the twix crap though

oh GOF your just jealous someone is better armed than you!

[nobodie]

Great to see it turned out well for most of people. Unfortunately, cant say that about myself... Atleast yet.
Hope its because my ISP screwing around...

[levoy]

a big thanks to the admins .respect.respect

[Black Scorpion]

Yup the new box is awesome, and a lot of players mention that their connections to the server have improved. This is a great improvement for TT, and it makes us the Freelancer modification running on one of, if not THE best server in the world.

That said, I have had a number of players telling me that they still have some lag. So I would just like to explain something.


As Rags has pointed out, the new server box has high end hardware and a 100/100 connection to the net. This means that it will cope with pretty much everything you would throw at it without as much as breaking a sweat. Basically it comes down to the fact that it can receive/process/send more data in the same amount of time in comparison with the old situation. In practice the players will notice this by a faster connection to the server (lower pings), and less or even no more server crashes when the system is really stressed, for example during battles involving a lot of battleships, even if they all would have missile turrets mounted. The system wouldn't care much about it.

So this definitely means a major improvement, and like I said it makes TT to one of the best equipped FL servers in the world at the moment.

Does this also mean that no player will ever experience lag again? No, unfortunately not. There is more to the equation than just the new server box, and that's the players their home connection and computer hardware. There is a saying, "A chain is only as strong as its weakest link", and this also goes for the server-client relationship.
Take me for example. I have (for today's standards) a pretty low-end computer. Have a look:

- Intel Pentium 4, 2.8gHz, hyper-threaded (yup that's a single core)
- 80 gb HD + 1TB external
- 2.5 gb RAM
- NVidia GeForce 6200 FX
- Internet connection: up to 28Mb/s down, 2.8Mb/s up, ping to server averages @ 30-35.
- Computer is housed in a so-called 'slim case' so due to the upgrades it tends to get too hot as well.

Now I'm pretty sure that is not as high end as most of the players have here. Especially the CPU and Graphics card. And therefore, my gaming experience will only be as good as my computer allows it to be. For example, my graphics card has always had trouble processing battleships firing their missile and flac turrets. What happens then? My CPU goes through the roof, all the way up to 100%, and the result is.... lag. Graphics lag as we call it.
Same story, different example is lag caused by a bad connection on the client (player) side. If you have a really bad connection to the internet, of course there is still a chance that you experience lag, since your connection might not be fast enough to deal with all the data sent and received to and from the server.

I guess what I'm trying to explain here, is that the presence or absence of lag is dependent on both the server hardware as well as the hardware client side (ie. your computer). In other words, if there are players who still experience some lag, it is more than likely caused by their own hardware limitations or internet connection.


Sorry for the long-winded post, but I felt that it was necessary to clear this up.

[Jacobite]

Good post scorp, would also add although it may seem obvious to most that some good housework can reap benifits too.
A good clean up with progs like Adaware, a reg cleaner and a defrag can work wonders to help speed things up.
But that said the response has been fantastic so thanks guys for your support

Mind you ! if you think this is good...........WAIT TILL YOU SEE WHAT WE`RE DOIN WITH THE MOD

and NO.... it wont be soon unfortunatly but will be worth the wait

[Ringy]

Good post Scorp well explained and laid out m8.

pssst! stop buying booze and upgrade ur PC m8


Ringy.

[Black Scorpion]

Ringy, on Feb 16 2010, 10:03 AM, said:

pssst! stop buying booze and upgrade ur PC m8


Ringy.

Oh trust me if I had the money for it I would have a loooong time ago. Rags and Valin got phones with better graphic cards and CPU's LMAO.
Well thanks to good maintenance it's still running pretty much flawlessly and it's actually serving a purpose for the community: it allows us to test how low-end hardware setups deal with the graphical modifications in the new mod. We want to make sure everyone can enjoy all the good stuff.

[Pokey]

Hi guys!

Well I'm back from my long winded move to the south coast and FINALLY set up again. I have improved my internet connection from ADSL to ADSL+2, 10 x better than I had before. Also I'm much closer to the internet hub in my state where it leaves the country...............but.............alas, my ping has increased by over 100 and I experience yellow and red lag almost constantly. Hopefully this was just a very bad night, or Jaco's fault!

But a big congrats Rags to the new server. I'm sure it's a great move for the better m8.

See you all in space, and much more often now

Cheers, Pokey

[Ringy]

Good to see you back m8

It was Jaco's fault always is m8 hehehehe

Ringy

[MINDDRIVE]

hey scorpion... if you look at your system spec's DOB, and freelancers DOB... you are running pretty high end stuff for its day... a 2.8GHz HT intel processor was well over 200 bucks back then assuming its a Northwood core on a socket 478 platform, prolly have an intel 845 or 875 chipset? if not then the VIA 400, forget what the Sis one was offhand... the only thing in your specs that might be a downfall is the 6200, up until about a year n a half ago i had 6600GT's

i would like to add something to your informative post tho, and that would be "throughput". Its not always about "speed", but rather for instance lets use this example:

A single program with a hardline direct network connection between 2 computers sends the data the same speed at which it receives it and usually syncronisticly (at the same time) This is also true when your computer is connected to a router. The only difference is that the router decifers the data being transmitted between the computers being connected for authentication through "ports". If a program tries to connect outside this port range (like using the wrong key on your house door) the request gets rejected. This is why it is important to set "Port forwarding" with your router. Even if freelancer connects to the server, the router is constantly checking every bit of data to see if it is authorized to be transmitted through the firewall.

Firewalls are supposed to block unrequested data being transmitted to/from your computer/network. Thus if you have say a Linksys, Netgear, or any other router, you should turn off "Windows Firewall" as this adds an unnecessary amount of "checks" for the data to be transmitted. Even if you have a ping of say 80-150 with any given server, the latency it takes to get from the internet side of your modem to the network side of your router may slow you down enough to display "JUMPING" on the screen... this is from data being slowed down and then once authentication happens, the data floods your computers network adapter (a sudden slow down, then "warping" for instance in a PVP)

Another way lag can be exaggerated is for instance through use of a wireless adapter. While this technology has come a long way, it still has many limitations. The most major of which is non-syncronous data transfer. This means that the wireless hardware will send information, wait a few nano seconds, then receive data. It does this thousands of times faster than you can say the letter "A". This if fine if you are browsing the internet, watching youtube or just about anything else on the web, but when it comes to gaming... its to be expected that one may experience an excessive amount of lag even on a would be fast internet connection. This is due to the wireless adapters "wait state" as described above. Most "wireless B" adapters with 11MBps have horrible 'wait states', where as "wireless b/g" cards do offer faster top end connection speeds of 54MBps, the dual speed of the hardware prevents syncronous data transfer. The best type of wireless connection is either "wireless G" or "wireless (draft) N" or simply "wireless N". Again combination cards (like Black Scorpion mentioned) are only as good as their weekest link (being the 'wireless b')

Other various things that will cause someone to experience lag (especially in older games) is more than one program accessing the internet at the same time. For instance, playing freelancer and having some form of messenger open, or ventrilo/skype/teamspeak (especially voice chats) file sharing software/downloading etc etc. Newer games have been programmed to compensate for this through their game engines addressing a tollerance of network lag. Anyone that has been gaming since windows 98se was top OS should know what "lag shooting" was (shudders remembering mechwarrior 3's horrible lag shooting)


TIP: skill level=EASY
To see how many different programs you have connecting to the internet (through your router/modem) at any given time follow these instructions: (this is also great to see if you have 'worm' or 'trojan' activity

CLICK Start, CLICK Run, type in CMD then press OK or press ENTER
this brings up the command prompt (wanna be DOS for us old skoolers)
TYPE in the following EXACTLY how you see it (no you cannot copy and paste or you get " ^V ":

netstat -noa

What this does is list the PROGRAMS (PID=program ID) and the IP Addresses that they are connecting TO and FROM. Dont freak out, you prolly have a huge list of 20+ listed. NORMAL. Anything listed under "Local Address" with a number like 192.168.1.XXX is YOUR computer running software to your network (ignore the 0.0.0.0 or the 127.0.0.1) If you are reading this, one of those numbers is going to be TT's website. Anything and EVERYTHING that connects your computer to the internet will have a number next to it wether you started the program or just simply turned on your computer.

(sorry take a breather... lots of data sorry)

Now the PID number that is listed is actually assigned to any specific program that can be found listed by using the TASK MANAGER, you just need to select the column that says PID (Process Identifier) Open the task manager (CTRL ALT DEL) in most cases, then click the PROCESSES tab, you will see all the programs running on your computer RIGHT NOW (anything above 50ish might need some attending to for a gaming computer the list should be 32-45ish) processes running... bla bla bla... ok click VIEW then click SELECT COLUMNS:, then select PID (Process Identifier) then click OK. You will now see a PID number next to every program in the Processes list. Match the PID number in the command window using "netstat -noa" to the PID in the Processes list. This will tell you exactly what program(s) are connecting to the internet...

Basicly what this means is, the more PID's that are connecting, the more "LAG" you may experience depending on what each PID is doing while connected and how much data each one is transferring at any given time.

Click the Networking tab in the task manager. That is the total of your network activity, the higher that green bar is against the percentage against the left side bar graph , the more data that is being transmitted. Spikes usually mean a burst load of say a webpage, (click refresh on this page, you will see a spike) where as jagged up and down continuous spikes usually mean something is loading but has a poor connection, but if you see a steady flat line of transfer, that means your connection or theirs is pegged out and you are getting a great connection


sorry im done... i get carried away ~_~.. im gonna jump into space now and vent some bullets

[Pokey]

Thx for that MindDrive!

It would seem my problem is solved, if of course the above is correct. Unfortunately, in this third world country I live in, even tho I'm only 1 hour from the biggest city, I can't get hard line ADSL. My only choice was Wireless. Oh well, such is life

Cheers, Pokey

[MINDDRIVE]

that sux im sorry to hear that.... unfortunately current dsl standards will only allow for a clear signal for upto 3 miles from the central node. which when you trace the wires underground, isnt actually 3 miles its more like 2 possibly 2 1/2.

this third world country wouldnt happen to be Montana would it? lol j/k

about your wireless... thats a different type of wireless LOL... thats completely different than what i was talking about.... but it is basicly subjected to the same transmission issues, even though it does syncronous transfers, there is still a wait state and packet collection that is just quite slower than hardwired ~_~

spose something is better than nothing and dial up should be outlawed !!!!