Server Network Performance Rates

Roy

New Member
5 Mar 2021
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Hi everyone,

I've noticed CS:S Zombie Hunting V3's server's sv_maxrate CVar is set to 40000. This means a client can send/receive at most, 40000 bytes per second to the server (~0.32 megabits/s). This a lot of times causes choke on the server which in return, increases latency for players.

I'm wondering if there's a specific reason the server limits the maximum rate to 40000 bytes/s. I can understand if the server was running an older CPU since the additional packets could lead to higher CPU usage from things like packet compression and more packets per second in general. However, from what I've seen while playing on the server, it performs fairly well with higher player counts unless if players start getting stuck inside of each other (in which, I made a suggestion here for). I've noticed my latency spiking an additional ~50 - 100ms latency from this issue due to choke and while I understand some players have weaker network connections, you can always keep the sv_minrate value lower so players can adjust their rate accordingly (using the client-side rate command, but honestly, having 0.43 megabits/s isn't as common nowadays from what I've seen). From what I've seen, the server uses OVH based off of the IP's ASN lookup I've performed and they're a great server hosting provider (I'd imagine you aren't using them as a forwarding server as well). They also don't charge based off of bandwidth usage unless I'm missing something (I've had multiple dedicated servers with them in the past/present and they've never charged me for bandwidth usage). Additionally, if a weaker CPU is the reason here, have you thought about purchasing the GAME dedicated machines from OVH? They're fairly cheap compared to their standard servers (you can get one from SoYouStart for even cheaper, which is an official OVH reseller) and aimed for game servers. Their newer CPUs (due to architecture improvements and higher base/turbo clock speeds) should be more than enough to handle the CS:S servers at a decent server frame rate in my opinion. Though, I understand CS:S Zombie Hunting is quite hectic. I know I've setup a test ZE server using the Zombie Reloaded plugin (what CS:S EH ZH's server uses I'm pretty sure) and spawned 63 bots (+1 including me) on a small map without any performance issues on one of the older GAME dedicated servers.

If there's something I'm missing, I apologize. I am curious to know why the maximum rate limit is set to 40000 though. This was a lot more common back in the day (2009 - 2011). However, many communities including my own has switched to using 0 (for unlimited) since then for performance.

Thank you!
 
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Hi everyone,

I've noticed CS:S Zombie Hunting V3's server's sv_maxrate CVar is set to 40000. This means a client can send/receive at most, 40000 bytes per second to the server (~0.32 megabits/s). This a lot of times causes choke on the server which in return, increases latency for players.

I'm wondering if there's a specific reason the server limits the maximum rate to 40000 bytes/s. I can understand if the server was running an older CPU since the additional packets could lead to higher CPU usage from things like packet compression and more packets per second in general. However, from what I've seen while playing on the server, it performs fairly well with higher player counts unless if players start getting stuck inside of each other (in which, I made a suggestion here for). I've noticed my latency spiking an additional ~50 - 100ms latency from this issue due to choke and while I understand some players have weaker network connections, you can always keep the sv_minrate value lower so players can adjust their rate accordingly (using the client-side rate command, but honestly, having 0.43 megabits/s isn't as common nowadays from what I've seen). From what I've seen, the server uses OVH based off of the IP's ASN lookup I've performed and they're a great server hosting provider (I'd imagine you aren't using them as a forwarding server as well). They also don't charge based off of bandwidth usage unless I'm missing something (I've had multiple dedicated servers with them in the past/present and they've never charged me for bandwidth usage). Additionally, if a weaker CPU is the reason here, have you thought about purchasing the GAME dedicated machines from OVH? They're fairly cheap compared to their standard servers (you can get one from SoYouStart for even cheaper, which is an official OVH reseller) and aimed for game servers. Their newer CPUs (due to architecture improvements and higher base/turbo clock speeds) should be more than enough to handle the CS:S servers at a decent server frame rate in my opinion. Though, I understand CS:S Zombie Hunting is quite hectic. I know I've setup a test ZE server using the Zombie Reloaded plugin (what CS:S EH ZH's server uses I'm pretty sure) and spawned 63 bots (+1 including me) on a small map without any performance issues on one of the older GAME dedicated servers.

If there's something I'm missing, I apologize. I am curious to know why the maximum rate limit is set to 40000 though. This was a lot more common back in the day (2009 - 2011). However, many communities including my own has switched to using 0 (for unlimited) since then for performance.

Thank you!
Hey, thank you for looking into this matter.
We tried so many things over the years that I lost track of why we were doing certain things, I've set sv_maxrate to 0, let's see how it all performs now