Slow Custom Map Downloads during mapvote

[Bacillus98]

Hello. I am a new server admin and had a question on a troubling issue in regards to custom map download speeds. If players join the server while a custom map is in play it will download very fast. However, after a map vote, if the map that won the vote is a custom map, download speeds are very slow while the server switches to the new map for people without the map. One has to hit F10 once or twice, and then the map will download much faster. I am paying for a redirect service thru gameservers company, and I put in a ticket in which I received the following response:

The issue is the redirect is taking a little bit of time to retrieve and compress the map, the first few times that it is requested. For your maps, this is taking long enough that the clients are deciding the redirect has failed, and begin downloading from the server instead.

This is why you can reconnect to the server and download quickly (the compressed version is already stored on the redirect at that point).

It ends with there is basically nothing they can do here on their end. Is there no way to be able to remedy this problem? Why do other servers not have this problem? Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[AfterShock]

I've noticed the same thing and think its about time they look into fixing it, I believe the server issues a map change command just before the server has completely loaded so it probably hasn't even read the http url yet in the killingfloor.ini. since during every map change all settings are wiped out and re loaded from the ini file it has no location to point to for the redirect. This happens even if nobody votes for a map at the end of the current map.

 

[kingkong]

I've noticed the same thing and think its about time they look into fixing it, I believe the server issues a map change command just before the server has completely loaded so it probably hasn't even read the http url yet in the killingfloor.ini. since during every map change all settings are wiped out and re loaded from the ini file it has no location to point to for the redirect. This happens even if nobody votes for a map at the end of the current map.

I don't know where this logic is coming from but that's not how ue server works at all. it only refers to the ini on launch, caching its own copy of it from then on. this is why you can't change the ini while the server is running, unless you edit class variables directly from the console. what you should have done, like the op, is at least make some attempt to describe your setup. this is not a problem for those who have managed redirects, I've never seen this happen on my custom server where I have full control of the files.


@bacillus, what company is this hosted from? do you have any control over the files in the redirect (ftp/http upload, etc)? if I'm understanding this right, it sounds like you are only allowed to upload full size maps to your own map directory, while they try to save resources on their redirect by compressing maps on the fly. although it does kind of make sense, this is obviously not ideal if they can't do it in a practical way, I would not invest in their service if they can't serve maps when you need them.

what you should have is web space that you can upload your own compressed version to, that way you can be sure a redirect is always available for every map. makes no sense that people would have to wait for a direct download after a map vote, just plain stupid imo. it's counterproductive since that's the time you need a fast transfer the most, to keep the game going for players already on the server.

 

[Bacillus98]

Kingkong,
I use gamerservers.com as a hosting service. You are correct about the FTP part. I upload the maps to the FTP site given to me by the server host. You mention web space, is there a free or cost effective alternative to this problem? I tried the service dropbox, but could never correctly get the HTTP link portion in my redirect to properly work.

 

[kingkong]

so you do have a seperate directory to upload your compressed maps to? if you have a place to upload your uz2 versions, and they still can't serve the maps, then it's possible for the problem to be on either kf or gameserver's end.

I know dropbox works for kf, never used it myself though. I use fileden.com since their upload is browser based, so no extra apps. only downside is they have 50mb size limit for the free plan, otherwise 5gb monthly bandwidth and 1gb space, with 1gb speed cap is pretty good for most any 6p server.

from what I can tell, gameservers and dropbox are better if you can get it to work, since they don't seem to have any size limits. I was considering switching to dropbox so I can run some larger maps, since they are also free.