Temporarily capping playercount to 40 to reduce vehicle lag

[RypeL]

We are reducing the maximum ammount of players per server to 40 temporarily. This is because there are major issues with vehicles starting to lag with a high ammount of players.

We want that every player has a smooth experience and till we can optimize the vehicles more we feel the need to decrease the playercount per server for now.

Servers that were started with maxplayers set to something greater then 40 can not be joined anymore from the serverbrowsers. So pls restart your servers with the "?maxplayers=40" as parameter like this:

CNC-Field.udk?game=RenX_Game.Rx_Game?dedicated=true?AdminPassword=?maxplayers= -port=

[TheGroundsKeeper]

Aww, hope you guys fix it fast, i always felt the more the merrier in renegade

[goztow]

I am very pleased, 64 players juzt seems too much to me anyway.

[MeadeTek.com]

As much as I hate this, like totally DESPISE this, I have to admit that this was a VERY sound and well thought out decision. Please fix soon though. Hope this is not just due to people using sub par PC's to try and play this game.

[Khyron =[UN]=]

TY for the update, set mine to 32 to start with anyways, wanted to see how it went :-)

[TotemAatz]

If you ask me the game was never designed around 64 player matches more like 32 so its all good.

[omega79]

I have the feeling that anything between 32 and 40 is kind of the perfect server size

[ehh]

anything over 50 is overkill, 32 is ideal.

[JTeKE]

Good decision. The 64 player games are not fun for me.

[greanthai420]

Will it effect me if I host my own server for LAN or something?

I also love the 64 players games. Please fix this soon :<

[perfectblue]

What was the point in server applications? Everyone just set the cap at 64 even when it makes no sense, for example walls flying. Literally every server that was populated last night was 64 player max

[SFJake]

I don't like playing with less than 64 on Goldrush and Lakeside, however this was definitely the right decision right now.

[Daedhart]

Awesome, I support this decision. The vehicle bugging was pretty annoying.

[JJy3k10]

As weird as it may sound I love this temporary restriction. 64 players while a staple in other games is way to crowded for my tastes. Give me a solid 12-24 player server any day. Small servers like that feel much more personal and are much easier to communicate and strategize in.

[TheGroundsKeeper]

Just did alot of games on the jelly server, and the rubberbanding effect could still occur. did not feel like less than with the 64 cap. Just saying.

[Pr0eX]

Will it effect me if I host my own server for LAN or something?

I also love the 64 players games. Please fix this soon :<

You will be able to play on LANs with 64 players, make sure LANGAME is set. Also your players will need to join using IP.

[Terekhov]

I have the feeling that anything between 32 and 40 is kind of the perfect server size

Agreed.

[SFJake]

I don't know how you can get that feeling right now with such a noob community. I find the more players the more likely your team has at least a few that knows how to work something out. Today, every single game were awful one sided match.

[Havoc89]

You are still able to host 64 player servers, they just wont be listed in the browser for the time being. You can manually connect it using the "Enter IP" button.

[TheGroundsKeeper]

Are you guys sure it is program related and not hardware? I just played on a marathon 40player server with 14 vehicle cap and 60mine cap, and loads of rushes, with no rubberbanding whatsoever.

And the crash before i was on the Jelly server and it rubber banded with a 7 cap and less players O_o

[TacTicToe]

Unreal was never really intended for anything over 32 slots. Unless the engine is heavily optimized it just does not run smoothly. Even HoS that was heavily optimized struggles. Any servers over 32 players is just overkill.

[wolfrikku]

I'm not thrilled by this but i understand why, and I hope for a return of 128 player servers.

[dog02]

Setting caps that server owners can't change is a bad idea, not every server will always be for 64 or more players only, and I'm sure those extra slots will come in really handy for modifications. I can see the extra slots, and even go above 100+ for bots and specific game modes, etc.

Ultimately its up the the players anyways, if there is a server with (lets pick a insanely high number - 200+) people in it, other players always have the choice not to join, yet still allowing for those who might want to try this extremely odd game.

I don't see why we would implement a mandatory cap of anything.

[CrimsonTemplar]

I'm not thrilled by this but i understand why, and I hope for a return of 128 player servers.

It's in UDK, so there can only be 64 players since it's hardcapped (though you can have higher numbers of bots)

[TheGroundsKeeper]

Can any Dev comment on when we get 64 player games back?

[SFJake]

Can any Dev comment on when we get 64 player games back?

Would be nice to know, I prefer 64 players personally, I like it crowded and crazy. (and lakeside feels void of life)

[JeepRubi]

We're working on fixing netcode issues, so we can reliably support up to 64 players. We really want to have it, but only if it is playable.

[Valor]

I'm starting to miss 64 player games too.

Seems people can't be trusted to defend properly even in 20v20s.

[goztow]

LOL so you think just putting more players on the map will help? Good intentions start with ourselves. I regularly mine up the base.

[isthar]

FWIW, I think Renegade in a sense shouldn't be 64 players just because it can technically ; the original maps just weren't, IMHO, designed for that kind of volume - it makes any kind of sneak attack almost always fail. I for one would appreciate seeing a 40 cap period. Perhaps even 16 on 16 tops.

[SFJake]

FWIW, I think Renegade in a sense shouldn't be 64 players just because it can technically ; the original maps just weren't, IMHO, designed for that kind of volume - it makes any kind of sneak attack almost always fail. I for one would appreciate seeing a 40 cap period. Perhaps even 16 on 16 tops.

Then go to those servers and don't try to ruin it for people who like higher player count.

I specifically hate games where nobody can even stop paying attention for a second otherwise a guy magically sneaks in and destroy a building on his own. Not everybody likes the same kind of matches.

[iovandrake]

I think 64 players is perfect for a lot of maps. Just not for Field, Whiteout, or Walls because they are too small and arenalike. You need more maps like Goldrush and Lakeside for large player count games.

[SFJake]

Whiteout and Walls are fine at 64. Fields is only bad because of the design of the chokepoint. Walls and Whiteout have a bigger variety of ins and outs that makes them interesting even at high count, while Field has.. well, nothing, really.

[NodCommander]

Are you guys sure it is program related and not hardware? I just played on a marathon 40player server with 14 vehicle cap and 60mine cap, and loads of rushes, with no rubberbanding whatsoever.

And the crash before i was on the Jelly server and it rubber banded with a 7 cap and less players O_o

Isnt Jelly US based though?

[TheGroundsKeeper]

Are you guys sure it is program related and not hardware? I just played on a marathon 40player server with 14 vehicle cap and 60mine cap, and loads of rushes, with no rubberbanding whatsoever.

And the crash before i was on the Jelly server and it rubber banded with a 7 cap and less players O_o

Isnt Jelly US based though?

Not sure but the marathon one was a US server.

[CommanderWasp1x]

With the small maps that we already have, 12-24 players are ideal, if Medium maps were added then 24-40 players and if Large maps were added with loads of space 40-64 players. The max vehicles are 10, on servers of 35-64 players increasing the max vehicles to 15-20 would be interesting and ideal,

[TheGroundsKeeper]

With the small maps that we already have, 12-24 players are ideal, if Medium maps were added then 24-40 players and if Large maps were added with loads of space 40-64 players. The max vehicles are 10, on servers of 35-64 players increasing the max vehicles to 15-20 would be interesting and ideal,

Can we please keep the "I would like this and that cap" suggestions out of this thread?!

If your message is not about FIXING VEHICLE LAG ISSUES, please post it elsewere so the actual topic dont drown in spam.

[CommanderWasp1x]

Ok I'm not trying to be a pain but..

Fixing Vehicle Lag, its not so much the vehicles that are the problem, its more that there are too many players on the servers or the gamers connections to the servers are not so good, I joined servers so far that are max 24 players and have had no problems with vehicle lag, its probably worth trying a Cap at 32 players, its worth a try and if its smooth then you can look to slowly re increasing max players and vehicles.

Theres also the possibility that the players mentioning the problem might have older PC's. :-)

I'm sorry TheGroundsKeeper if you still think this is Spammy. :-\

[SFJake]

I've been having no trouble in certain servers at 40 players cap, so please stop trying to lower it. I'm already dying for 64 to come back, 40 players was always my absolute minimum player count already.

In fact, there was even 1 server that handled 64 players right and the vehicles weren't so bad. While there's room for improvement I'm sure, a good server could handle it.

EDIT: Bleh, what the hell does it matter. Can't fill a 40 player server right now. Population is dwindling.

[CommanderWasp1x]

Just cause you and I have no trouble on 40-64player servers doesn't mean that other people don't, players have said of vehicle lag so the devs want to fix it, if the cap was at 32players that should fix the problem as much as possible also the current maps were never actually designed to handle more than 24 players so capping at 32 players is worth a try and we are in open beta, so when the devs have tried 32 players and gotten the game as stable as possible they can then add bigger maps and cap the bigger maps upto 32-64 player..

Again Sorry TheGroundsKeeper if this seems spammy, I don't mean for it to..

:-)

[SFJake]

You basically read nothing.

[TheGroundsKeeper]

Just cause you and I have no trouble on 40-64player servers doesn't mean that other people don't...

This first part is actually right on topic

Anyways it could be interesting so see some server hardware stats, and compare with reports of lag.

I read somewhere that the ren-x dedicated server only uses 1 thread(Can we get this confirmed??!).

So in theory(If it only uses 1 core) the "strongest" server might not be the best. Lets say we have a 2.4ghz 12 core xeon. well then we have 11 useless cores. so in theory it would cpu wise run way better on a core i5 or i7 3.5ghz. It could even be OC'ed easy to 4.4 to 4.6ghz for extra free performance.

But this is just speculation since Devs have given us no details on the problem.

EDIT: Bleh, what the hell does it matter. Can't fill a 40 player server right now. Population is dwindling.

I have theory that alot are bummed out of the low cap, i think there are more fans of the massive servers than people think.

I have myself mostly stopped playing since they lowered the cap. It is just not my game with less than 64.

It could be interesting to get some info from the devs, since i also have been on totally lag free servers even tho they were max players and the cap was at the cap.

[BlackHand1337]

Anyways it could be interesting so see some server hardware stats, and compare with reports of lag.

Same thing here. Would really appreciate to see diffrent stats and their server behavior.

I read somewhere that the ren-x dedicated server only uses 1 thread(Can we get this confirmed??!).

I asked that in Renegade-X IRC. I don't remember who answered but it seems that it uses multithread support. Some investigating on Google->"Does UT use multithreaded" confirmed that statement. After that I did some discovery on my own. The UDK.exe seems to focus one one core and starts using diffrent ones when the core is at its maximum capacity. It's still no answer from the devs but I hope I could help you. Some feedback from the devs here would be still nice though.

[RypeL]

Of course UDK uses more than one core. But it tries to use as few cores as possible to leave room for other processes. You can start the server with the USEALLAVAILABLECORES param though. That should force it to use all cores. You can look it up here: https://udn.epicgames.com/Three/Command ... ments.html

[Rem Tilak]

We are reducing the maximum ammount of players per server to 40 temporarily. This is because there are major issues with vehicles starting to lag with a high ammount of players.

Unfortunately, sometimes it's still lagging.

The characters move like they should, but the vehicles lag like crazy sometimes.

Regards,

Rem

[TheIronKielbasa]

Only temporarily? I would really like to see it permenently capped at something like 24 or 32 to make the games enjoyable and playable instead of just giant MOBA style clusterfucks. If this game is going to be 32vs32 I won't play it - it completely ruins the game.

At 64 players the matches lack any strategy, any enjoyable gameplay at all, it's just a MOBA where instead of drones you have people running down a corridor and shootting at each other. If you want 64 player matches the maps need to be 4x the size with multiple objectives.

[SFJake]

Boohoo. The game has servers with less players, stick to them and piss off. You don't go around and ask everyone who enjoys higher player count to not have it. Plenty of people like high player count and I've even stopped playing because I find 40 to be too little. But hey, maybe I should just want to force every server to be 64 players. Just to be a giant dick to others.

[kugelfaenger]

Only temporarily? I would really like to see it permenently capped at something like 24 or 32 to make the games enjoyable and playable instead of just giant MOBA style clusterfucks. If this game is going to be 32vs32 I won't play it - it completely ruins the game.

At 64 players the matches lack any strategy, any enjoyable gameplay at all, it's just a MOBA where instead of drones you have people running down a corridor and shootting at each other. If you want 64 player matches the maps need to be 4x the size with multiple objectives.

+ 1 (especially the point with the map size)

16vs16 is a vital number of players and I absolutely understand the reduction to 40 players. The vehicle-lag-bug ruined nearly any game I had past wednesday.

[testman]

What? No. I am against this idea of limitation. Temporarily, for open beta is fine, but I hope that 64 (or even more) comes back.

There was one C&C game that had limited number of units.

Guess what was it's name and how good was it. Hint

I would like game to feel like I am one of units in actual big C&C game, not like some Counter Strike match.

[TheGroundsKeeper]

Only temporarily? I would really like to see it permenently capped at something like 24 or 32 to make the games enjoyable and playable instead of just giant MOBA style clusterfucks. If this game is going to be 32vs32 I won't play it - it completely ruins the game.

At 64 players the matches lack any strategy, any enjoyable gameplay at all, it's just a MOBA where instead of drones you have people running down a corridor and shootting at each other. If you want 64 player matches the maps need to be 4x the size with multiple objectives.

+ 1 (especially the point with the map size)

16vs16 is a vital number of players and I absolutely understand the reduction to 40 players. The vehicle-lag-bug ruined nearly any game I had past wednesday.

Just join a smaller server, if you cant handle a game with a proper amount of players.

Dont try to enforce your preference of gameplay on people who enjoy a different more challanging gametype.

There is no one forcing you to join big games, where as of now, people who likes the bigger games do not have the freedom of choice.

You might like the small games but there are way more people who enjoy the big games.

There have to be room for everyone, both 1vs1 if people want that, or even 0vs1 - to "as high as possible" vs "as high as possible"