Official SF-O TF2 Server (DEPRECATED)

[Thu'um]

that was actually a really good game night. I carried early, but I didn't have a whole lot of later successes.

[Hidi]

GUESS WHO CAN MAKE GAME NIGHTS THIS WEEK

[Clearwater]

NOT ME (So sorry, I never can find the time, it's MIDNIGHT I have to connect to have any chance of joining you guys,

and I'm usually asleep by then)

[Clearwater]

How was last night's game, guys?

[Dr. Orange]

I didn't see any game last night mate. Sorry.

[385563]

It was pretty empty. Just DZComposer, another guy and me.

[psy_commando]

I wanted to play but I saw nobody online.. Not that my friend list is very extensive..

[LoneWolf]

Entire SFO is play starbound

[Icy]

Entire SFO is play starbound

 

Except me because I'm a loser.

 

Are we gonna try for a TF2 game night next Friday? I haven't been showing up. Last Friday I forgot, that Saturday I didn't feel like doing anything (you probably know why), and this past weekend I was too sick.

 

I want to play again. :c

[Hidi]

I had a party to go to on Friday, and a map review and friends over on Saturday (Yay excuses). From what I can see I should be able to make Friday. I can't do Friday.

[Scott7]

Don't suppose I could make a map request for the next game night?

http://forums.tf2maps.net/downloads.php?do=file&id=5288

[Clearwater]

Looks cool! A winter version of Badwater Basin!

[Hidi]

Winter Badwater - don't tempt my team leader Wymoree, he's deathly in love with Badwater...Oh good he's got a scrim planned...Chances are it's Badwater.

[Scott7]

Let's get this Smissmas party started!

[Dr. Orange]

Well even though hl2.exe kept dying throughout the night, at least I could quote it with:

 

Tickle my armpits and call me Susie.

[Icy]

I arrived late but had loads of fun with everyone who was left.

Great night. The server was packed most of the time.

[Clearwater]

Didja get any shots of the game?

[Hidi]

Everyone believes I'm a screamer, but you guys all know I'm not. It's hilarious.

I should have saved a replay of the kid yelling;

"Come on Screamer, come on, let's do this!" (Said while he's trying to stab me on the hill on Cashworks.)

Me: Nope. (I am spamming my Overdose at this kid)

*Kid dies*

The end.

[Icy]

That guy last night was pretty funny.

 

Also, Scourge, Gene, and I managed to get a game night going. It was like 6 people for a while, but we finally got it to a packed server. Then we had MvM shenanigans.

Very fun!

[psy_commando]

Sorry guys I couldn't join, my PC is freezing randomly, and I suspect its the power supply. So, I'm waiting for an answer from Seasonic's tech support before putting too much load on it and maybe breaking something even more expansive.. Its a high quality PSU though, but I suspect I might have underestimated the requirements of my PC.. I supposedly drain 512 watts at full load, and that's a slight exaggeration. Seasonic says their PSU runs at 82% efficiency at full load and 85% at half load..

 

Here's more details on my system:

- Seasonic 620W M12 II Bronze modular power supply (48 amps combined on the +12v, and 24 amps on the +3.3v and +5v combined )
- Asus M5A99X EVO R2.0 Motherboard
- MSI Geforce N550GTX-Ti Cyclone II
- Auzentech X-Fi Prelude 7.1 PCI Soundcard
- 4x Sticks of 1066mhz Corsair DDR3 ram (2GB each)
- WD Caviar Black 7200 RPM 1TB SATA HDD
- Seagate Barracuda 7200 RPM 1TB SATA HDD
- LG BluRay/CD/DVD Writer SATA
- 3x 120mm Noctua fans
- 1x 120mm Antec fan
- 1x 180mm Noctua fan
- USB Optical Logitech MX518 mouse
- USB Coolermaster CMStorm Trigger keyboard
- USB Bamboo pen tablet
- External WD MyBook 2TB drive (uses its own power adapter)

 

Any suggestions ?

It could be the mobo as well, but everyone here(physically) tells "no its not the mobo" .. I ran some DPC latency tests and the driver for the on-board network adapter hogs the queue for a while very frequently.. And sometimes it just stops working for no reasons until I reboot.. Maybe I should get a separate network card with non-crappy realtek drivers ?

 

I used the DPC Latency Checker, and it gave me this at idle :

'>

And when I disabled my network adapter, I had a perfectly normal almost all the same length green columns.. Just like most people have it.. I'd take a picture of it, but when I disable the adapter I have to reboot to have it work again.. >_<

 

I miss having fun at game night

[LoneWolf]

Moving your network card off-board could definitely help, and would be relatively cheap to do (plus realtek drivers are shit anyways ew). Try that before fussing with any of the below shit. That's some serious latency problems and they'd be worth fixing before moving on.

 

Could be MOBO, could be either of your Hard Disks. Freezing sometimes indicates a disk is going out. Run Chkdsk, and then run whatever diagnostics are availible for both drives (since you have a Seagate drive I'd probably recommend using SeaTools for both drives). Otherwise the bottom half of the list you can basically eliminate. Bad RAM or a bad GPU could do it too. Again, run the proprietary tests, see what comes up. The problem is going to be in the main block of the computer and not in your accessories.

 

So yeah, test some crap and get back to us. Let's get this worked out so you can get back in with us.

[psy_commando]

I already run most of those test repeatedly.

 

All HDD are 100% healthy. They run cool and have a fan blowing on them even.

I ran Memtest 86+ for over 10 hours and no signs of issues.

Bad GPU is very hard to tell, I don't know any tests that could really tell without any doubt its the GPU, without seeing some weird graphic artifacts, or without any flux or burnt electronic smell. Especially given how shitty graphics drivers are nowadays..

 

However, I recently discovered that my mobo's default settings were underclocking my ram to 1066, when its actually 1333 and messing with the ram timings.. It also supplied the CPU with less voltage than the specs said ( 1.2 volts instead of 1.32 ) and overclocked the CPU slightly from 3.5ghz to 3.8ghz...

I also installed a hotfix that microsoft made for AMD Piledrivers / Bulldozers FX CPUs, given its optimized to handle task differently than other CPUs. The hotfix was never installed automatically by windows update or suggested, or even suggested by AMD, but it comes built-in windows 8 though..

 

This helped a little with the latency, it spikes slightly under 1 ms now and at a slightly less regular interval than before. I'm still going to get a separate network card though, I was looking at that Intel one :

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833106033

I'll wait for boxing day of course.

 

Also, I'm stuck with the old 314.22 drivers for my video card(the oldest ones still available for download on Nvidia's website), because the new ones seems to cause issues with 4xx and 5xx series video cards. Most of it is summed on their forums :

https://forums.geforce.com/default/board/35/

https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/574083/geforce-500-400-series/any-new-proper-working-driver-past-314-22-for-500-series-/

https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/572901/400-500-series-owners-please-read-/#3903615

 

Frankly, that could be part of the freezing problem, but it was happening very rarely before, ever since I turned off hardware accel in most non 3D intensive programs like my browser and all.

 

And it could also be my soundcard drivers that are part of the issue. I'm running an older version  because the latest one has this absolutely unacceptable quirk of blasting extremely loud static noise in your hears randomly, and then the audio stops working. And its hardly isolated, its a known issue with it, but Auzentech are a bunch of dicks and never did anything about it, and when you send them a support ticket they either ignore you or dismiss you.. They could easily have fixed this, given they're using the creative drivers as base, and Creative fixed those issues lightyears ago and even still release updated drivers for X-Fi cards.. But not the X-Fi cards that Auzentech made.. I'll probably go with an Asus Xonar Essence STX or Creative ZxR once I get the cash...

 

I also heard those loud noise issues are due to windows 7, but it makes no sense at all, I haven't had this issues on windows 7 for at least 8 months when it was almost daily with the newer drivers..

[LoneWolf]

Hard to say then. I'd try the new net card, and also give those mobo tweaks a bit. Underclocking can cause some problems with different components, so I'd let that sit for a few days to see if it clears up. Undervolt/Overclock seems like a bad combo too. Definitely could be a culprit.

[psy_commando]

Well it was certainly a bad thing, overcloking the CPU, reducing voltage and slowing down the ram is probably one of the dumbest thing the bios could do as default settings...

The worst part is that after setting the Defaults Settings for the first time the "overclock checker" stopped the boot to tell me "the overclock had failed press F1 to go to bios" or something.. Seems legit.. I had to turn to auto a few things that were set to ridiculous values automatically..

But, I haven't had a freeze since then, lets hope it will actually last...

 

EDIT: Almost got a full freeze. It lasted for 3-4 seconds, then went back to normal. And DPC latency is spiking beyond 1ms again ! Still not as frequently though.

[Hidi]

Since nobody has said so, I had fun on Friday, it was just too bad my game kept crashing, and did so when I was about to kill a battle Medic.

I got a replay of that awesome defensive round on Dustbowl. That was awesome, and I got the achievement I've been trying to get from some time - Specialist: Acquire 10,000 heal points in a single life.