Verify Signature

[tremanarch 6]

Will there be a more 'crap internet connection' friendly signature check in the future?

I am getting kicked after like ~20-40 Seconds. I have not a good internet connection (~5-10 % Package loss) I cant change it.

Or can servers maybe have an exclude players list? so that only me doesnt need to be checked but everyone else? This way I could at least play on servers run by friends.

[kremator 1064]

I think you need to upgrade your Alpha Internet !!

[galzohar 31]

If you get signature check timed out on a regular basis, you'll most likely also get extreme desync issues in-game.

Why are you even paying for such an internet connection, anyway?

[tremanarch 6]

http://abload.de/img/unbenanntlvs59.jpg

the desy<nc from time to time isnt bad. but getting kicked every 10-20 minutes is. A little desync doesnt throw you out, just sit a minute wait till its over.

a kick throws you out the game. loadout is gone. your comrades are alone, you have to reconnect time, etc etc unplayable.

drive / fly to where you were before - most of the time its impossible. its unplayable.

[Hud Dorph 22]

what kind of connection do you have? dsl? speed?

A long time ago i had a problem looking like yours.

[terox 316]

I also had an issue like this back in A2 and that turned out to be caused by 1 specific model of a router that would also be in common use today

[Twix 1]

Signature check timeout is not usually due to connection but to your own (client side) HDD performance. It's easy to check what bottlenecks too, simply open your performance meter, select the arma3.exe thread and see the read/write done when you connect to a verifysignature server.

Your HDD will go literally NUTS over this, pumping max read capacity (and over, in my case) on the large files (usually sounds.pbo, a 2gb file...) and if unable to cope with the timeout reqs, you'll get kicked. I highly recommend disabling anything that could slow HDD access in anyway, shape or form (and exlucing arma3/addon folder from you antivirus/firewall/whatnot), setting arma3 on high priority and, above all else, NOT doing anything whatsoever for at least 30 seconds after joining the server.

Personally my HDD isn't new (far from it) but I have a good connection. If I do ANYTHING when it's checking, I'll get kicked every time. If I don't, I'll get in every time. The WORST thing is when another high priority process requires HDD access at the same time....that'll get me the boot, no exception.

[Richie 330]

Signature verification is really harsh on the HDD, other threads have mentioned that SSD do not suffer as much with the lag it causes.

I have an old Sata II HDD and it's on its way out :( The lag is killer for me compared to other players.

Speaking of which, I thought it was down to be fixed in the last update ?

[bus 11]

I think it's been fixed in the dev build but I don't see any mention of it in the latest Alpha change list.

[SavageCDN 231]

sig check issues are not fixed in latest stable

[pawelkpl 29]

I think it's been fixed in the dev build but I don't see any mention of it in the latest Alpha change list.

NO, it is not , I do host dev. domination server and with sign on ppl have massive slowdowns sometimes.

[Twix 1]

Had to use regularCheck="{}" personally, otherwise it's near unplayable. Lowers security a bit of course but there's still the initial check that filter people out.

Drives me nuts that I can't whitelist some people via UIDs though! Heck, I'm among the most kicked out during the checks and it's my own damn server :)

[Jasonpb 10]

Yeah I've found the signature checks to be fairly intensive on the game, without them people log into the lobby instantly however with signature checks on there is a delay that can sometimes be 10 seconds or longer before anyone can click from within the lobby and a lot of people do time out during the check.

As for disk activity we run multiple SSD drives in Raid 0 and disk read/write access times are under 1ms with wait times of 0 and read/write performance isn't an issue, in fact the least capable node we run is a xeon 1230v2 with 32gb ram, 2x 256GB samsung 830 SSD drives in raid 0 (LSI 2960-4i BBU 512meg cache) this also has dual 1Gbit ethernet connections, providers are a mixture however level3 is the primary provider so you can't get much better than that.

Even though the game can't use the resources allocated to it on on our least capable hardware node, we have tested it on higher performance hardware with different disks/raid card combinations, CPUs etc it makes no difference as expected yet benchmarks on all of the items listed turn out as expected.

Doesn't really matter what you connect with (my PC is fairly high spec) there are fairly large delays with sig check 2 enabled, we've tested this on multiple different hardware configurations which all involved SSD drives and it was the same result, so performance improvements here would be fantastic.

[Dwarden 1124]

Had to use regularCheck="{}" personally, otherwise it's near unplayable. Lowers security a bit of course but there's still the initial check that filter people out.

Drives me nuts that I can't whitelist some people via UIDs though! Heck, I'm among the most kicked out during the checks and it's my own damn server :)

it not lowers it bit, it completely disables it, hence why it's not recommended ...

[Twix 1]

it not lowers it bit, it completely disables it, hence why it's not recommended ...

From what I understood, it disables the regular checks DURING gameplay (hence the name), but keeps the verification when the player first connects. Is this not the case? What are the insane freezes and file parsing happening when you first connect then? :)

Before I put verifysignature = 2, I had people coming on every evening running crazy shit, ruining everyone's evening. Since I made the change (even with regularcheck disabled), it didn't happen ONCE (and that's going on 3 weeks now). That's excluding the latest "hack extravaganza" we've all seen since last week of course.

I KNOW I should keep the regular checks, but I'm sorry, it's just NOT playable with that on. The verification when you connect is crazy enough (sometimes I think my HDD is just gonna burst out my rig!) but that during a mission is just...crazy.

Security for itself is useless and it means NOTHING. The goal when you're hosting a server is to provide a good time for your players NOT to provide security.

"Good time" was not possible without verifysignature = 2 so I put that in, but the extra security of the regular checks does not balance with the total ruination of any fun it creates, at any given moment, during a game. IF I start getting hacks regularly enough for the fun to be ruined for the players, THEN I'll think about putting the checks back in...

And please work on a whitelist system for this shit. A server host should be able to syndicate some of his most fervent players (and himself!!) via UID. :)

As for disk activity we run multiple SSD drives in Raid 0 and disk read/write access times are under 1ms with wait times of 0 and read/write performance isn't an issue, in fact the least capable node we run is a xeon 1230v2 with 32gb ram, 2x 256GB samsung 830 SSD drives in raid 0 (LSI 2960-4i BBU 512meg cache) this also has dual 1Gbit ethernet connections, providers are a mixture however level3 is the primary provider so you can't get much better than that.

Who's "we"? The server doesn't give a damn about verifysignature from what I could see, it's on the player side that it goes nuts. Check your arma3 file access when you connect to a verifysignature = 2 server, it's CRAZY, especially when it goes through that 2Gb sounds_f.pbo. I know it's my own fault for having only one HDD and an old one at that, but nowhere does ARMA 3 reqs specify you need a SSD drive :)

Edited April 30, 2013 by Twix

[galzohar 31]

Ouch, I was wondering what those massive freezes were (that also sometimes result in "signature check timed out"). Having to choose between verifySignatures and being able to connect smoothly is tough, as even on a community server there are many who accidentally run the wrong mods.

Is this also related to the in-game long freezes? Those seem to have been greatly reduced by the patches since release of the alpha, but the freezes that happen right as you join a server are still unbearable (and often result in the player disconnecting due to signature check timing out).

[sxp2high 22]

From my experience, apparently, the minimum requirement to play on servers that have signature check enabled is an SSD drive and a decent internet connection... Everyone else is screwed.

[galzohar 31]

So is this 100% fixed with last patch? Or are there still problems sometimes?

[maddogx 13]

So is this 100% fixed with last patch? Or are there still problems sometimes?

According to Lt_Lyko on the tracker, the issue seems to be resolved.

[Mattar_Tharkari 10]

No problems reported with verifySignatures on our server - not experiencing any lag/ connection delays with the 0.58.105348 version. Played several hours with no crashes. Possibly because no one uses any addons???