Hey Chris, Something to be aware of with regard to hosting maps on the typical shared hosting services most people use for websites. Nearly every shared hosting company has policies that don't allow you to host large quantities of files that are downloaded frequently and strain the shared servers they are on. Companies typically monitor this stuff with software tools they have and will outright cancel you or limit your bandwidth if they catch you doing it. This is because your downloads will impact the other users on these shared boxes, some of which will server hundreds of websites to keep their costs down.
I was unaware of this until I found out he hard way with Hostmonster.com. After they found me sharing hundreds of maps, sounds, player models, etc, they throttled my bandwidth way back and people started taking forever to get their downloads. I spent days searching for a new host and chose Justhost.com after speaking to their Live-chat to confirm I could host files for CSS. They said it would be fine but they too threatened to cancel me after seeing the high volume of downloads I had. My community hosts a couple servers with lots of custom content and we get a couple hundred new players per day that have to download constantly for Gungame. We have our own dedicated Windows 2008 server box with a ton of bandwidth. What I ended up doing was moving all my CSS content files to the same server box as my games and created my own http download site from the same box my games are on using IIS. I no longer need to depend on a 3rd party for my CSS http service, management of my stuff is now easier and there are no limits to what I can host. As far as download speeds, they are faster on my own box than the shared hosting I was using and the downloads have absolutely no affect on the 6 gameservers I'm running on the box. I encourage anyone to try it. It works great for us and I've been doing this for over a year without a hitch. Take care, Mike Vail -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Blood Letter Sent: Friday, November 20, 2009 7:27 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [hlds] File download speeds Not that I know of, unfortunately. Just about any http redirect will be better than serving through the server - just grab some free/cheap hosting. If you own the box, just throw up a free FTP server on it and point it to the same dir as the server itself, and then give it it's own subdomain (ftp.serverip). > Date: Sat, 21 Nov 2009 13:47:42 +1100 > From: [email protected] > To: [email protected] > Subject: [hlds] File download speeds > > Hey all, > > As I'm sure we're all aware, by default SRCDS puts a speed limit on > downloads when clients are downloading maps, mods, textures, whatever, > from the server when they connect. I'm also sure we're all aware that > we can use a HTTP/FTP redirect to allow fast downloads, but I'm > curious if there is a way to get faster download speeds without having > to set up a mirror - ie, can the artificial speed limit srcds imposes > be bypassed by, say, a cvar or sourcemod plugin? > > Thanks > -Chris > > > _______________________________________________ > To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: > http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds _________________________________________________________________ Windows 7: I wanted simpler, now it's simpler. I'm a rock star. http://www.microsoft.com/Windows/windows-7/default.aspx?h=myidea?ocid=PID247 27::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:WWL_WIN_myidea:112009 _______________________________________________ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds _______________________________________________ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlds
