Server join your own server by LAN or Internet?

[driftwood]

Hi,
On one machine I have a dedicated server to hopefully serve the community. I want to play on my own server (for one thing people more likely to join if they see another soul connected), on my gaming PC (seperate machine). Both machines wired to my Billion 7800N router which hosts the shared internet connection. What I want to know is, is there any benefit for me joining through the LAN tab rather than through the internet? My upload speed is a modestly respectful 0.9 Mbit. It would be good to take the stress of my gaming off that to make it all usable by the Server if needed.
So,
a) is there any difference and will it help by joining through LAN
b) will my joining through LAN have any adverse effect on other people joining through internet.

 

[Burn]

Hi,
On one machine I have a dedicated server to hopefully serve the community. I want to play on my own server (for one thing people more likely to join if they see another soul connected), on my gaming PC (seperate machine). Both machines wired to my Billion 7800N router which hosts the shared internet connection. What I want to know is, is there any benefit for me joining through the LAN tab rather than through the internet? My upload speed is a modestly respectful 0.9 Mbit. It would be good to take the stress of my gaming off that to make it all usable by the Server if needed.
So,
a) is there any difference and will it help by joining through LAN
b) will my joining through LAN have any adverse effect on other people joining through internet.

Try joining using your internal IP address (192.168.1.x on linksys routers, dunno what you've assigned your static IP (I hope so) to your server. You have (at least) a 100mbit connection to your server over your LAN but only 1mbit over the internet, so it'll definitely help out other people connecting to you by not sucking up available bandwidth.

 

[Major_Day]

Lan is 10/100/1000 mb speed, dsl is not, ask yourself which is the quickest? Lan is by far the best.

 

[kkmmnn]

i actually don't think you can even join through the internet if you are on the servers LAN. me and my brothers play on my server now, just got it running, and i can only join through the LAN connection. might be different because your server PC is different from the gaming one... when i join through the LAN and my buddies come in through the internet connection, it does not have any effects on the server or gameplay

 

[Bobdog]

I can't speak to you connection being better or worse over lan vs internet, but if you join through the lan tab, people on the internet will not be able to join you via steam friends; steam will report the internal ip (192.168.1.xx), instead of the correct external ip. They will still be able to access your server via the server browser, however.

 

[driftwood]

thanks guys all useful replies. For the record I'm well aware of the superior speed of LAN, in fact my whole network is gigabit . Good spot about the steam friends issue, I'll have to keep that in mind when inviting people, because I think I'll join directly by internal IP from now on - last night there was lag once 4 of us were on, though we didn't have 4 people for long so I can't be 100% sure. Anyone know if 0.9mbit upload / 5.9mbit download is an adequate connection for 1x6 player server - without lag?

 

[kingkong]

you'll be fine, just figure in about 30-40kb per player with default tickrates, so kf uses ~250kb at most for a standard game. I run my server off the local lan as well but use external ip always, since there's really no advantage to connect locally, in your pov it's technically the same. disadvantages include problems inviting people into the game, and instability (getting lag and dropped connections in lan for some reason). any decent router should have wan loopback, and if it doesn't you should be able to set up a static route.

 

[driftwood]

Cool you sound like you know what you're talking about so if I could get some confirmation...

you'll be fine, just figure in about 30-40kb per player with default tickrates, so kf uses ~250kb at most for a standard game.

you mean download right? Because my upload is only 0.9mbit

since there's really no advantage to connect locally, in your pov it's technically the same

This was the main reason for my posting the thread. Any idiot can say "hey, it would make better sense to connect through LAN then through Internet", but that's an assumption without knowledge on how the software works.

any decent router should have wan loopback, and if it doesn't you should be able to set up a static route.

Is that something I should do if joining through LAN, or something I should do if joining through Internet Games tab?

I'm actually pretty stoked because my server is working properly from the get go and like I said I was playing with 3 other people and may or may not have had lag problems, will confirm next time. I guess I'm just asking you if that loob-back stuff you mention is something I should look into, or is only for <under certain condition>?

 

[kingkong]

symmetrically speaking, since the server needs to send data both ways, and iirc it's about equal in either direction, would need to observe more to be sure.

so .9 megabit upload = 900 kilobits , and your download bandwidth would be many times that for a usual connection so I wouldn't worry.

sometimes it's actually easier to connect through lan when lacking a loopback or static route. loopback simply means that your router recognises your own public address, and never sends those packets out to your isp for routing, it will route them as if you were using your lan address. my point was that if it works at all, performance-wise it should be identical. because to your client, the router, and the server, whether you connect through public or lan address, it's the same single hop through your own router.

the way to test this would be to try joining through internet games, with the same address that you would give anyone else outside your lan. if you can't connect properly then you know there is a routing problem somewhere between your client and your server.

if you don't mind connecting through your local address then none of this would matter, only problem like what was said above is say, if you invite someone into your game, it will give them your internal address and they won't be able to connect that way. technically this could be fixed by valve, but I doubt it's a priority since 99% of players would not have this issue.

also in my experience, kf does not work too well with client connections to servers on the lan. could just be something in my setup but last time I tried it, it was not stable at all. maybe a bug with the different tickrates they have set for public vs. lan connections, those I have been adjusting and will do more testing on.

 

[driftwood]

sometimes it's actually easier to connect through lan when lacking a loopback or static route. loopback simply means that your router recognises your own public address, and never sends those packets out to your isp for routing, it will route them as if you were using your lan address. my point was that if it works at all, performance-wise it should be identical. because to your client, the router, and the server, whether you connect through public or lan address, it's the same single hop through your own router.

Thank for the additional clarification. So it sounds like loopback is something my router should do without me doing anything special to it, and I'll test it by trying to join my server using the 'outside world' ip.