Only 1 month donations?
- Thread starter The Political Gamer
- Start date
- Apr 19, 2009
- 4,460
- 1,722
About time!
I offer this post in humility with respect and gratitude to those who have created this site and fostered this community. I am new here, but I have noticed a couple of things.
Feedback and suggestions:
On Ads
The advertisements must be using some sort of flash or java or something (right now it is the XFactor servers ad). It is extremely processor intensive, and with just three forum tabs open, my processor (3.2GHz single core, 1GB RAM) is maxed out. Literally, 100% in use for Firefox and Gnome System. At work, I have processing cycles to spare, so I don't notice it. At home, however, it brings my whole system to its knees. This is definitely incentive to pay to get rid of the advertising. I personally would prefer that the advertisers not be allowed to use anything more than an animated gif.
On hosting
I don't know the plan/service being used, but I do know that bandwidth and storage no longer need be an issues. I am subscribing to a hosting service of my own, on which I have a domain of my own (the wiki and the forum - not the Gearheads blog). I pay $120 per year + $10/year for every domain - unlimited bandwidth and storage. I can add as many domains, with as many forums, blogs, wikis, shopping sites, you name it, all without any additional cost (except the yearly domain name registration fee - $10 per domain). It is slick, the support is incredible - one click installs for a whole list of software packages including MediaWiki and phpBB forums etc. Again, it is unlimited storage and bandwidth.
As I am already donating to several gaming sites in addition to supporting my own hosting and domain, I cannot offer a donation at this point. I say this in all sincerity however, I would gladly host this entire site for free (if someone wanted to pay the $10/year for the domain name, that would be cool - lol).
Actually, I could just mirror the downloads - take all pressure off your service, and leave all control in the original hands.
Anyway, if you are being raked over the coals every time someone downloads a vmf, perhaps you need to check out what else is available out there, or even in here.
Cheers!
Feedback and suggestions:
On Ads
The advertisements must be using some sort of flash or java or something (right now it is the XFactor servers ad). It is extremely processor intensive, and with just three forum tabs open, my processor (3.2GHz single core, 1GB RAM) is maxed out. Literally, 100% in use for Firefox and Gnome System. At work, I have processing cycles to spare, so I don't notice it. At home, however, it brings my whole system to its knees. This is definitely incentive to pay to get rid of the advertising. I personally would prefer that the advertisers not be allowed to use anything more than an animated gif.
On hosting
I don't know the plan/service being used, but I do know that bandwidth and storage no longer need be an issues. I am subscribing to a hosting service of my own, on which I have a domain of my own (the wiki and the forum - not the Gearheads blog). I pay $120 per year + $10/year for every domain - unlimited bandwidth and storage. I can add as many domains, with as many forums, blogs, wikis, shopping sites, you name it, all without any additional cost (except the yearly domain name registration fee - $10 per domain). It is slick, the support is incredible - one click installs for a whole list of software packages including MediaWiki and phpBB forums etc. Again, it is unlimited storage and bandwidth.
As I am already donating to several gaming sites in addition to supporting my own hosting and domain, I cannot offer a donation at this point. I say this in all sincerity however, I would gladly host this entire site for free (if someone wanted to pay the $10/year for the domain name, that would be cool - lol).
Actually, I could just mirror the downloads - take all pressure off your service, and leave all control in the original hands.
Anyway, if you are being raked over the coals every time someone downloads a vmf, perhaps you need to check out what else is available out there, or even in here.
Cheers!
drp
aa
- Oct 25, 2007
- 2,273
- 2,628
i welcome every kind of input i can get. dont feel like you're being overcritical, as its this that helps us keep this site friendly/easy to use/etc.I offer this post in humility with respect and gratitude to those who have created this site and fostered this community. I am new here, but I have noticed a couple of things.
Feedback and suggestions:
On Ads
The advertisements must be using some sort of flash or java or something (right now it is the XFactor servers ad). It is extremely processor intensive, and with just three forum tabs open, my processor (3.2GHz single core, 1GB RAM) is maxed out. Literally, 100% in use for Firefox and Gnome System. At work, I have processing cycles to spare, so I don't notice it. At home, however, it brings my whole system to its knees. This is definitely incentive to pay to get rid of the advertising. I personally would prefer that the advertisers not be allowed to use anything more than an animated gif.
On hosting
I don't know the plan/service being used, but I do know that bandwidth and storage no longer need be an issues. I am subscribing to a hosting service of my own, on which I have a domain of my own (the wiki and the forum - not the Gearheads blog). I pay $120 per year + $10/year for every domain - unlimited bandwidth and storage. I can add as many domains, with as many forums, blogs, wikis, shopping sites, you name it, all without any additional cost (except the yearly domain name registration fee - $10 per domain). It is slick, the support is incredible - one click installs for a whole list of software packages including MediaWiki and phpBB forums etc. Again, it is unlimited storage and bandwidth.
As I am already donating to several gaming sites in addition to supporting my own hosting and domain, I cannot offer a donation at this point. I say this in all sincerity however, I would gladly host this entire site for free (if someone wanted to pay the $10/year for the domain name, that would be cool - lol).
Actually, I could just mirror the downloads - take all pressure off your service, and leave all control in the original hands.
Anyway, if you are being raked over the coals every time someone downloads a vmf, perhaps you need to check out what else is available out there, or even in here.
Cheers!
on the ad front, this is our first flash ad that we have been using. feedback is mixed. although it has been for many reasons, maxing out a cpu hasnt been one. i opened up 5 forum tabs (with pandora going in another window) and noticed 10 to 15% cpu max. with about 300mb memory.
on the hosting, this site did start off with shared hosting with an 'unlimited' package. unfortunately, we have been booted by many as the site is quite cpu intensive. we do transfer about 500gb every month. im not a very big fan of 'unlimited' hosting companies either since nothing is really unlimited. use enough resources, and they will find a reason to boot you, and they have (cpu usage).
our recent links from both the official l4d and tf2 blogs gave us quite the traffic surge but for the most part, the server did survive this traffic surge and stayed online (maybe a minute of downtime as i recompiled php and restarted apache).
our stats parsing for our gameservers takes a few minutes and many shared hosting companies dont allow background processes to be run. many dont even offer shell access.
i have been trying to find ways to cost cut on our game servers + web server and i have been able to make some dents in our bills. of course, this in turn just lets us take all of these savings and use them up as prizes in our contests. so its all win-win.
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drpepper,
Thank you for telling me more about everything. I didn't realize that the game servers were part of your package, though I wondered how people were supporting that aspect of this hobby. I understand now. Indeed, yesterday, when I inquired with my service if they provided game serving, they said flat out no, that it was too CPU intensive. lol
Also, I will try using a different browser. I just switched to Ubuntu about a month ago, and simply installed the browser I use on XP/Vista. I am really disappointed with the performance of Firefox. This isn't the only site which which I have been having troubles.
Thanks again for your explanations.
Thank you for telling me more about everything. I didn't realize that the game servers were part of your package, though I wondered how people were supporting that aspect of this hobby. I understand now. Indeed, yesterday, when I inquired with my service if they provided game serving, they said flat out no, that it was too CPU intensive. lol
Also, I will try using a different browser. I just switched to Ubuntu about a month ago, and simply installed the browser I use on XP/Vista. I am really disappointed with the performance of Firefox. This isn't the only site which which I have been having troubles.
Thanks again for your explanations.
captainAngry
L420: High Member
- Feb 1, 2009
- 434
- 247
dreamhost doesn't allow you to have a website that's sole purpose is to provide files foe people to download. I believe this site would fall under that category. I love dreamhost but you get what you pay for.
I am just waiting for them to shut me down. I have topped 500GB in a month myself. I don't even offer map downloads from my forums in hopes of keeping my bandwidth down and staying under the radar but even with map downloads filtered to my TF2 servers I do at least 300GB every month. Unlimited may sound nice but Dr. Pepper is right: If you find yourself taking up more bandwidth and resources than anyone else on your shared server, you are at risk of being dropped.
I am just waiting for them to shut me down. I have topped 500GB in a month myself. I don't even offer map downloads from my forums in hopes of keeping my bandwidth down and staying under the radar but even with map downloads filtered to my TF2 servers I do at least 300GB every month. Unlimited may sound nice but Dr. Pepper is right: If you find yourself taking up more bandwidth and resources than anyone else on your shared server, you are at risk of being dropped.
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THE__DRIFTER
L1: Registered
- May 12, 2009
- 13
- 0
The more payment options you have the better. I love to support a community that will help admins, no matter how stupid in the ways of this game, succeed. Dr Pepper did not support us directly but did lead me here with his efforts in VB. In the end I see things as an opportunity to bring fellow players to a central point. I may have a bit from the " rose colored glasses" point of view but I see a valuable point in supporting future endeavors.
Did I also mention that I want to set up a dedicated server strictly for custom maps created here for testing? If I didn't mention that then I am just pointing that out. We really need to support this community here.
Did I also mention that I want to set up a dedicated server strictly for custom maps created here for testing? If I didn't mention that then I am just pointing that out. We really need to support this community here.
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This is just a follow-up of my feedback on the "slowness" of the site.
Today, I just installed a bunch of automatic updates almost all related to Firefox security etc., and Java no longer maxes out my CPU. I can now have as many tabs open as I want. I don't know what the problem was, but to use an analogy, it was like my browser had a leak. lol
Today, I just installed a bunch of automatic updates almost all related to Firefox security etc., and Java no longer maxes out my CPU. I can now have as many tabs open as I want. I don't know what the problem was, but to use an analogy, it was like my browser had a leak. lol