Star Wars : Battlefront servers (spec suggestions)

[Sharky]

I found this on another site..... According to it I should be hosting about 9 players or less. Through my testing I have found this to be very accurate. Whatare your upload speeds? Go here to test it ... <font color="#575c7b">http://support.sbcglobal.net/dsl/speedtest/index.shtml</font> (http://support.sbcglobal.net/dsl/speedtest/index.shtml) Mine is about 365kbps upload.

If you are a host, please don't try to go over these suggestions. 95% of lag problems are comming from people over stating their speeds. This game is a huge bandwidth hog, much more than any other Live game to date. Faking your speeds only makes it a bad experience for the people joining your server. Thanks.

Upload Speed / Players
128 kbps / 4
256 kbps / 7
384 kbps / 10
512 kbps / 13
784 kbps / 20
1024 kbps / 24

<u>UPDATE</u>: info straight from the dev. team ...

- Lag on servers ? For people hosting games on their home systems, the important thing to keep in mind is that game performance is most affected by your upstream bandwidth. This is the amount of data that you can send to the Internet. Most standard DSL connections are capable of sending only 128 kilobits upstream. Star Wars Battlefront needs to send at least 40kbps per client over the upstream connection. Therefore, on a standard DSL connection, you will only be able to host a game for 3 other players.

If you're hosting a Star Wars Battlefront game, you can set your Hosting Bandwidth in the Online options menu. We do not prevent you from setting this higher than your actual connection speed, but everyone in your game will experience poor performance if too many players join the game. If you'd like to host your own games with a large number of players (i.e. 16 or more), then we recommend you have at least a T1 connection to the Internet. For more information regarding your bandwidth, we suggest you contact your Internet Service Provider.<a href="http://forums.lucasarts.com/thread.jspa?threadID=5908&amp;tstart=0">link

</a>I played on a very fast server tonight that had 20 players on it. It didn't lag at all. Sniping was much easier and the game ran as smooth as the single player game. This proves to me that the game is capable of great online play, we just need to recruit more players that have blazing fast connections. If you play on a lagless server that has 18 or more players, please ask them to visit this site. Hopefully we can get some players that can host some 24 player, lagless matches.

[Circ]

256 kbps / 7





So, 7 would be slots for people other than the host, making 8 total, which
isn't half bad (BO3 is 6 total). Do we know what impact bots have on this number? I've
read the debates on bots and have no solid feleing that bot activity
kills bandwidth, and I don't reallyknow if you can say 'make 7 slots
for humans, and then pile 4 bots on top making for a 12 'player' game.





I may try hosting 7 slots tonight and see what happens.

[Sharky]

256 kbps / 7

So, 7 would be slots for people other than the host, making 8 total, which isn't half bad (BO3 is 6 total). Do we know what impact bots have on this number? I've read the debates on bots and have no solid feleing that bot activity kills bandwidth, and I don't reallyknow if you can say 'make 7 slots for humans, and then pile 4 bots on top making for a 12 'player' game.

I may try hosting 7 slots tonight and see what happens.


This is for a plane server ... ie.has bots turned off and no Heros. Im not sure what strain putting bots on will do. I assume it adds to it, because of the extra calculations being sent back and forth between the consoles.

[Anonymous]

I've tested the effect bots have on a server. I tried it with 4 per side and then again with the max per side. Both times the number of human players remained the same but the lag in the second circumstance was tremendous, while the first time around there was narry a glitch.

[Anonymous]

Test with and without bots. I think you can host more people without bots then with them.





John



Hairybubblegum

[hitman23vtech]

Test with and without bots. I think you can host more people without bots then with them.





John



Hairybubblegum



thanks for the info sharky, i finally got my connection fixed and am
back to seeing 1mb+ upstreams .. i'll start setting up hosts soon to
see what kind of performance i can eek out of my connection

[Anonymous]

Wow, so in theory I should be able to host 10. Well, if I'm the first on tonight, I'll try opening up a game for 8 and see how that goes and maybe push it up to 9. If i'm not the first up, I'll try to hit Hit's hosts.

[Sharky]

i'll start setting up hosts soon to see what kind of performance i can eek out of my connection


That would be awesome. We really need some fast servers to host us for this game. I think most of us will be lucky to host 10 safely. A 1 meg upstream would be a great addition to the server list.

[Anonymous]

Hey, I had a buddy who rented the game and his voice comm. sucked ass so after grilling him about why his was so shitty while my cousin on crappy no-name DSL was fine we figured out he had his setting set higher than recommended, he changed it and his voice is fine now. I'm not certain but after talking to a few other guys who know wtf there talking about they seem to think the game calibrates it's upload packets to what you specify, like if you set it for T1 it thinks it can send 128 bit packets, etc. while in actual fact you are only able to send 64 bit packets (or whatever) causing a bottleneck. First voice suffers since apparently it takes up the most bandwidth, then lag issues. Seems to make sense to me.



My buddy said when he tested he got 420 upload so he rounded up to 512 and had voice issues. I made him lower it to 384 and he was fine-stillno lag but his voice worked better. I also tested with auto aim on and off, in theory you have 30+ characters auto aiming it would have to have some impact, but when I turned it off everyone claimed they were choppy, not actual lag but choppy. Turned it back on and smooth again. Dunno why.



Just an FYI, this is what I found anyways. Great game last night by the way, thanks. Who hosted that? It was great.



P.S. I can host 13



Gord

[The Empty Way]

I'm on a "shared" T-1 via Cable Modem. The connection can fluctuate at times, but most of the times I've setup a BF server, BF reads it as safe for 784 (and infrequently at either 512 and even T-1+ levels).



Tonight I ran it at an "approved" 784 and intentionally set it to 16 human players (but it said I could do 20 non-dedicated or 19 dedicated - oddly, it always takes off 1 when I set it to dedicated even though it seems it should be the other way around). This time, I included I think 5 bots per team, turned off aim assist and left off any maps that had rain, water or vast snowy stuff like Hoth.

I did not once jump onto the server to see for myself how it was doing. If anyone remembers playing on the "Zenway" dedicated server Friday night, please let me know how it seemed to run for you. Thanks.

[hitman23vtech]

i ran my first one last night ... i think we only had 9 in max though
... i never heard any complaints about lag, but i would be interested
if there was any for those who were there.

[Sharky]

It ran smooth Hitman23. Thanks for hosting.... I think you left auto aim on though. My target reticule kept jumping around.

[Sharky]

I played on a very fast server tonight that had 20 players on it. It
didn't lag at all. Sniping was much easier and the game ran as smooth
as the single player game. This proves to me that the game is capable
of great online play, we just need to recruit more players that have
blazing fast connections. If you play on a lagless server that has 18
or more players, please ask them to visit this site. Hopefully we can
get some players that can host some 24 player, lagless matches.

[The Empty Way]

I had a BF server up last night (Sun. 10/03) around 7-8pm Central and to those few who were in it when it suddenly shutdown.. sorry about that. I had a power outtage and after the power was restored, my dedicated server connection would not go back up to its usual speed and so I left it off.

[Anonymous]

After having read these posts, it looks to be that you're better off hosting &quot;safely&quot; by keeping the settings just under the allowable max determined by the bandwith settings.
A good friend of mine got this 512 kbps upload connection (I'm on 192). He was hosting a game with only 2 guests (myself and another buddy), and I couldn't hear them properly. I think he had the AI players set to max, auto aim and heroes on. Even with these options on, I think it should run smoothly, as there were only 3 players out of a max of 13! He did speedtests on different sites, and his connection turned out OK.
He has no problems of this kind on games like Rainbow Six 3 or Burnout 3.
Anybody know how to remedy this?

[Anonymous]

I'm on a "shared" T-1 via Cable Modem. The connection can fluctuate at times, but most of the times I've setup a BF server, BF reads it as safe for 784 (and infrequently at either 512 and even T-1+ levels).


How does that work? Share a T-1 via cable modem. :confused:
&lt;&gt;
Tonight I ran it at an "approved" 784 and intentionally set it to 16 human players (but it said I could do 20 non-dedicated or 19 dedicated - oddly, it always takes off 1 when I set it to dedicated even though it seems it should be the other way around). &lt;/&gt;

Non-dedicated = host counts as player. Thus the number of players that can now be hosted is one less.

:smt004

[Anonymous]

I tried out the bandwidth test mentioned at the beginning of this thread and got <font face="Arial" size="2">Upload = 489.53 kbps.</font> However when I try to set my network speed that high in SW:BF I get a message saying that's not myproper speed and thus I need to set it down around the 256 kbps range. So why would I be getting such different results between the bandwidth test and Live and which reading is right?

[Anonymous]

I tried out the bandwidth test mentioned at the beginning of this thread and got <font face="Arial" size="2">Upload = 489.53 kbps.</font> However when I try to set my network speed that high in SW:BF I get a message saying that's not myproper speed and thus I need to set it down around the 256 kbps range. So why would I be getting such different results between the bandwidth test and Live and which reading is right?

Could be that other folks sharing your cable hub started to chew up some bandwidth.

Could be that your pc was still using some bandwidth when you tested you xbox.

Could be that the test are not awefully accurate.

Run the test from the xbox dashboard; Setttings, network settings, connect, when it's done press 'Y' and see what it shows for U, upload. D download, XX/XX packets sent successfully/sent, L latency...

I've had a number of friends run the test from thier offices and it seems to be pretty accurate. :smt004

[Anonymous]

Alright, so who can host 8 + people games? And when are you going to do it?

I can't host more then 4 from home and that doesn't even cover the number of friends that want to play.

Anyone know if there's is/are going to be remote admin abilities for any live game? Seems like an obvious thing to do but I haven't heard a word. After the Wolfenstein fiasco I wrote a few letters to developers/publishers/MS suggesting such functions but never got a reply. I probably should have just e-mailed.

Well, anyone that has space for 2-4 regulars on thier sw:bf server I'd sure like a part of it. Rowdie.

[The Empty Way]

I'm on a "shared" T-1 via Cable Modem. The connection can fluctuate at times, but most of the times I've setup a BF server, BF reads it as safe for 784 (and infrequently at either 512 and even T-1+ levels).


How does that work? Share a T-1 via cable modem. :confused:


&lt;&gt;
Tonight I ran it at an "approved" 784 and intentionally set it to 16 human players (but it said I could do 20 non-dedicated or 19 dedicated - oddly, it always takes off 1 when I set it to dedicated even though it seems it should be the other way around). &lt;/&gt;

Non-dedicated = host counts as player. Thus the number of players that can now be hosted is one less.

:smt004


The shared T-1 in my case goes like this: I live an apartment community where broadband is offered via ADSL (SBC) or Cable (TVMax/Ygnition). All those residents on the Cable connection are connected directly into a T-1 connection that is setup here in our Management Office. It works quite well, but there are times when my upload can fluctuate due to overall load on the T-1, however it does a decent job of dynamically adjusting to allocate bandwidth accordingly.



As for the dedicated/non-dedicated thing, it reduces Max Players by one when I switch from a non-dedicated to a dedicated. That is why I found it odd. I could see it happening the other way around like you said, but it does it in reverse for me. It defaults to a non-dedicated hosting when first setting it up and let's say it allows 20 Max Players. But.. I want to run it dedicated, so I switch the option to Dedicated.. and voila.. the Max Players drops from 20 to 19... on Dedicated. Weird.

[The Empty Way]

The connection I use to host BF is a cable modem on a shared T-1 backbone. The upload can vary based on load on the T-1, but it does dynamically adjust to keep fluctuations at a minimum. BF will recognize my connection anywhere from 512 up to the T-1+ setting. The avg is the BF 784 up setting and duringprime gaming/internet usage hours, it'll be at the 512 up setting.

Here's what I basically do:

512 up - 12 players, 6 bots per team

784 up - 16-18 players, 6-8 bots per team

T-1+ - 20 players, 6-10 bots per team

Team Damage - off
Auto Aim- off
Auto Assign Team - on
Heroes - off

Dedicated On - Alwayswhen running"Zenway"



I've also been running all maps lately in spite of the potential for framerate issues in Hoth and others with lots of water for example. But because I have not been jumping in my own BF games much lately, I could use some feedback in this forum so I can hopefully run a server with the smoothest overall conditions even if it means fewer human players per game or less maps, bots, etc.

In trying to keep server feedback in this thread, please check periodically for my posts seeking your feedback after you've played on the "Zenway" server. If I run it several times during a week, I'd love to have feedback (running smooth or running choppy)from those who played in it several times that week experiencing the overall server behavior(as opposed to one or two lag bumps that may be isolated incidents).



I left it running yesterday mid-day and went out for a couple of hours and when I got back, the system had locked up in between map changes (odd that it would do this when I choose to step out a bit considering I have run it for much longer periods of time while still at home.. maybe my cat tried to play and screwed it up.. lol)&gt;

[Anonymous]

Do you still host the ZENWAY server and if so how do you get on to it just do a search? I would love to test it out and give it a shot. Thanks /AGE/DesktopModules/YetAnotherForumDotNet/images/emoticons/038.gif