What VALVe needs to do w/ the server lists

[WhiteZero]

VALVe really needs to recode the server listing portion of Steam.
Instead of going through every server for a perticular game, and applying the user filters afterwards, it really needs to look at the user filters, then pull those specific ones. This would save a ton of overhead and would allow users to list out the servers they want in a fraction of the time.

Example: In Counter-Strike, you could be trying to download a list of 100,000 servers. The full refreash time for this can take upward of 5minutes. If VALVe employed a system like I'm talking about, it could be cut down to a few seconds for a full list of server matching the users filters.

Take GameTiger.com for instance. It can plop out a list according to a useres search criteria in a split second.

/end rant

 

[Asuka]

Server list is weird for me. Sometimes it works like a jem sometimes it doesnt work at all. Sometimes it deletes all my favorites, sometimes it doesnt.

 

[Kitfox]

VALVe really needs to recode the server listing portion of Steam.
Instead of going through every server for a perticular game, and applying the user filters afterwards, it really needs to look at the user filters, then pull those specific ones. This would save a ton of overhead and would allow users to list out the servers they want in a fraction of the time.

Example: In Counter-Strike, you could be trying to download a list of 100,000 servers. The full refreash time for this can take upward of 5minutes. If VALVe employed a system like I'm talking about, it could be cut down to a few seconds for a full list of server matching the users filters.

Take GameTiger.com for instance. It can plop out a list according to a useres search criteria in a split second.

/end rant

how can server listing filter anything without connecting to check if it meets the requirements first?

 

[AiM]

^^ What he said

And if I'm not mistaken, you can set your filter's before (or during) you click update and it'll display only your search parameters.

If anything, I find the server list / filter quite effective, primarily because it's so easy to search for servers for different games / mods / maps / etc.

Then again, my experience with the broken BF2 server list makes everything look good...

 

[Steven]

I don't know what happend to my server lists.
CS:S shows CS servers aswell.
Apparently there's only one Australia Gmod server and it's password protected.
Sometimes my favourites are randomly deleated.

 

[Dr. Freeman]

well i suppose its not perfect but the Steam server browser is by far the best.
the BF2 server browser makes the baby jesus cry ;(
i still haven't managed to find the |ZB| servers people have talked about regarding global unlocks.

oh well Steam ftw \o/

 

[WhiteZero]

how can server listing filter anything without connecting to check if it meets the requirements first?

Simple, you enter the filers you want, and you send the query to the server listing server, which has a database of all current servers meeting your filter criteria. That list is then sent to you and you can then ping those servers to get your latency and choose which one you want.

And if I'm not mistaken, you can set your filter's before (or during) you click update and it'll display only your search parameters.

Yes but VAVLe is still sending your computer a list of every server, it's just that the filters dont show the ones that you have filters set for. Wasting bandwidth and time.

 

[TechnoHippyChic]

the BF2 server browser makes the baby jesus cry ;(
i still haven't managed to find the |ZB| servers people have talked about regarding global unlocks.

I think the | servers are placed near the end of the list when sorted alphabetically, for some reason. Or maybe they are being filtered out. One extremely annoying thing I've noticed is if you "page down" or up by clicking a blank area on the scroll bar, it actually skips many servers. You have to click the arrow and go one by one back up...

OnT, Steam's browser aint all that bad, compared to the HL1 era browser, or the failure that is BF2's...

 

[Kitfox]

Simple, you enter the filers you want, and you send the query to the server listing server, which has a database of all current servers meeting your filter criteria. That list is then sent to you and you can then ping those servers to get your latency and choose which one you want.

OKey so in the server listing server it will have to search through every server to see which ones meet your criteria + the added fact that everyone will be doing it will cause slow downs so you probably be in a queue. No matter how you look at it searching through something in a list willa lways take n steps where n is the number of items in the list.

 

[boglito]

VALVe really needs to recode the server listing portion of Steam.
Instead of going through every server for a perticular game, and applying the user filters afterwards, it really needs to look at the user filters, then pull those specific ones. This would save a ton of overhead and would allow users to list out the servers they want in a fraction of the time.

Example: In Counter-Strike, you could be trying to download a list of 100,000 servers. The full refreash time for this can take upward of 5minutes. If VALVe employed a system like I'm talking about, it could be cut down to a few seconds for a full list of server matching the users filters.

Take GameTiger.com for instance. It can plop out a list according to a useres search criteria in a split second.

/end rant

The steam interface could easily be improved, but the server listing is actually quite good. (Good as in not perfect.) I for one have absolutely no problem finding good servers (as long as they exist) within reasonable time. Sure, they could move more of the calculations serverside, but why, when we have perfectly capable computers at home that can do the same job at the expense of a couple of seconds? Consider the benefit/cost to this approach. It always pays off to distribute the workload, and that is exactly what VALVe are doing with the server browser filter methods.

Oh, and btw, I just tested it and gametiger.com is not realtime.

.bog.

 

[DiSTuRbEd]

WhiteZero, you should know some email addresses to VALVe employee's, email them.

 

[auron]

The steam interface could easily be improved, but the server listing is actually quite good. (Good as in not perfect.) I for one have absolutely no problem finding good servers (as long as they exist) within reasonable time. Sure, they could move more of the calculations serverside, but why, when we have perfectly capable computers at home that can do the same job at the expense of a couple of seconds? Consider the benefit/cost to this approach. It always pays off to distribute the workload, and that is exactly what VALVe are doing with the server browser filter methods.

Oh, and btw, I just tested it and gametiger.com is not realtime.

.bog.

Wouldn't it save them quite a bit of bandwidth though? Since they would only be uploading a fraction of what they are uploading now every time someone requested the list.

 

[JellyWorld]

If the steam servers do the filtering it'll cause a lot of lag, everytime you click Update Server List (and millions do it everyday) the Steam servers would have to start slogging to filter your servers, and with so many requests every minute it'll crash the servers.

 

[boglito]

Wouldn't it save them quite a bit of bandwidth though? Since they would only be uploading a fraction of what they are uploading now every time someone requested the list.

Well, if there's one thing the steam network is not short on it's bandwith.

.bog.