ManiaPlanet 2 Beta Server 2012-07-11

[_bb_mort]

Not my server.

He did have 36 players at one point, and my rough calculations tell me that it's an exponential amount of data being sent to the server and back to players. I've suggested he try with 12 players and see how it goes... but still.

When he turned off SM and went back to 5 x TM2 servers the usages is back down to 1.1GB/day. (Yes, I know TM2 won't have the same requirements, but it's something to watch out for, especially if Nadeo can't provide calculations for data requirements!)

[Knutselmaaster]

It is because by default, the servers P2P setting (the send one, not the receive one) is set to True.
This generates a lot of traffic on a full server, and in TM was not needed to be activated.
I disabled it on my SM server, and it runs normally, but with the new scripting stuff, i don't know if it might be needed now.

[anvolcano]

Is there an ETA on working BeginMap/EndMap/BeginMatch/EndMatch callbacks? I hate to have to bother about it during a beta, but they're pretty important.

I've been using TrackMania.ChallengeListModified as a workaround for monitoring map changes, since you can at least get the current map index. It fires between each map change, as:

TrackMania.ChallengeListModified(new_map_index, next_map_index, some_boolean_I_dont_know_what_it_does)

So you can keep track of what the current map is through with it.

Also, definitely watching the data usage chat with interest. I just bought my first VPS for use with TrackMania, and found that it was using about ~1.5mb/s. It's a 16-slot server that stayed mostly full for a few hours, and you can see the usage from noon to 1am Friday to Saturday:



This would use around 20 gigs a day if my server was full for 4 hours (which is fairly realistic, since there's only a handful of US servers and I haven't had any trouble populating mine). I've only got a terabyte/month, and that uses more than half, so it makes me weary to, say, run a Mumble server on the same VPS. Hopefully the bandwidth will be more optimized as development continues

[jonthekiller]

The download of maps (300 kb each) to 16 players every 10 min (or less) represent on 24h, 300*16*6*24=690 Mb only in upload. It will be difficult to less this. Maybe to propose to add a locator (link) of the map can reduce this but it will just move the bandwitch.

Other thing, it's to block the P2P on the server (in the dedicated_cfg).

[Xymph]

Is there an ETA on working BeginMap/EndMap/BeginMatch/EndMatch callbacks? I hate to have to bother about it during a beta, but they're pretty important.

They do work, depending on the API version used by your tool and whether you're running TM2C or SMS. Experiment with 2011-10-06 and 2012-06-19, one of them results in (some of) those callbacks, but I haven't had time to investigate in detail, nor update the RPC utilities for them.

Since you reference callbacks by the old TrackMania. prefix, it appears you're still using the default API version 2011-08-01, where the above four callbacks are issued correctly in TM2C as TrackMania.EndRace/EndChallenge/BeginChallenge/BeginRace, but not at all in SMS.

I've been using TrackMania.ChallengeListModified as a workaround for monitoring map changes, since you can at least get the current map index. It fires between each map change, as:

TrackMania.ChallengeListModified(new_map_index, next_map_index, some_boolean_I_dont_know_what_it_does)

If you don't know, look it up:
ManiaPlanet.MapListModified(int CurMapIndex, int NextMapIndex, bool IsListModified);
TrackMania.ChallengeListModified(int CurChallengeIndex, int NextChallengeIndex, bool IsListModified);

[fng_thatoneguy]

The download of maps (300 kb each) to 16 players every 10 min (or less) represent on 24h, 300*16*6*24=690 Mb only in upload. It will be difficult to less this. Maybe to propose to add a locator (link) of the map can reduce this but it will just move the bandwitch.

Other thing, it's to block the P2P on the server (in the dedicated_cfg).

Sorry to ask such a n00b question, but I assumed p2p was needed for others to be able to see each other's avatars and skins, and hear custom horns. Is this not true?

Please help me understand exactly what p2p does so I can know what effects it will/won't have if I disable. It sounds like I will need to disable, because in the month I've been in the alpha/beta, I've almost reached my bandwidth limit on Comcast. Our server has been full or near-full most of the nights we're playing on it, but I fear I may need to stop hosting at home. I don't know that we can afford hosting elsewhere so we may just have to play on other servers, but we'll have to see.

Maybe disabling p2p will help solve the problem. And locators for maps might be awesome because I do already have some file hosting going on elsewhere... if that could help cut down on bandwidth too, that would be awesome.

Thanks in advance.

[jonthekiller]

It's better for players to have P2P activated on the server. Horns, skins... are uploaded on the server and after the server download these to other players. Each player upload only one time his custom files.

[_bb_mort]

The bandwidth thing is a problem here in Australia. Server hosting doesn't normally come with Terabytes of capacity, normally it would be a couple of hundred GB. You can of course pay more, but it's not cheap at all.

There is now only one server here, and I'm pretty sure you won't be able to run one from a home connection like you can (and I do) for TM/TM2. So hosting is the only option. Also, because it's a lag sensitive game, OS servers or hosting are not an option.

So *we* buy the game so that *we* can host the servers that you can't play the game without. Unless Nadeo are planning to get a couple of local servers hosted then I don't know how many people are going to be playing from Oz.

I don't really care though, but I do want to see it all sorted out for TM2 still. So when are more TM environments coming?

[The_Big_Boo]

Is there an ETA on working BeginMap/EndMap/BeginMatch/EndMatch callbacks? I hate to have to bother about it during a beta, but they're pretty important.

They do work, depending on the API version used by your tool and whether you're running TM2C or SMS. Experiment with 2011-10-06 and 2012-06-19, one of them results in (some of) those callbacks, but I haven't had time to investigate in detail, nor update the RPC utilities for them.

Using API version 2012-06-19, you get BeginMap and EndMap with only the map info as single parameter on SM (no change on TM). BeginMatch and EndMatch are TM specific anyway.