Max Players For Multiplayer!

[mayro]

I had been talking about this in the RUMOR fourm but now that it isnt a rumor no more, im gona post it here. We where talking about the source engine for modding capabilities and what all that could do. I sent a basic email to some of the guys at valve, and Rick was nice enough to give me the heads up. For those of you planing maps and ideas for your mods, or just wanting to know what the source engine can do... here is what rick sent me.
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While the engine is setup to handle 256 players (was only 64 in HL1), I don't think you'd be successful running that many, you might be fine running 128, you'd have to test it. The reason is CPU and bandwidth. With a single server handling all of the transactions at the speed at which they need to happen, there may just simply not be enough horsepower to handle that many players.

Rick
Valve

 

[Eternity]

That number of players is huge.

 

[mayro]

Just a NOTE PEOPLE! This information has nothing to do with the ammount of players that valve will have supported in what ever multiplayer they make. These numbers are what the source engine could be modded too.

 

[Axyon]

If you could put that in the Valve info thread as well, I'd appreciate it.

 

[Be-vishead]

I think they said the multiplayer is unlimited because servers can be daisy chained to support more players. You can even have like 3 maps running on 1 group of chained servers.

 

[cenmocay]

256 is extrem unreal,max is 64

 

[Gorgon]

wow....now that is alot in one map. The map has to be super Huge (Indeed it is).

There will be servers to handle that NO of players in one map 128Players.

 

[tCh]

i hope there at least a few 256 player servers.

 

[mayro]

Id ask him if we where able to link pcs, but i will be happy with the email he sent me It was so nice to finaly get one back hehe.

Oh ya, i dont see it happening this year... But if you have been looking at the xbox leak specs... pcs are getting a nice boost next year...

3 cpus and 2 gigs of ram + oc3 connection = most played server in the world with 256 players.

 

[Gorgon]

Id ask him if we where able to link pcs, but i will be happy with the email he sent me It was so nice to finaly get one back hehe.

Oh ya, i dont see it happening this year... But if you have been looking at the xbox leak specs... pcs are getting a nice boost next year...

3 cpus and 2 gigs of ram + oc3 connection = most played server in the world with 256 players.

OC3 Connection - 155 mbps connection
OC12 Connection - 620 mbps connection

I ll be dam. Only swedish people can get that speed for £20-£40..........

 

[mrchimp]

I doubt you will ever see 256 on one server.... not in this iteration of the Source engine's life time.

128 seems more reasonable, although I think the max you will see on a HL2 MP game will be 64.

If however you can daisy chain servers then 128-256 player game becomes more probable, but theres still the problem of will a client be able to render that many players.

 

[Perret]

hmm the most player i see in CS was 32 (16 vs 16) on de_aztec ... hmm but hey people, CS would be nicer than Battlefield with 128vs128 ... omg if i only dream about it: de_aztec3_source (what ever), 10 Bombspots .... 5 Different Terror-Spawn Places ... and a Big CT Startplace .. and then .. RUSH RUSH GO GO GO .. woah that would be nice but i think it's a little bit laggy

 

[mayro]

In all acuality... it would be best for TFC and DM.... it would get quite insane in CS.

 

[marksmanHL2 :)]

My god....


I was thinking 64 MAX MAX....


:rolling:


Thats insane...




/me imagines a 128 player DOD server on a large custom map with tanks and planes..... :E :E

 

[mayro]

Well... with DOD tanks and planes are sounding so much more realistic... From what i heard DOD and CS got the SDK at the same time... yet DOD is the one they are fearing wont be out in time. With CS they have said and we havent seen any changes to the game besides source.. With DOD they may be planing what marksman is thinking.

 

[Hazar]

Could you have 2-3 networked servers to handle all thoes people better?


That would be freaking awsome to have 256 players!!!

And I though it was really fun with 32!

 

[Raptor6]

yeah, a special force unit with 128 people.....
32max is ok ._.

 

[KiNG]

ya i would be satisfied with a 64 player server, although i can thiknk of instances where 128 or even 256 would be a great bonus.

 

[PatPwnt]

hmm the most player i see in CS was 32 (16 vs 16) on de_aztec ... hmm but hey people, CS would be nicer than Battlefield with 128vs128 ... omg if i only dream about it: de_aztec3_source (what ever), 10 Bombspots .... 5 Different Terror-Spawn Places ... and a Big CT Startplace .. and then .. RUSH RUSH GO GO GO .. woah that would be nice but i think it's a little bit laggy

Wow... ya that would be teh 1337 to teh m4x. They should make a different type of game play for CS called CS : Marines or something. 128 vs 128 in bagdhad. woot...

 

[Gunner]

Hehe 256 player games of CS... that's just nonsense, can you imagine the number of admins you'd need to watch over everyone? or the amount of chat spam you would see? or even the lag? Don't get me wrong I love MMO games (no not rpgs), battlefield for example is great but you'd have to come up with a new game/mod if you want over 64 players on a server.

 

[OCybrManO]

It would be great for a large-scale team war game that doesn't use a type of "last man standing" gameplay (like CS). You have to remember, though, that only a fast cable/dsl connection could handle 100+ (let alone 256) people in view at once. If the players are mostly spread out and the net code only sends you information about people that are within your line of sight (and are not blocked by large objects) it should work.

 

[Iced_Eagle]

O M G

I thought max was like 64, but damnnnn.

It would be cool to have distrubeted servers to make the load easier. Wow, I wish there would be at least one of those servers out there! Please please please!

Okay, someone contact M$ and say we need to borrow some bandwith and servers lol

Yea Battlefield type gameplay would own with that ammount of players

w00t

 

[adulus]

Holy... 256 players? thats complete insanity. You may as well be talking about playing games on Mars.

 

[DrJones]

Imagine playing CS with 256 people hahahaha that would be utter mayhem! It's bad enough with 20 players.

 

[ACLeroK212]

Well... with DOD tanks and planes are sounding so much more realistic... From what i heard DOD and CS got the SDK at the same time... yet DOD is the one they are fearing wont be out in time. With CS they have said and we havent seen any changes to the game besides source.. With DOD they may be planing what marksman is thinking.

there was a quote from one of the DoD developers posted in a forum on hl2fallout.com that basically said they will never use vehicles the way games like battlefield 1942 use them, so don't expect any grand scale vehicular battles. which i think is good, keep it more centered around fast paced infantry combat, although subtle vehicular additions would be nice as long as they don't get too carried away.

 

[Dr. Freeman]

256 players?!
thats impressive and all.. but darn.. i think of gameplay nowadays and see pings and think "gee 20 players max is high enough"

i'd hate to see a player with high pings in a 64 player server, let alone 128 or 256.

 

[unburdened]

it's possible (if hl2 multiplayer or anymods allow 100+ players) to be filled, considering at the begaining when HL2 first is released there won't be many servers, and i'm sure alot of people will want to get a taste of the multiplayer.

 

[Snowknight26]

*drool*

TFC with 256 people. !!!!!!!

 

[Dougy]

Well BF1942 has had 64 players for a while and BF2 is coming next spring with over 100 players per server.

so i dont see why HL2 would be unable to go above 100 since its maps will be smaller than BF's (not comparing anything here but size).

of course though we aint seen any indication of how well Source's MP compnent handles lag.

hopefully its as good as BF's or better.

*please no fanboys with niave opinions of HL2 post saying things like "Rofl ea and bf are teh gayz vs. source" its not my intention to create such an event and no1 wants to hear the deluded rants of a retarded fanboy*

 

[Rico]

It's a been proven that HL1 has better netcode than most if not all games out there. Battlefield's netcode is actually one of the worst online so I'd gander Valve can't really mess it up much more than they. HL2's netcode is actually really close to HL1 except even better from what we know.

That being said I thought BF was a decent game and the netcode was ok, but I wouldn't judge netcode based upon BF1942.

PS: Netcode has little to do with map size, in reality the netcode for different engines is actually not a very good thing to compare unless both engines are incredibly similar. BF1942's engine is very different from HL2 so I'd say nobody could make a good comparison between the two until both games come out.

 

[FISKER_Q]

Joint Operations had a server with 150 on it. So it definately is possible.

 

[mjrhzrd]

People, Dont get your hopes up. I see a maximum of 40-60 with everyone on DSL/cable, that would be all your broadband connections could handle w/out lagging beyond functionality. You would be looking on 128 or 256 at a LAN party with a GB backbone between the switches and min 100M if not GB to the player PCs. Then you're talking Mayhem.

 

[Axyon]

I remember playing 128-player Tribes 2 games. Let me tell you, you've never experienced the upper boundaries of the fun scale until you've tried something like that.

 

[Foxtrot]

I remember playing 128-player Tribes 2 games. Let me tell you, you've never experienced the upper boundaries of the fun scale until you've tried something like that.

I did that once, and it was so laggy...64 wasn't too bad though. Only problem was most maps were a little crowded with that many people, 6 HoFs 4 turret farmers, and about 20 flag cappers/base rapers.

 

[63]

I remember playing 128-player Tribes 2 games. Let me tell you, you've never experienced the upper boundaries of the fun scale until you've tried something like that.

Yes, I remember that. I played in quite a few 128 player games in Tribes 2. Was VERY fun! Imagine 64 people behind you as you charge for the enemie's flag... *63 runs off to reinstall T2*

also, as stated above, once your base gets raped there is no way to get it back

 

[Big Fat Duck]

I was a regular on the tribes 2 "houston vehicles" server that had 64 slots and when someone bombed the vehicle pad he'd get like 30 something kills each run

 

[dassbaba]

that's a lot

it all depends on the server i guess

 

[Foxtrot]

I wish there were more ladders that had 10+ on each team. A good 16vs16 clan match would kick ass. Did anyone play tribes 2 competetivly? My team was number 1 for a while.

 

[adulus]

On ET there was a server called big bertha that had 64 players with low lag. God, anyone who ordered artilley on the Oasis old city got like 100 kills.

 

[Axyon]

I did that once, and it was so laggy...64 wasn't too bad though. Only problem was most maps were a little crowded with that many people, 6 HoFs 4 turret farmers, and about 20 flag cappers/base rapers.

128 worked on a few really large maps, like Archipelago. Damn, how I loved that map. Oh well, bring on Vengeance!