Most game servers support the download of custom content (maps, skins, sounds, and so on) from a HTTP server (ie: webserver) when connecting, instead of downloading directly from the game server itself.
HTTP downloading has three major benefits:
1.There is no impact on the game server when downloading custom content, as a completely separate HTTP content server does the transfer.
2.Players will download custom content at their maximum transfer rate, resulting in much faster downloads.
3.Players downloading custom content do not take up a player slot on the server while waiting.
This has been working on Killing Floor since day one, essential because of the 250+ maps we offer. In fact, players are downloading over 60gb a month (thats 2gb a day!) of maps, just for these 4 servers.
But tf2 hasnt had the same map issue for us, since we run the standard maps and just a couple achievement maps from time to time, and a slow download was ok for them.
but recently i installed some custom maps for a test server, and just couldnt get the fast download to work properly - that is until today!
i had posted several times asking for help on the steam server forums to no avail. but then i found a page showing me the error of my ways, so now they work!
to fix this, i restructured the map and support file download locations for all servers, so i may have broken something else. let me know if anything is not working properly. but i tested it this morning on both tf2 and kf and it worked for me (and the fast download server is in atlanta, so i should connect same as anyone else).
HTTP downloading has three major benefits:
1.There is no impact on the game server when downloading custom content, as a completely separate HTTP content server does the transfer.
2.Players will download custom content at their maximum transfer rate, resulting in much faster downloads.
3.Players downloading custom content do not take up a player slot on the server while waiting.
This has been working on Killing Floor since day one, essential because of the 250+ maps we offer. In fact, players are downloading over 60gb a month (thats 2gb a day!) of maps, just for these 4 servers.
But tf2 hasnt had the same map issue for us, since we run the standard maps and just a couple achievement maps from time to time, and a slow download was ok for them.
but recently i installed some custom maps for a test server, and just couldnt get the fast download to work properly - that is until today!
i had posted several times asking for help on the steam server forums to no avail. but then i found a page showing me the error of my ways, so now they work!
to fix this, i restructured the map and support file download locations for all servers, so i may have broken something else. let me know if anything is not working properly. but i tested it this morning on both tf2 and kf and it worked for me (and the fast download server is in atlanta, so i should connect same as anyone else).