Mr. Tucker, Did my homework, been doing my homework as a server admin since oh 1999-2000 or so. cmdrate was in previous versions as well. I started out on 56k dialup through aohell. So I know a thing or two about optimizing.
My cmdrate in those days was 25, and my updaterate was 30. Those were my optimized settings with no loss no choke (even on AOHell), unless there were network issues from the isp or the gsp. This new mis-use of this cvar is mostly by broadband users who have no reason to be using a cmdrate setting that low anyway. And lets be honest, its valves game, they should be the determiner of what the rates should be for any given connection. Problem is its changable in its present form, and being abused by a multitude of persons. Cal in its infinite wisdom stopped anyone from using a cmdrate below 10, but this value is still too low for broadband users. I agree a minimum of 25-30 would be nice. Still not updating to the server as fast as most broadband users (those using 100 cmdrate such as myself). In the end its connection dependent, and I would like to see valve determine the value based on upload speed, and once valve determined that value it to be locked and unchangable on a local client. What about slowband you say? Well, this idea I had while reading your argument. Lets say valve had a different ruleset for each connection type. Lets say slowband had a maximum cap of say 50, and a minimum cap say of 20-25. Perfectly reasonable. Lets hypothesis further and say how about a cap of 100 and a minimum of 30 for any broadband users. This would ensure slowband got what they needed, and broadband got a minimum cap where it was needed. This is what I am sure my fellow admins who are petitioning valve (like myself) are recommending in their private emails to valve offlist. And I hate to say it, but a double standard would be needed but valve would need to be the determining factor because to be honest some people just aren't (honest). We can also look at it from this point of view. Broadband has been out for many years in many areas. 56k is kind of like the 300 baud modem, a thing of the past. The game's bare minimums support 56k barely. In almost every resource I have checked it is recommended that you get broadband if you wish to play this game. Satelite, wireless, as you have pointed out have latency, and should never be used for real time gaming. There are countless articles published on the web that support this fact. To these persons I would recommend a different type of service if this is what they want to do with their online time. Dsl, and cable are in just about every area nowadays in one form or another. If they choose to play over wireless that is their choice, and they should accept the fact they are going to get "lag", packet choke and loss. Now, to addresss the optimizations because of dialup, like I said, broadband is recommended. See my comparison of dialup above. And no amount of "optimizing" on your part is going to fix a network issue with an isp. Because your fix today may not work tommorow, because networks ARE that unstable. Now imagine each and every time you logged into source, your rates were determined automatically by valve servers. So no matter how your connection was today or yesteday or tommorow, you would have a smooth game courtesy of vALVE, in an ideal world, this is what we would have. (Crosses fingers) StealthMode _______________________________________________ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds
