Rates explained!!!!

[pandamonium]

1.) Rates/Choke/Loss
1.1) - Hope this will give everyone a better understanding of choke or loss and how to fix it.

- Type 'net_graph 3' in the console after you have connected to the server. A real-time graph will be shown in the lower right corner of the screen. Type 'net_graph 0' to disable if you do not want to continue monitoring. The graph will show you inbound packets, outbound packets, ping, loss, and choke.

"Loss" is how many packets that are lost during transfer from the server to you. This could be due to a bad connection, not necessarily slow, but can be due to a bad route. However, the usual culprit is a mismatch between your bandwidth and the servers. i.e. your "pipe" is smaller than the servers and in order to receive the data that the server wants to send you, you will need to reduce the data from the server.

- "Choke" is how many packets your computer is unable to upload because your connection is too slow and/or the server is requesting too much data.

Here is how you can manipulate these controls for the client-side either through editing your config.cfg or entering them in your console.

- "cl_updaterate XX" (where XX is set from the numbers below) - This sets how many updates per second to send to your machine.

Modem = 15-25
Broadband = 25-40

- "cl_cmdrate XX" (where XX is set from the numbers below) - This sets how many updates per second to send to server.

Modem = 25-35
Broadband = 40-50

"rate XXXX" - This sets the data transfer rate between server and client at any given time.
There are quite a few differing opinions about this setting, but the developer set these at the following when Half-Life first came out.

28.8k = 1500-2200
33.6k = 2000-3500
56k = 3500-4000
ISDN = 4000-6000
xDSL, Cable, T1, etc = 6000-9999

NOTE on "rate"
Setting your "rate" value higher/lower than the server's can cause you to have loss/choke. Review the guideline above concerning loss/choke. This setting is in direct relationship to the loss/choke settings. Use your game-browser (HLSW) to view the rate and set yours accordingly. The variables to look for are "sv_minrate" and "sv_maxrate".
The server controls the actual amount of data that will be pumped out. It is usually best to set your "rate" according to your connection speed. If you have a 1.5 megabit connection (Cable, DSL) and the server's "sv_maxrate" is set to "9999", then you would be best to set your "rate" the same. All Gladiator Arenas Servers (including the AvA Cha0s) "sv_maxrate" are set to "10000".

Finally,

LOSS - controlled by "cl_updaterate"
If you have "loss", then reduce your "cl_updaterate".
If you don't have "loss", then you can try a higher "cl_updaterate" to reduce "ping".

CHOKE - controlled by "cl_cmdrate"
If you have "choke", then reduce your "cl_cmdrate".
If you don't have "choke", then you can try a higher "cl_cmdrate" to reduce "ping".

RATE
Again, try and match your "connection" speed first, then the server's "sv_maxrate" second. NEVER exceed your "connection" speed's value (from the chart above).
If you have both "loss" and "choke", then try reducing your "rate".
If you have neither "loss" or "choke", then try increasing your "rate".

Start off by setting your "cl_updaterate" and "cl_cmdrate" to a reasonable level at first, then try different rates. Increase the rate until you get loss and/or choke, then reduce your rate until the loss/choke stops. This will prevent high loss and/or choke in busy servers.

It will take a few seconds before you will see the results of the commands, so don't increase/decrease the settings too quickly.

1.2) - (Ten Yard): Well, this evening I was talking to Spade about rates, he noticed lately he's been skipping around like mad. I helped him fix it, I think it's working great for him so I thought I'd mention it here.

First, there are three major console commands that determine your connection settings in DoD. These are collectively called rates. Included are:

cl_updaterate
cl_cmdrate
rate

the default (and BAD!) rates are:

cl_updaterate 20
cl_cmdrate 30
rate 7500

The problem with Half-Life's default rates are that they were established in 1998, connections were much slower and 56K was the norm. These rates ARE meant to suit someone with a 56K connection, when these default rates or lower are used with a modern broadband connection basically two things happen:

1) You have a MUCH lower percentage of hitting someone (having the shot register) when you make a direct shot.

2) You have a MUCH lower percentage of being hit (having the shot register) when a shot is landed on you.

Using anything less than the default rates is pretty serious in leagues, it will get you suspended. It's been a problem for a while, but the newest CAL config was modified to not allow people with rates under the league minimums to join a server running it.

Anyway, when rates are too low all across a server, basically what's happening is that it becomes a very random experience - in some situations it doesn't really matter who shot first and more accurately, rather it depends on who's shots registered on first.

Take a read through this thread for more information about rates since it's very much half a mystery to many including myself - until I started reading about it. I've seen these ridiculous mathematical formulas where you're supposed to divide by Pi multiplied by your upload speed to the power of your shoe size divided by your kb/s, but that's all bull, basically. DoD uses about 7 kb/s upload and about 4 kb/s download. That's about 3% of your total connection speed, so really, a ridiculous formula is not necessary.

www.gotfrag.com/dod/threads/114454/

Basically, just take a read through that thread and see what works best for you. A lot of top players recommend using the LAN rates ( updaterate 101, cmdrate 101, rate 20000) as long as you don't notice any lag. If you do notice lag, simply lower your updaterate (the green graph) until it's feeling smoother and less laggy. Player models tend to skip if it's too high or too low. cmdrate 101 is basically applicable to all broadband connections, apparently you're supposed to set it at the maximum frames you can get, 101 is the cap so 101 seems to be all applicable. If you do set it lower, you'll see the game become slightly choppy. I believe Ava Chaos' server rate is fixed at 10,000 or 12,000, somewhere around there so setting it to 20000 is kind of redundant, it'll be capped at the server max anyway.

Anyway, with these max rates, basically you're sending out and receiving the most information possible in the largest quantity possible. The HL netcode is very old and archaic, getting what you can out of its limitations will give you the best shot registration on others and yourself. Also, when your rates are set properly, "interp" (interpolation) is less of a factor (when you shoot the air behind someone and it registers as a kill).

And by the way, cl_rate is a redundant command now, the entry - rate - has replaced it, so if you're trying to input cl_rate as well as rate, one of the two is going to overwrite the other. So just use rate, yus.

Anyway, to conclude - 101 is the max for updaterate and cmdrate, 20000 is the max for rate. Bring down netgraph by plugging this into console - net_graph 1 . cl_cmdrate # (red and purple bar, you want it mostly purple), cl_updaterate # (green and yellow bar, you want it to be mostly green) and rate # are the console commands to tweak your rates. and make sure your settings are working well in a full server. Just sit around in spawn for a few minutes and see what works best for you. Personally I use 101 101 20000 and it's much smoother with much better hit reg than any other settings I've tried. Hope this helps.

taken from onepointthree.org