As an ISP focusing on Gaming I've done some quick tests here to review
the findings in your mail and I'm afraid I can't agree with all of
them.
Your ISP claims they saw up to 50,000 flows where as my tests showed
up to around 5,000 so a factor of 10 lower.
The important difference here will likely be the period over which
the flows are measured as these are UDP flows. So yes if they are
measuring over a say a 10 second interval for example they are
likely to see a very large number of flows, however these flows
are going to be made up of just 1 or 2 "udp" packets over just a
few ms not seconds.
In addition to this I've tested the return rate of the server list
from the master and that's perfectly reasonable as its using a
continuing request protocol. i.e.
Server Request0 -> master
Master -> Server
Server Request1 -> master
...
This is unlike cod4, which busts the entire list back in on go to
the client at ~ 80Mbps. This is way higher than any consumer grade
line can handle and results in large amounts of server information
never reaching the user, hence a high portion of servers are never
listed on the client.
Some people think cod4 browser is fine, but that's just because it
looks that way. The fact is on virtually every line I've tested on
around 1/3rd of the servers that are actually available never get
listed, however their server caching strategy does help reduce the
missing servers over an elongated period of time.
We raised this with Activision several times be they aren't interested
in fixing it. To help our DSL customers we put a custom filter on
the connection to the cod4 master which slows down the response so
customers do get the full list, but that only fixes our customers
not everyone :(
Anyway back to steam, next I checked for a consistent number of
servers in the response from the master from one of our dev boxes.
This machine is on our core network with 1Gbps connection with no
filtering at all.
The results of this initially looked good with the response from
the master at: 68.142.72.250:27010 consistently giving ~ 38k
CSS servers. However when tracing the client it seems that it uses
a number of masters and for CS:S I found it using the master:
69.28.140.247:27011.
This master unlike the previous is currently giving very
inconsistent results, anywhere from 300 - 4000 servers with qstat,
as it fails to get a response most the time and gives up.
I've checked for loss on the routing but its all clean, although
its average response time is 145ms in comparison to 94ms on the
working one, so that may be a factor. This likely indicates that
either the master itself at: 69.28.140.247:27011 is currently
having issues or that connectivity to that master is having
issues.
Even given this, if your ISP is limiting to 700 flows you are
almost certainly going to have issues so I would suggest: First
talk to them to see if they will review their policy, as
its clearly not workable for game server query traffic. If they
won't remove the cap then vote with your money and change ISP's.
Regards
Steve
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ian Shaffer" <[email protected]>
To: "Half-Life dedicated Linux server mailing list"
<[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, January 18, 2009 1:42 PM
Subject: [hlds_linux] This ones for Alfred Reynolds.
> About: Steam server browser/router excuse
>
> I've done a lot of research into this problem. It has nothing to do with
> my router. This issue exists in every single configuration, wired to the
> modem, wired to the router, and also on wireless. You guys must realize
> that I'm not the only one who's having this issue. I think that it would
> be in your best interest to hear me out.
>
> http://img104.imageshack.us/img104/707/20090118kc5.jpg
>
> Look at the screen shot. I just did a steam server browser search and
> this is where it stopped and displayed Refresh All, indicating that the
> search was complete.
>
> This isn't the first time it's stopped either. Whenever I do a server
> browser search in the source engine or the out of game browser, let me
> explain what actually happens, and why you to listen.
>
> When I open the browser, it starts searching, pausing every 200 or 500
> servers apart, very slowly. Once it hits anywhere near 500-600, it
> stops, or pauses, per say because it's still going. After anywhere
> between 3 and 10 seconds later, it goes again, stopping another 500 or
> 600 above. Then it pauses much longer, and then resumes. It'll do this
> until it reaches a point when the list stops refreshing, probably
> because it notices my internet is being knocked out and therefore stops,
> or maybe it believes that this is all the servers and therefore stops as
> well. Either way, it's a serious problem.
>
> Now, as I did, and most others who have had this issue have gone on the
> support site and forum, trying to find a solution. I've made posts as
> well on the steam forums, check out this one:
>
> http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=698242
>
> Stop telling us it's a router issue, because it ISNT.
>
> I've spoken with my ISP. They've acknowledged the fact that their is a
> 700 limit for concurrent connections, the only real limit the have. I've
> gone as far as to get their engineers to test the steam application's
> server browser, where they've taken off the limit and have stress tested
> it, pointing out that at one point they were able to see the browser
> pulling over 50,000 flows of connections. They've called it word for
> word, virus-like, because thats why they have the 700 connections cap,
> to stop viruses from infecting everyone on the network.
>
> One of the engineers are very familiar with the steam and has claimed to
> have contacted you guys at Valve about the matter, but no responses have
> ever been given.
>
> Listen. This is a bug with your software. Not the ISP. Many other ISPs
> in the world do the same thing. Just google it. It's there. Look at your
> own forum!
>
> I have presented this information to you in hopes that you will better
> understand the seriousness of this issue.
>
> There are thousands and thousands of server operators over the countries
> of this earth who's servers are sitting empty due to this problem. Now,
> this problem doesn't happen to all of us. I'm sure there's a lot of IPSs
> out there that have no filtering, and therefore that mandates that there
> is no bug.
>
> There is. Either face it or ignore it. I'll still play your games, I'll
> still host your games. I'll just listen in and hope for a response. I'll
> hope others will concur with me, present their data, their situations to
> the board, and then let valve decide whether a decision must be made.
>
> That is all.
>
> - Ian
>
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>
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