Rate Management Plugin - Version 3.3 - User Guide
Filename: plugin_blatt_rate
Offline Manual
You are reading this offline manual for this plugin. The links to the right
navigate through the offline information. The links above and to the left
link to www.ravenousbugblatterbeast.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk.
If you downloaded the plugin from somewhere else, or downloaded it some time ago,
I recomend you check for an updated plugin. Note that the on-line manual may have been updated
even if the plugin hasn't.
Preventing Lag Spikes
The primary purpose of this plugin is to prevent the occasional "lag spikes" where the game
occasionally freezes for a few seconds when a new player joins, whilst optimising usage the available
Internet bandwidth. To do this, simply issue the command:
bbrate_bandwidth 128K
Substituting the lower of the upload and download bandwidth for 128. If you are unsure of your
connection speed contact your ISP. Then in order to maximise the bandwidth usage you should inform
the plugin of the number of local users. There two ways to do this:
- Use the bbrate_localusers setting to set a fixed number of local players. If you are the only
local user and you only run a server when you are playing, setting this to 1 is the recommend configuration.
- Use the bbrate_lanmask setting to indicate the IP range of your local machines. If you are running
a dedicated server and/or have more than one local user connecting, this is the recommended method. The
IP address and subnet mask can be copied from the TCP/IP settings on your LAN network connection - in most
home networking products, these are one of the following:
bbrate_lanmask 192.168.0.0 255.255.0.0
bbrate_lanmask 10.0.0.0 255.0.0.0
Ensuring Fast and Fair LAN games
A secondary purpose of this plugin is when you are playing on a LAN. Here
you can use it to ensure that all LAN players connect a reasonable and equal
rate without having to configure each client. Simply set bbrate_bandwidth to
a high value such as 1000K. In this configuration, do not set any local users,
or a lanmask - you want the rate calculation include local users.
Minimum and Maximum rate
sv_minrate and sv_maxrate still govern the minimum and maximum rate that is applied
to each individual user. If sv_maxrate * maxplayers < your bandwidth the server will
not use all available bandwidth. However, this may be a good thing - you may not
want it to. As a default, I suggest a sv_maxrate of 6144 (6K) if you are unsure, but
experiment with this. A larger setting than this theoretically may affect the performance
of 56K modem users, but in practice no-one has report such issues.
sv_minrate is more important. If sv_minrate * maxplayers > your bandwidth, then
when the server is full this plugin will not be able to do its job and prevent lag
spikes. 2048 is the rock bottom value for sv_minrate. 3000 is more playable. Therefore
you should set you maximum players based on your sv_minrate setting and your bandwidth
so that sv_minrate * maxplayers is less than your available bandwidth. In practice this
means a maximum of 6 players on a 128K server and 12 on a 256K (not including local users)
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