Jayarr

Added with latest update

+1

This whole post doesn't really accomplish anything constructive for the people involved in the creations of the tags Instead of simply calling them ugly and walking away, what if you actually described what you found lackluster in them? Even if the change is "unnecessary" to you, that doesn't change the fact that it happened in the first place. Provide constructive criticism, not useless feedback. Yes, I made the tags alongside every person Forseen mentioned. The goal was to introduce uniformity to the tags to a certain extent. If you think something looks bad in any one of them, feel free to DM me and I'll run it through them again.

This has been marked as acknowledged and marked as a bug that is being looked into. This will remain unlocked in the case that more information becomes present. // MOVING TO ACKNOWLEDGED REPORTS

I mentioned this to @Square, and this would be good. I took a quick look at it and it's caused by an issue within the map itself, which would require recompiling the map overnight and uploading our own version, which isn't the most fun process. I'll move this to acknowledged for now, but the solution is ultimately removing it as a whole.

How often was this map used, if ever?

It would be client sided, and I generally don't think that changing anything around on the server should be encouraged. Especially if it can be used for an advantage in any scenario. It does take know-how, but that doesn't change the fact of how easy it is in the long run. Like I said, I doubt it would be an issue, but it certainly has potential to cause a stir. In my opinion it shouldn't even be given a chance to start causing issues if it's viable that they can be caused. Cut off the head before it can bite, per say And fun fact about client side stuff, I actually was banned once by mods (if you know who that is) years back because I was utilizing a client side script for bhops, showing how much of a concern some client side changes can be. This obviously isn't that major, but allowing them in general can lead to unwanted side effect imo

We questioned the extent of why it caused lag as well. Maybe it can't be narrowed down to anything other then coincidence, but who knows. It likely wouldn't be a prevalent issue, but it is 100% worth stating that it happened and has may have a chance of happening on the server. In short, you can utilize the "where is" button to figure out the path of where the material is located, then you can replicate that path and VTF it lists off, make your own material, then press rebuild VTF for it to read from that path instead of the addon itself. Typically you can imagine this is used by map devs to quickly test what a different material would look like, but it can be used to do otherwise questionable changes Seeing as I doubt this has been done before in the past, that'd require some digging on the founders end to see if they could even make a lua to add restrictions to the menu, which keep in mind is inbuilt Ultimately it isn't that harmful, but seeing as people were questioning reasons for as why it could be disabled, I gave feedback to that. I doubt the base feature could be used for much harm, but I think it's better safe then sorry to go for an addon specifically developed for this function instead of a sketchy inbuilt system

+1

The base game feature is debatable in functionality in a multiplayer environment. I've done private testing with this feature in the past on a server, and my friends noticed a momentary FPS drop whenever someone would open the menu. In my opinion, what minimal strain this can cause on a private server of no less then 3 people may become a more prevalent issue with 50+ people at a time. This isn't that big of an issue by itself as server specs vary, but there's a few others things about this feature that are equally debatable on if it should be allowed. For example, lets say someone who has experience in rooting materials in source gets hold of this. With the inbuilt rebuild VTF feature, they could ultimately change whatever texture they choose if they root it to the right path. This can very easily be abused. For example, someone could change say an event jobs material and replace it with a bright pink material to see it at all times. This is a very extreme example, as the majority of the server wouldn't even know how to do this. But in the instance that someone does wish to, it would easily be accessible to them. That said, this is all a bit nitpicky in terms of it's functionality. If it helps, there are multiple material editor addons out there with similar functions and more. I personally utilize this one when blocking out maps, due to the texture scaling option, but that said it also has one or two issues. For the concept itself, definitely +1 For the means of accomplishing it, not so certain

Looks simple enough if it's utilizing the assets we currently have +1

You bypassed your ban by switching accounts...that's the whole premise of avoiding. Joke or not. Regardless, if you stand by your opinion then that's just that, I won't argue the point or clog the thread with back and forth. Good luck with your appeal.

Yes, you would have been perma banned. This is not because you used an alt, even if it did play in as a factor. It is because, as stated in multiple posts, you have nine bans in which all prove that your intentions are otherwise inconvenient to the server. You using an alt account to avoid one of your current bans only warrants further punishment. If it were simply a case where you used your alt without 8 other previous bans, you likely wouldn't have received a perma. This information isn't really relevant. You state that you roleplayed multiple times when you first joined the server. This is prior to your 9 bans in this case. Your intention may have been to RP then, but you are making it near impossible to see that perspective from any other standpoint at this rate. Having in intention to RP doesn't mean repeating your banned offenses multiple times over until it eventually, as has happened, leads to a perma ban. I know it likely is hard to prove that you want to RP at this point, but that's within good reason. You had a chance to prove yourself, and it failed multiple times over.

Why is this even a debate? Nine bans, plenty of chances, obviously has no intent of doing anything worth while. Just because he "can be banned again if he does something" doesn't mean that he should be allowed back on to begin with. Just because the ban reason may be incorrect doesn't mean that the ban isn't rightfully served for various other reasons. Just because he's funny doesn't warrant anything other then what his actions have already provided him, which is 9 bans. Giving someone a chance is completely fair, it's the only reason I'm still around, but after nine times you have to wake up and realize that said person has no place here. There have been far worse cases that only got one or two chances before they were completely removed from the community all together. I get it, he's funny, I personally get a good kick out of intercom spammers and the likes, but that doesn't warrant the inevitable reban he will likely receive. -1

So, in removing one of the models that was the most troublesome (the one with the cape), and having compressed the materials, the pack as a whole will sit at 12mb instead of 30mb. Still a little hefty, but if you want the model to not look like a 1990's video game, this is as good as it gets. Images provided below And a video for anyone interested: https://i.gyazo.com/0b56d0c709c102ee43f09b3dda75f53d.mp4

If y'all need the file size compressed, I'd be more then willing.

Probably not the person you want to respond, but I feel the need to elaborate. Server lag may rely heavily on the host, but in this instance there are multiple other factors. There's no real short term answer for this, but to narrow it down for you: 1. This server utilizes a lot of active scripts at one moments notice, and the more that piles up, the more the server has to process all the inward and outward information of that factor. This cannot be easily contained, and often results to chopping off a lot of useful addons when it, in my opinion, isn't necessary. The other servers you mention that seem to work fine more then likely have an active team making sure each script is optimized in a way that it can easily flow from one function to the next. As much praise as that deserves, by no means should it mean the dev team here should dump loads of hours of dedication into that fact, as making sure scripts function flawlessly with how many addons are currently present would be a nightmare. So on that end, you just gotta live with it. 2. An unfortunately common trend now-a-days on gmod is having, and utilizing, higher end models and materials. Source engine is old and unstable, and the more we push it, the more it's gonna fight. The version of source the gmod utilizes was never really intended for super high quality things, and as it's become more apparent, 4k, 6k, and even 8k texture models offer more and more strain the more they're added up. Take the current 501st models for example. Beautiful, beautiful models and textures. But put 10+ people on the job and shove them in a room, you'll notice a drastic decrease in FPS due to how demanding these high quality models are. This isn't purely the fault of the models nor the textures, as there are other factors such as how you the player are receiving this visual in response to how the server has read it, but you get the point. Generally, just as mentioned with the lua problem, it's something you gotta live with if you want a quality experience. I, for one, hope the old playdough CGI models never get picked up again 3. Communication on a case to case instance from the server to the player can often get strained and otherwise convoluted the more you pile things onto it. There are things to factor in like what specific specs the server host is using, and more often then not, the better specs are absurdly price. This roots back to what you mentioned about the server host. I personally don't know what host synergy utilizes, but I will mention how hard it is to find a single affordable host who can maintain an active population above 50 players without any strain. Ultimately, with the how much money the server may or may not make in a day, it likely can't afford to pay a monthly fee for an insanely monstrous host that can handle these things. As always, high quality = more money. This said, the current host is more then fair for being able to handle the player base at it's current rate. It certainly isn't the best, or even that good, but the bigger picture shows how well it truly does. 4. Last but not least, as mentioned in #2, source is old. Older then we realize sometimes. The active development team for gmod tries to push out what updates they can to ensure it keeps up with modern standards, but as we all know from our time playing servers, it can't really ever catch up. I personally can't name any server that doesn't lag past the 80+ threshold, especially during events or heavy simulations, and there's plenty good reasons for this. I've only just scratched the surface of some of the faults gmod has, and how that can pair with running a server. As servers vary on a case to case basis, you can only expect them to be able to do so much about it. The amount of resources, time, and effort required to hold such things up is certainly a crazy concept to ask of anyone. So in short: Source bad, gmod bad, server hosts and developers die inside.

This seems familiar

Nah, that's just fog I believe. However, spawn a fog editor for me, remove fog, and check if it stops rendering that big tower. We can check if it has render distance.

Then there are no area portals. That can be very strenuous. I'll edit my post, thanks for checking

I would like to put some perspective on this before hand, as this could be very good, yes. However, looking at it from a development point of view, eh. I'll play devils advocate here for food for thought. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Pros: - Lots of space for anything you wish to do - Everything the server usually uses to function - Looks pretty in some places Cons: - Really really big. We are a 110 pop server that can barely push 90 players. In perspective, could be bad. - Judging by the developer, the map is not optimized for multiplayer. This is his first map. I will elaborate further later - Baren as can be at most parts _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Now, we have even cons and pros here, but I will move on to the topic of optimization to equal this out in another perspective. Displacements Maps with displacements (the terrain) often are unoptimized and laggy as displacements work on a sort of polygon-like basis. The average resolution for displacements is typically laggy after covering more the half the grid if paired alongside all sorts of props and brushes (walls/floors, etc), so this could be problematic. Area portals I cannot tell if these exist because they could be done properly, and they might not be. First off, what area portals do is decide what is rendered for the player depending on where they are standing/looking. These are often put in doorways or hatches. This can help heaps, but if overused, can only make optimization worse. If you could do me a favor @Kormand go into singleplayer and type mat_wireframe 1, then move back and forth between a doorway to see if anything beyond it disappears, that would be super useful. Edit: There are no area portals, so basically everything will be rendered even if you don't see it Render distance This is the most simple and effective means of improving performance. Render distance comes in two ways. One, in the shape of props. I can tell by the video, his props either have a super high render distance or he just made it so they don't disappear at all. Very bad. And two, there is visual render distance. This will cut everything out of your view the further you move away, to say the least. I'm not seeing much of that. Edit: There is render distance, so that's good. Should save a bit of FPS, but backed with these top two, maybe not. Brushes Brushes are basically the basics of a map, like the walls, the floor, the ceiling, etc. Everything that can be made in hammer. There are multiple ways of optimizing them after there starts to be too many. The most common is turning a handful of brushes into a single entity. You can figure out that these existed by physgunning a wall and it ends up moving or glowing. These may be persistent though, which means you'd have to hold C to see them. Regardless, I don't know if he included these or not, but it's for the best that he did as brushes are the most commonly used object that need optimization over time. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ All and all, I want to change maps too, but I can't certainly say that this is it. It could be, but who knows. Even the most barebones map can lag on this server, so you gotta be careful with what you pick. Big edit: So I did a bit of testing with a friend on a private server with a cap of 128 players. We basically spawned around 60 NPCs, which simulates you (as a user) having to recieve the information of looking at their models/textures. After such, we took a hit of about 20 FPS. Not the worst, not the best. We then sat there and spawned what we thought would be the normal amount of NPCs in an event, and this obviously lowered the FPS by another 30. That's to be expected, however this is excluding the packets being sent from players to server, ping, sims, as well the the variables of entities and effects being spawned/fired from guns, etc. After spawning the NPCs, we stuck around after doing an admin cleanup to see how much the FPS was effected. We started with around 200, ended with barely hitting 100. Doesn't sound too good. As an end result, I will conclude that performance will be an issue. However. We have had plenty of maps with performance issues in the past, and we came to love them regardless, like extensive. It's all a matter of what you guys think/would define as fun. Ultimately, testing the server pop on it is whats needed, but we'll see how it goes.. This was more of an info dump more then an actual vote. Just thought I'd give you some perspective, nothing else. If anything, I'd lean to a +1, but I'll keep it for now.

I've taken a look at the files. It appears that the creator of this addon has taken it and upscaled the textures by an unnecessary/ungodly amount. (4096 x 4096 to be exact) To put it simply, VTF files (the textures used for source) are often compressed, but upon extracting one out of the 10 texture files, I was met with a single texture worth 65mb. But it doesn't end there. Images themselves are often compressed, so the actual file size of one texture in this folder is 173mb. That's not okay. As as simple test, I downscaled it (to 1096x1096 to be exact) while making sure to maintain any "quality" it may have had before, and it's total file size is now 11MB. This can obviously be further improved. This can easily be optimized with the creators permission, so I'd give it a +1 as it seems a fair addon. (for proof that the model has kept its quality, click here)

If this gets accepted, I can easily work this up in less then a day for free and hand the files to @Zim or someone else, as a more trusted means so he can own the files, not me. Key phrase being "if its accepted". Regardless. +1, burnt cheetos come back. Edit: Medic done Edit 2: Officer done Edit 2: Trooper/support? done

+1 No harm in testing its performance. The GM team could definitely use a helping hand, and this may come to help in an unexpected way. Who knows.

-1