BF4 or BF3 - The poll is back again!

[Jokerle]

But I guess that's not gonna happen anytime soon, maybe we could at least contact them and see what they say, get some keys and try it out?

I would gladly participate in a test day

[matsif]

As if you're not looking on BF4 through the same glasses.

Please, tell me where I said I liked BF4 in my post. Did you even read it past the first sentence? No, you couldn't have, otherwise you wouldn't have made such a response that shows you have no reading comprehension.

I think the best thing about VU is that you can modify maps, where flags are etc., change the amount of specific vehicles and add vehicles that aren't there in the original version of the map. We could definitely fiddle around with all these options and balance maps our way.

If they got all of that working, along with 128 players, all without the gun glitch, I'd be willing to try BF3 again. But that is a very big if that, per starfisher's bug list, still presents the gun glitch, which is apparently something deeply broken in the server-client synchronization. It's also going to require a lot of technical setup on our end for the servers which is likely going to make server management a problem.

[Calloutman]

I just read you can host private servers with venice unleashed. That would be a massive cost saving. Also the servers have netcode settings, you can set them up to a 120 tick rate, compared to BF3/4's 30. I'm not sure what kind of machine you'd need to run it on, but I want to give it a shot on my PC. The program is currently in closed beta so I don't think this campaign is an option. However if it's out by next campaign it could be worth a shot. As it's free we've got nothing to lose by trying it out.

Edit. Loa I'd be up for emailing them and seeing if we can give it a shot. It'll be good publicity for them if we do end up adopting it for a campaign.

[Robawillis]

I just read you can host private servers with venice unleashed. That would be a massive cost saving. Also the servers have netcode settings, you can set them up to a 120 tick rate, compared to BF3/4's 30. I'm not sure what kind of machine you'd need to run it on, but I want to give it a shot on my PC. The program is currently in closed beta so I don't think this campaign is an option. However if it's out by next campaign it could be worth a shot. As it's free we've got nothing to lose by trying it out.

Edit. Loa I'd be up for emailing them and seeing if we can give it a shot. It'll be good publicity for them if we do end up adopting it for a campaign.

Not true absolutely not true, newer battlefield's are resource intensive and as such you are going to need a resource intensive private server of which can cost a lot more money. You also didn't notice it has to be hosted on Windows server which always incures more money due to licensing. Then there is technical setup and maintenance which will require time and skills which I can think only a handful of people have myself included. Also depending on what implementation of RCON they use means we might have difficulty running the server (command based only probably)

Just a comparison:
64 BF3 server unranked = £43 ($68 for our american friedns)
VPS 4 core 4 GB ram Windows = £44 ($69)

however 4 core and 4 gb or ram won't hold up to server levels, you also have to include bandwidth as well and hell I wouldn't trust a VPS to do this job I would trust a dedicated server which incures more cost and you will probably want a static IP as well.

[Necromancer]

don't jump to conclusions based on.... nothing.

I've heard a rumor that because of the complexity BF4 server simply can't calculate more then 30 frames per second stable due to current hardware limitations.
Now theres a 120hz server in CTE. Is it running on NSA super computer? maybe, maybe not. Does it take more resources? maybe, maybe the difference is negligible. Don't start calculating costs and advising server hardware before you have actual numbers. EA spreads rumors that has little to do with reality on regular basis as part of its marketing strategy to justify their shitty decisions, it often sounds reasonable and calms customers critique, but it doesn't make it true. see SimCity for example.

[Robawillis]

don't jump to conclusions based on.... nothing.

I've heard a rumor that because of the complexity BF4 server simply can't calculate more then 30 frames per second stable due to current hardware limitations.
Now theres a 120hz server in CTE. Is it running on NSA super computer? maybe, maybe not. Does it take more resources? maybe, maybe the difference is negligible. Don't start calculating costs and advising server hardware before you have actual numbers. EA spreads rumors that has little to do with reality on regular basis as part of its marketing strategy to justify their shitty decisions, it often sounds reasonable and calms customers critique, but it doesn't make it true. see SimCity for example.

With all due respect I handle with servers day in and day out, the server installation of Venice unleashed requires the bf3 client installed so you need the specifications for that firstly. Also servers especially BF3 ones require large amount of computation to handle the various variables e.g. bullet trajectory, building artefacts etc etc etc.

As such the server will ideally need to be quiet high spec'd because your client only computes for some of stuff going on not everything. For instance my computer at home is a 8 core 4 physical 4 logical and 16 gb of RAM I might consider running a server on that. You need to scale this up regardless, if you buy a server from a provider you don't have that issue as they send out recommended spec's for the servers.

[Jokerle]

Well, the venice people should have a clue about actual server/bandwidth specifications.

edit:
so i read a bit in their forum. Server requirements are not higher than for an official server. BF3 wont actually run it.

this is from one of the devs

The recommended requirements should be the following (for a 64-player instance):

Windows Vista or newer, Windows Server 2008 R2 or newer
1 (one) dedicated physical core at 2.8GHz or higher
4GB of RAM or more
100mbit incoming/outgoing bandwidth or more

source: http://forums.veniceunleashed.net/forum ... =10#p42838

[RazY70]

Jokerle already posted those but just to repeat, these are the recommended server requirements (for a 64-player instance):

• Windows Vista or newer, Windows Server 2008 R2 or newer
• 1 (one) dedicated physical core at 2.8GHz or higher
• 4GB of RAM or more
• 100mbit incoming/outgoing bandwidth or more

VU does indeed require the client files installed for now, but obviously the server side doesn't run the client so there's no need for it to meet its specs. I think Chris (battlenonsense) measured the bandwidth of the BF4 client, and I assume BF3 doesn't require more. Peak client usage was around 20KB/5KB (D/U). I believe you can derive the server bandwidth requirements from that and they don't seem to be that high either. Regardless, I doubt VU is currently at a stage suitable for general usage.

And now on topic, people keep bringing up the gun-glitch bug we encountered as if it's some absolute law of nature bound to happen no matter what rendering BF3 unplayable. The truth of the matter is that only GC suffered from a noticeable impact of this issue. LevelBF had it maybe once or twice, 21CW never at all (at least till we joined their server), and in more than 1000 hrs I have never encountered it on public servers nor was something similar widely reported. I still believe someone with some crazy weird setup inadvertently triggered this on our servers, but we'll never find out for sure without testing it.

Frankly, I'm beyond caring at this stage.

[Robawillis]

Jokerle already posted those but just to repeat, these are the recommended server requirements (for a 64-player instance):

• Windows Vista or newer, Windows Server 2008 R2 or newer
• 1 (one) dedicated physical core at 2.8GHz or higher
• 4GB of RAM or more
• 100mbit incoming/outgoing bandwidth or more

VU does indeed require the client files installed for now, but obviously the server side doesn't run the client so there's no need for it to meet its specs. I think Chris (battlenonsense) measured the bandwidth of the BF4 client, and I assume BF3 doesn't require more. Peak client usage was around 20KB/5KB (D/U). I believe you can derive the server bandwidth requirements from that and they don't seem to be that high either. Regardless, I doubt VU is currently at a stage suitable for general usage.

And now on topic, people keep bringing up the gun-glitch bug we encountered as if it's some absolute law of nature bound to happen no matter what rendering BF3 unplayable. The truth of the matter is that only GC suffered from a noticeable impact of this issue. LevelBF had it maybe once or twice, 21CW never at all (at least till we joined their server), and in more than 1000 hrs I have never encountered it on public servers nor was something similar widely reported. I still believe someone with some crazy weird setup inadvertently triggered this on our servers, but we'll never find out for sure without testing it.

Frankly, I'm beyond caring at this stage.

1 (one) dedicated physical core at 2.8GHz or higher -> most VPS run on a hypervisor which means its sort of logical but not gets rather complicated with virtualization.

Also that is for 64 player if we want something like BF4 (70 players) then your spec's are already up, also 2.8GHz is actually pretty high for a server CPU. Most VPS's like to run 2.4 or around that mark, not to mention you have Windows processes running in the background as well but they should cater for that. I have doubts they are monitoring those values to see if they work and if you look at that thread some people where using quad cores and there are server values to make it multithreaded. Single threaded high intense applications need specific server CPU which cost an arm and a leg.

[King6moh]

I think the VU talk should be taken to a different topic and investigated there as it obviously won't be ready for this campaign based on what others have said. Maybe we can get some kind of access as a community to test it out and give our feedback to them. Again, this should be discussed elsewhere.

Let's focus on the BF3 vs BF4 discussion as we should get this sorted out ASAP. Personally, I would say try out BF3 one of the upcoming Saturdays as a Funday. I am not sure what the timeline is for draft/scrims/BFI, but maybe something before all that.

[Jokerle]

Let's focus on the BF3 vs BF4 discussion as we should get this sorted out ASAP. Personally, I would say try out BF3 one of the upcoming Saturdays as a Funday. I am not sure what the timeline is for draft/scrims/BFI, but maybe something before all that.

I feel it is unrealistic to go back to BF3 for a complete campaign, even if I would like to try it.
But fundays often have questionable participation, maybe we can have a scrim in BF3 once the armies are set up.

[StarfisherEcho]

I really like the idea of contacting VU about us doing a test day. Not sure when that would be exactly, but it would be cool to see if we break their crap or what.

Razy, level had the gun glitch enough to add it to their rules at the time. Bf3 hasn't been fixed, so I don't understand why it's going to magically not happen when we try again. Even the VU people are seeing it.

[RazY70]

The fact it happened at all is enough to warrant a procedure to deal with it. That however doesn't mean it was a regular occurrence as it was on our servers. Based on this thread I'm don't think it was. Maybe people that played BF3 with Level or other communities can shed more light on this.

Again, we will never know unless we test it. Basically I think trying different things is better than pulling the plug for some downtime, but it looks like we're heading there either way. There is no BF5 looming over the horizon this time.

[CognitoCon]

I saw some reports that this can be caused by using Russian keys that weren't updated properly, so I'm going to just blame Fields.

[Kilo]

I've only experienced the gun glitch on GC servers. I never knew the problem existed until I played here.