So basically the orangebox update sucks -- it can't properly handle a 32-player server @ 66tic, even with a 2.66GHz quad-core processor and 8GB of memory.

I've reduced the # of slots on the main from 32 to 28, and I may have to drop it further. Hopefully I won't, but that all depends on how bad the Orangebox update ruined the netcode for CSS.

We're looking at creating another server or two to handle the overflow from the decreased slots and compensate for the sheer amount of activity we've received since the update. The good news is, though, that we've gone up in the overall server ranks -- we're up to 133 out of over 20,000 CS:S servers worldwide. That's a huge increase from where we were last month (barely in the top 300).

That's awesome about the added traffic. The lag sucks though, it kills the game. Hopefully this will help, good job!!

This was a very wise decision. I am hoping that in a few patches (who knows how long that will take) Valve will address this issue, so we can have more slots again.

well, you gotta do what you gotta do to keep it runnin. I hope valve gets on the ball and fixes it.

133 out of ≈20,000?! F*CKIN sweet!

Top 0.5 percentile.

running pretty decent @ 28 slots. Thx G

Someone wanna post up some screenshots of your rates at the beginning/end of a couple of rounds with the server full?

Well hopefully we'll be able to kick it back to the 32 in the next few months with updates Steam will literally shit out...

Great decision though overall and woot on the ranking boost.

Oh thank god. I might come back now. ♥

well thats goood that we moved up in ranking but sucks we had to decrease our slots.

♥

I have been having an increasingly choppy experience, but I strongly suspect this is related to the number of times I alt-tab. Whenever I die, I alt-tab to check email and the n00bfest forums, and I've noted that each time I return, the lag and general framerate gets progressively worse, to the point where it is too choppy to even move around. At this point generally the game crashes on me.

I'm going to test it without alt-tabbing even once to see if things go wrong.

I've just been having SEVERE registry issues. I'm not just saying that either, my shit runs smooth as butter but my bullets don't hit a F*CKING thing...it's actually made me a MW2 fiend again.

I have the exact same problem. However, when some of us were playing in the Deathmatch Server (< 10 players), the registry was actually pretty good (like 100% better). There has to be something in the main affecting it. It could be that after a certain # of slots are used, registry gets bad exponentially.

To me, it seems from the neck down the registry is worse, and it's easier to get headshots.
Some have said this is to increase difficulty, but when you empty half your clip on a guy and see "Damage given to XXXX - 30 in 2 hits" it's obviously the game BSing you.
The only upside is, spray & pray will never work, even though it rarely worked before

Well, I just went on an overclocking spree, I upped all of my voltages .1 at a time til I maxed her out and I upped my cpu .240ghz. My GPU memory is ridiculously high, but it seems to have fixed the problem a little and my temps are still significantly lower than any system that compares to my machine stock on air. Forever will I stay on water. People worry about leaks, but F*CK it if it happens. Non-conductive mineral liquid wont fry your shit, it'll just leave a little mess to clean up.

28 seems to be the magic number. Full tic from the beginning of each round last night with a full server.

Well done! The game is playable for me, now all I have to do is figure out interp and other client side settings and I should be golden.

cl_cmdrate 101
cl_updaterate 101
rate 25000
cl_interp .01

net_graph 2 (check out lerp)

cl_interp_ratio 1 .. 2

Start at 1 and raise it till lerp is mostly white/sometimes yellow. Works for me.

Excellent, thanks.

Yeah Tucky, that actually worked for me. I've been trying to keep the interp ratio at 1 all this time and the registry was almost non existent and game was utterly choppy. Right now my lerp is white at ~30.2 and there is a huge (that's what she said) improvement.