I've been asking around about this. I heard that it is possible to get fast download for a server. I bought a server a week ago, but it takes forever to download everything! Everything is fully functioning, and what not. I was wondering if anyone here could help me out. Someone told me that you have to have a website where everyone automatically downloads it from to speed up the process when downloading files from the server, but I'm not completely sure what that means or if thats even what he was trying to get at. Please, if you know anything about how to get fast DL for a server, I would appreciate the help=) Thanks!
I can help you but you need a second place of hosting in able to do it. This will need to be added to your server.cfg //Enable this if you have a fastmap download server. sv_downloadurl "http://ipaddress/example1/example2" In that directory, you will need maps, models, materials with the same items "bzipped" in those directories. Enabling it w/e the correct files being there will make the normal files not download. Make sure you make all of the files that you will use on the fastdl server before you put them on your main server. I believe you can put both on the same server but you will use up alot of bandwidth so I would split it if you can
Just make sure that every file in your fastdl directory matches the same file/folder structure of your cstrike directory, or maps wont work, textures wont work, skins wont work, and bricks will be shat.
So here's another question. Josh you said that I need another place of hosting? Does that mean I need another server or what? I don't truely understand anything about this. And if I need to buy something, could you or someone else tell me where I could go, cheaper the better. Thanks.
You don't "need" to have another place of hosting but the point of a fast dl server is to download the files in less time and have less stress on the server. Hosting is up to you but you need a ftp with some space. and decent bandwith
Try using a shared hosting, preferably cheap, with a lot of bandwidth. Worth trying something like hostgator or some bigger company that offers a lot of bandwidth. I'd say a hundred gigs(ish) would suffice for a 64 player server, full mostly/constant switching maps. Maps tend to be small, especially when bzipped.
Swiching rate of maps and how often you have your regulars play depends on how much bandwith you go through. I've asked our admins in the past to wait 10 minutes before swiching maps but I know that doesn't really work. Some maps are just too big and when you have 64 new people download a 20mb bziped map file. thats a ton of bandwith already. We try to keep our maps small on our server to reduce both download time and bandwith usage.
Alright, thanks for the help Now you said I don't need another place of hosting? If this means that I can use my server and its ftp, how would I go about doing so? I have a 16 slot server so I don't really need to worrie about 64 players downloading things at once ^.^