Server ability : URL forwarding of MISSION content

[Yoma 0]

and we got a sheep addon instead of a T80

But... i love sheep:whistle:

[walker 0]

Hi all

WHOOPS SORRY S!fkaIaC

This is what happens when you read the quoted post rather than the original

I will leave my post here as quoted italized example of my own stupidity

For the record I would prefer BIS only made one generic tank then allowed the community to MOD in from there. I see little point in wasting BIS's programmers on making another T80.

I much prefer BIS to concentrate on adding capability such as new Animal Forms or add in FLIR, and Dialogues to vehicles so that people can mod in the functionality.

As I have said quite often I would prefer BIS work on making money out of creating the simulation and tools to allow the community to create content.

The Real Virtuality Engine is BIS's core product. In a Gold Rush the people who make the real money are those who make and sell the shovels.

BUT I recognise the need for BIS to feed their souls and make their Military simulator.

Adding in additional server functions and maybe setting up ArmA to work in a server farm architecture is more important that a particular tank such as a T80 that any half decent modder could make in a weekend or two in their bedroom.

That said I think the use of multiple cores is a step in that direction but Server Farms to allow ArmA to be a 24/7 MMOG is the way to go.

Go back a few pages to read the context ;) :o :o

Kind Regards walker

Edited April 30, 2009 by walker
Edited to point out my own misunderstanding!

[S!fkaIaC 10]

Yome: But... i love sheep

You really looooove them ? :D Are you from Ireland or New Zealand? lol

Walker: WHOOPS SORRY S!fkaIaC

This is what happens when you read the quoted post rather than the original

Walker, I was not directly refering to your post, I was laugthing about poor Dwarden and his attempts to keep his original aim.

I was kidding about the way we turn Dwardens initial idea into something different and he is going nuts over this and I suggested it is similar in BIS that to many devs involved making a sheep out of a T80 if everyone can comment the design :eek: and some of the devs end up in the madhouse.

Edited April 30, 2009 by S!fkaIaC

[Dwarden 1124]

yeah some people are turning lil easy code tweak into major rewrite :) ...

and what about stop driving this thread offtopic and stay on topic of simple server improvement ? :)

[S!fkaIaC 10]

Maybe I am wrong, but most replies supporting your suggestion, me included.

So what you gonna do with this?

The poll in the old forum is still valid?

So if majority is supporting you, whats next? Request to Suma/Marek/BIS?

Edited May 4, 2009 by S!fkaIaC

[=SF=Hyrax 0]

a fast redirect would be a life saver

[Defunkt 431]

There are good reasons (as detailed above) why most games support this. It should be a trivial change, for the server nothing more than delivering a URL and a checksum, that's it. A little more to do for the client (support for http:// downloads) but still not much. If the resource is missing or the checksum is wrong both fallback to the current behaviour.

Of course this should be done.

[gossamersolid 155]

It'd be great if server admins would be able to define a web server address so new joiners would download the mission from the web server instead.

Source engine and UE2 + UE3 support this (probably more engines).

I just find that the server will choke if too many people are downloading the mission.

[gossamersolid 155]

I see this post now, I for one really support this.

I recently included mando missile mod into my mission and the mission is now 9mb large. When new players come and download it from us, it lags the crap out of everybody playing (which gets really annoying). Then if it was offloaded to an HTTP server, then we could keep playing uninterrupted and the download times would be much faster.

Another thing for the future could be addon downloading, but I guess Yoma already does that pretty good.

[Dwarden 1124]

re-added poll ... feel free to take part !

[gossamersolid 155]

re-added poll ... feel free to take part !

Oh, I have

I really hope this gets implemented. Will make everything 100% bandwidth wise dealing with missions.

[PiratRu 10]

I have made how here is written! Has registered two lines in a file server.cfg.

Mission_downloadable == "true"

Mission_download_URL == "link"

But on mine it hasn't given any result. There can be I have registered not there? Prompt please.

[CarlGustaffa 4]

Wow, must have completely missed this thread. Is this one in the game yet?

[PiratRu 10]

I apologize in advance, if such theme already is! But it is heavy to me to see so much a lot of information. Therefore I have made a separate theme where I can discuss the problem - can to somebody too will help.

All problem that the server often falls! I have noticed that falls while the player is connected to the server! I where here already met that about switching of the player for закачки on a separate host or a site. Here such two lines I have found and have inserted into a file server.cfg.

Mission_downloadable == "true";

Mission_download_URL == "http://link/mpmissions";

But on mine hasn't given any result. These lines need to be registered in other file?

Can be registers absolutely on another?

If who can prompt - please prompt!

If certainly it is possible, at the same time a restriction line on ping.

The server costs on Linux

Thankful in advance to all!

[Dwarden 1124]

Wow, must have completely missed this thread. Is this one in the game yet?

not yet

[gossamersolid 155]

There isn't a redirect download feature yet (To my knowledge), though it was talked about and seemed to be a good feature.

As for high ping kick, it's configurable in your server's BEServer.cfg

RConPassword *****
MaxPing 300

[PiratRu 10]

Tnx GossamerS!

BEServer.cfg is placed in profiles and battleye folder in server?

[CarlGustaffa 4]

Domination example, where mission tends to be all kinds of variations.

1. Check mission cache. If same as server, this is used (no download time i.e. on reconnects).

2. Check cache based on server name. If matching, is copied from server cache to mission cache (no download time, i.e. on servers you play a lot).

3. Check all other server caches. If matching, is copied from found server cache to current server cache and mission cache (no download time, i.e. on an unmodified version).

4. If server has redirect, download the mission to server cache and when complete copy to mission cache.

5. If it doesn't download mission from server at slower speed, to server cache, and when complete copy to mission cache.

[PiratRu 10]

Very much pieces of good advice CarlGustaffa!

But how to me to learn, where the information about кеше is stored?

If I can limit loading of cards from the server what variable needs to be registered?

[alef 0]

About code, do you use already libcurl? "You may also freely use curl and libcurl in your commercial projects."

About the algorithm and implementation, I would prefer

• an array of download URL strings for the mission,
  
• ... to be put in description.ext,
  
• ... and select randomly each of those.
  
• For each, the user have to be asked if he wants to download from that server.
  
• Cache the answer and put it into his ArmA2OAProfile
  

Edited November 7, 2010 by alef

[bhaz 0]

I can't see any valid argument as to why this shouldn't be implemented. The majority of games that require custom content upon joining a server already have features similar to this. The benefits completely and thoroughly destroy the detriments, and at the time of this posting, 97.89% of those that voted agree. Though I'd imagine an engine change as big as this would break beta compatibility with the current patch?

I completely agree with alef's idea - an array of URL strings. Though I don't think it should be stored in the mission's description file. Even then, how would you read a mission's description.ext file if you don't have the mission? This also puts unnecessary effort onto the mission developer, having to find and maintain their own hosting.

This should be chosen by the admin of the server in question (server.cfg). It would make sense for example that a server provide download links suitable to its location, with fallback links further in the array in case a server goes down.

Edited October 29, 2010 by bhaz

[nuxil 2]

Wow.

Dwarden if you implement this it will be like a gift sendt from heaven.

even if you have like 100 in ping to a server but fail to downloade the mission with in a sertan timeframe battleye will kick you off with a timeout.

this would overcome the problem with big mission and battleye.

[terox 316]

I have voted for this option but am unlikely to use it.

The reason for this is.

Implementing an option is always a good thing, if you dont want to use it, then it doesnt affect you, if you do have reason to use it, then it's there for you.

With the arguments on server load and bandwidth useage being a major part of this discussion then i would like to point out the following, which is defintely the case scenario for us and I would suspect many other servers out there.

Game servers tend to have more powerful processors than web servers

Game servers either rental or colocations tend to have more available monthly bandwidth allowances than some web providers.

Game servers tend to have faster connection speeds than web servers.

ArmA Bandwidth useage per client is relatively small and nowhere near utilises the bandwidth available to a dedicated game server hosted at a data center or a fast line

So I feel downloading from a web host may increase the timeframe from engine startup to actually playing in game.

I find it hard to believe that JIP lag is caused by downloading mission files, it's probably to do (And i am guessing but based on limited research) with transferring data about the locations and states of objects in the realtime environment to the JIP client and if this is the case, then hosting the mission files on a web server is not going to have any positive effect on this as some believe.

I also think time could be better spent on improvements elsewhere as Kju originally stated.

Using this methodology for Addons and mods however would be extremely useful and could be pursued at some point in the future when this has been proven to work for ArmA.

It's alrightb saying that every other MP game out there uses this methodology, however they all have different engines and work in different ways, so a comparison here really isnt relevant.

If this were to be implemented then for ease of use, automatic synchronisation between the web server host folder and the game server mpmissions folder should occur otherwise either the Webhost will have to be updated manually which may often be overlooked or scripts written to do this, which not everyone is capable of doing.

On a more positive note, if it helps some server admins with low bandwidth restrictions or poor connections out then, thats all the better. So go for it.

Edited October 29, 2010 by Terox

[Pulverizer 1]

Why not off-load the JIP data to a webserver as well, so only the last minute or two's worth of game changes need to be sent using the game server's bw, instead of potentially many hours'. It would be sent incrementally as changes occur, not instantaneously, thus costing almost no bw at all.

[terox 316]

Why not off-load the JIP data to a webserver as well, so only the last minute or two's worth of game changes need to be sent using the game server's bw, instead of potentially many hours'. It would be sent incrementally as changes occur, not instantaneously, thus costing almost no bw at all.

The data the JIP client is given, is the data at that moment in time of the client actually joining the game, eg current status and locations of objects and values for certain variables that are different from Game start There is no need to store this data for any other time other than game start and at JIP point as it is constantly changing and would simply have to be redownloaded again at JIP point. In your method, I presume the system would suffer as if a JIP client was connecting every 2 minutes etc.

For example

@ Mission start: Variable = 1

@ WebHost store point Variable - 2,3,4,5,6,7 etc etc

@ JIP Point Variable = 23

Why would the JIP client ever need to redefine the variable value more than once when he connects

Edited October 29, 2010 by Terox