rec.autos.simulators

I have updated the bandwidth patch with a more flexible way to deal with the
number of cars GPL shows behind. This is only applicable to servers. For GPL
clients there is no need re-apply the patch. The readme for clients has been
modified to include the new server possibilities.

The idea is that a GPL server can be started from WinVroc choosing from
three different bandwidth settings, without making modifications on the
server itself to correct the number of cars shown behind.
The choice for the total number of cars is then between 5, 8 and a value
derived from core.ini. They can be shown in different combinations of cars
in front and cars behind, as opposed to the fixed number of cars behind that
the old bandwidth patch offers (which is still supported by the way). So you
can set the server to display 4/1, 4/2 and 5/3 for example, simply by
choosing Typical, Use core.ini, and Fast respectively for the bandwidth.
You'll find more examples in the readme.

The new version, 3.0, is available for download here:
http://www.racesimcentral.net/~westrab/gpl.htm#bw

Regards
Bart Westra

Thanks, will check it out :)

A question: If a server has applied the bw-patch for lots of cars, is
there a way a client not using the bw-patch can join using GPL's
original settings and just get the 4+1 cars? Or is this setting
'global' for all clients?

Cheers,

(Martin

"Don't touch that please, your primitive intellect wouldn't understand
alloys and compositions and,......things with molecular structures,....and
the....." - Ash

Bart Westra

Thanks for this Bart. I'm off to test it on SpeedCenter 6 now.
With so many cars being theoretically visible to the clients, has the
CPU load increased at all?

Paul

Bart, does this increase in viewable clients create an increase in
CPU-load on those clients or the server?

Thanks any way for this - I'm off to test it on Speedcenter 6.

Paul

Rolf

I have not measured it, but I guess cpu is not the issue. Bandwidth is the
big issue, mostly for the server. Showing 12 cars to 19 clients will cost
you at least 450 - 500 Kb/s of upload bandwidth (see
http://www.xs4all.nl/~westrab/gplol2.htm#band). Only if sending and
receiving
data costs a lot of cpu will cpu become an issue. The thing to do then is
optimize your system, try different network card drivers etc.

On the client, more cars must be shown. This is not a big issue either,
except perhaps with a slow system at the start of a race. If one can race
against the AI on a client system, online should work fine.

Bart