>>Professional teams swear by >>high-tickrate/high-FPS servers, so it's not entirely hype. > > Mostly a placebo, but you can justify it either way. Hype, placebo, same > thing. There's a point where more FPS actually doesn't change anything. > .. Let's do some science!
We talked about this before, and I said that the more exacting standards required to maintain a higher FPS do lead to measurably higher performance (at least at the highest quality hosts). This is still true. A rock-solid 1000fps server will not perform exactly the same as a server that's frequently fluctuating between something like 250 and 500fps all the time, for instance. The latter is a common occurrence with large servers that are not given enough CPU resources and don't have the proper timing tweaks. It's easy to see this in graphs. > there's nothing in my personal experience that I've *ever* noticed that > changes anything as long > as the server's FPS is at least tickrate or better... I must give more weight to the opinion of professional players than I do to yours. I'm not talking about random people on forums here, but top teams with thousands of dollars on the line, who have to be very exacting. Examining the quality of their servers is something they do full-time, and it's not something you do full-time. > ... if they don't make a profit, how do they stay in business? Saint K answered this one. > I understand the meaning "you get what you pay for." Unfortunately it > doesn't always apply. In the general case it may not, but I believe in the case of many GSPs it does apply. It's all about the renter's needs. If he doesn't need the highest uptime, performance, service, and so on, he can choose a lower-end company. If he needs or wants these things (maybe he's a professional gamer, or he has a good amount of money to dedicate to his hobby), he'll be well-served by going with a quality provider. You have been talking as though higher-end providers only have one offering -- 1000fps+ servers -- but that's not true at all. If someone still wants the effects of higher-quality service, bandwidth, systems, and so on, but doesn't need the highest tier of performance, that person can just buy a lower trim server from the company, such as a 250fps or 500fps server, and pocket the extra money. To circle back around to L4D (what this thread was started about), you get the same FPS everywhere, so the other factors are all that need to be considered. > ... I do agree > that the services they offer are nice, but they certainly aren't unique to > NFO. They also charge a lot more for the extras than other providers. NFO has similar prices to other top-tier providers. I'm not sure what extras you are referring to, but webhosting, a Ventrilo server, and HLTV normally come free. > There are different > expectation levels for different payments as well, with NFO you'd expect > to > get a server that runs 100% all the time, whereas a host at $1 a slot > you'd > expect to have some issues. That is a realistic expectation, yes. > In my experience, > even with weeks of advance notice and advertising on the MOTD and in-game, > you still lose people switching IP addresses, so once you're hooked up > with > a specific provider it's hard to move away .. We were discussing L4D servers, which don't have this problem. We were then talking about 1000fps+ servers, which are mainly used for private matches, and don't have this problem either. The performance and service of these servers can easily be tested over just a few days, although the reliability can't be; a single month month of rental could show that, however. > Virtually every server I've seen on NFO doesn't last more > than a few months... Most public servers in general don't last more than a few months, and it has nothing to do with cost -- it's just because new public servers for old games like CS 1.6 and CS:S are very difficult to fill up and keep going. The very high player to server ratio for these games is a major factor in this. There are dozens or hundreds of easy examples of NFO servers that have stood the test of time. > I've heard complaints about service in the past. Yep, and I've heard complaints about service from every company out there. When a company is in business for 7+ years, some customers are naturally going to be dissatisfied, for any number of possible reasons. > Probably goes hand-in-hand with the cost factor. People who pay > that much expect that their servers not have any problem whatsoever, and > it's not the truth. The base prices at high-quality hosts really aren't that insane. We're not talking an extra $1000 a month here, but something maybe closer to $10 or $20 (a L4D server is $25 compared to $10 at the cheapest places). To many serious gamers, that amount is not a lot of money. (You'd be surprised to hear that many people demand the same things from very inexpensive servers as well. It's kind of funny, actually.) -John _______________________________________________ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds
