I want a better Unreal Tour... Server!!!

[Mercurick]

I want a better Unreal Tour... Server!!!
I want a better Unreal Tour... Server!!!

Can you help me out??

I live in upstate NY and I'm on Time Warner's Road Runner connection.

My System:
I have a 900MHz AMD thunderbird with 128MB or ram and I got a SURFboard SB3100 Cable Modem from RR.

I'm totally happy with my download speed of like 300+K/sec but I only ever see my upload speed
(like say when I upload a big file to an FTP site)
run at like 35 to 40K max!!

I know I know, for most of you on cable this is damn good and I should be happy to be getting this kinda performance but I think when you run an Unreal Tournament server and want/have 8 or 9 people connecting to your game you need more upload speed then that to keep everyone's ping low.
Am I right or wrong here?
The way I'm thinking here is 40K upload max divided by 10 people is only 4K per person.

Bottom line is I just want a better server with better ping for everyone. I have the players trying to connect but they all say my server is laggy. It's even laggy for me if I run it dedicated and connect to my own server. The only way it's not is if I just start the server NOT dedicated.
I think that means I need more upload speed so if anyone can help me out with how I might get that or how else I can make my Unreal Tournament server better please let me know here.

Thank you all in advance http://www.speedguide.net/ubb/smile.gif

Kevin~

[CoolJ]

Your pretty much screwed, sorry. Cant tweak your upload speed like download speed. Call and complain you want a higher Upload speed.

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http://server2039.virtualave.net/c00lj/stats/CoolJ.gif

[YeOldeStonecat]

A good rule of thumb for hosting servers based on the UT engine, which can apply to other games as well...you want minimim 28.8 available for each player logged in. So take your tested actual upload speed, TESTED AVERAGE from several speed test sites, not what your ISP tells you it is, and divide that by 28.8. The result will be the max players that can log in before lag starts creeping way up.

I have a tested 115 upload on my aDSL line, and I can host 4 players well on a dedicated box next to me, if I let a 5th log in, ping starts going up on everyone, 6th, and it really climbs, etc etc.

I got that rule of thumb from www.planetunreal.com/theadminpage (http://www.planetunreal.com/theadminpage) a couple of years ago when I started getting into UT and building gaming servers for public hosting, heading up LAN parties, etc. I built a UT server that recently rose in the ranks to one of the top 20 in popularity UT servers in the world, it's in my ISP's data server room, hanging on an OC-3, which has 155 MB/s, so I don't have to worry about lag there! :-)

[Mercurick]

Ok not to question your knowledge here man but why would you need 28 plus K/sec PER person on a server? Anyone on 56K modem is only going to be able to get a stream of like 4 to 5 K/sec max anyway..
If you needed to download 28K of data every second to play Unreal Tournament online no one on 56K would ever be able to play.

[YeOldeStonecat]

It's a rule of thumb that I got from the UT admin page a few years back, I've followed it, and I've tested it, and by golly, through personal experience testing it, it appears to hold true.

True peeps still connecting on the old dial ups you don't get the actual throughput that the negotiation lets you log in at. I agree that even a good dial up 56k connection will only yield an actual 4-5 kb/s throughput. But the server has to have free bandwidth around it above and beyond that. For example, you dial up, connect at say 50,666, and download from a site at 4.5 kb/s. That website is probably something on real bandwidth, IE a T-1 of some flavor. But try to connect to your ISP on dial up, then try a VPN connection to someone else's computer that is dialed up to their ISP. You may both be connected at 50,666, but I guarantee you you will not be able to reach past 2 kb/s throughput.

Trying to have 28.8 available for each player lets their connection yield the best throughput. You're thinking that 56k modem will only yield 4-5 kb/s, so lets try running a game server with only 5 kb available for each player. So if you have a tested 115 kb upload, divide that by 5, according to that rule of thumb you could let 23 players in. Bet their pings will be up in the thousands because you don't have headroom available.