Server reset time has been modified to run at 6 AM central.

I have some spare capacity on my server cluster and wanted a project to spin up on it. I have decided to spin up some tf2 servers that will be free to use for competitive games. There are 10 instances that will be available. These are being offered on a first come first serve basis and can be reserved for up to a month at a time. The servers are in a stock configuration with competitive configurations in place, along with a plug-in for logs.

A website to automate the reservation is in planning. For now to reserve an instance first check the status page here , if there is a server open submit a reservation request here . The password for reservations is TFTV I will then send you connection info and the rcon password.

Details:
Location: Kansas city
Slots per server: 19
VCPU’s per VM: 2
RAM per VM: 4GB
Fastdl: Handled by my central fastdl server.

The limitations I’m imposing on these servers:

• You have no support from me for anything custom. If you wish to restart the server use the command: `rcon_address <IP>, rcon_password <rcon_password>, rcon quit`.
  
• These servers will not run on the standard 27015 port, They will be assigned ports in the ranges from 27100-27110. The reasoning for this is that I am billed more for a larger IP range, I reserve these addresses for customer VMS.
  
• No SFTP access, I will add custom maps upon request.
  
• The tf2 servers are set to auto reset at 06:00-06:00 (6 am central time zone) every day.

I feel that these restrictions are reasonable on a free service. If you want to remove the restrictions contact me for a quote. (I bill $10 per month for a managed 32 slot tf2 server).

If you all have recommendations please let me know.

1) Don't buy a new windows based machine if you're looking to spend under $800, they all have god awful build quality and most still use spinning rust for their storage.

I'd personally suggest buying a used business class think pad. The things are built like a tank. (They are designed to be mistreated by your average disgruntled employee.) Dropping it is more likely to leave a mark on the floor than the computer. I'd say grab something like this and put LInux on it. It would absolutely outclass 90% of laptops sold to consumers under a 800 dollar category in terms of build quality and reliability.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Lenovo-ThinkPad-T440P-Laptop-2-6-i5-4300M-8GB-480GB-SSD-14-WIFI-Windows10/253711999382?hash=item3b1269e196:g:tRoAAOSwScJa6er0

Linux user of 2 decades chiming in.

Linux will perform better in practically any workload provided you set it up correctly and the developer developed their software properly. In general utilizing a lighter weight desktop environment such as xfce, lxde, or i3 will be marginally better than something like KDE or Gnome.

If you have a Nvidia card install the property drivers, if you use an AMD card the newer MESA driver stack is currently what AMD recommends. The GPU-PRO driver is meant for CAD/Workstation use where a certified driver is required.

For a distribution to use Debian and Ubuntu are good choices for users who want a stable experience. Arch can be used later if you want something with a bit more control during the installation process and want the newest versions of everything (Not exactly the most stable). I prefer static versions of software that don't change during the time I have the operating system installed, as I only want new major versions when I upgrade versions every 4-5 years.

Since you are a newcomer you should probably avoid Gentoo unless you want a massive headache and want to hate your first time with Linux.

Keep in mind the following:
- Linux is NOT windows, don't expect it to work like windows.
- Dual booting is a good option, There is no need to fully wipe your Windows partition unless you really like Linux and despise windows (like me.)
- Linux uses OpenGL rather than DirectX.
- Windows software will not run on Linux.
- The need to download software from the internet should be avoided, instead, use your distributions repos where possible.
- Not all programs will run on WINE, Don't be surprised if things don't work properly in it.
- Not all your Steam games will work.

Some tips for a newcomer for installation:
If when starting the USB key you get a black screen you need to load the system with a specific set of kernel parameters.

- When GRUB appears after starting the USB key press e repeatedly. You should see a screen where you can edit your grub options. Go to the Linux line then add the following at the end.

nomodeset 915.modeset=0 modeset=0

- Press f10 to start the system.

Some documentation for installing Nvidia drivers on Ubuntu as this seems to be a place where users get stuck.

Removing the older versions of the driver:
1) Change drivers to the open source drivers then restart
2) dkms status
3) sudo apt-get remove --purge nvidiadriverpackagename
4) sudo apt-get purge nvidia*

Installing the new driver
1) sudo add-apt-repository ppa:graphics-drivers/ppa
2) sudo apt update
3) sudo apt list nvidia* (find the newest version following the nvidia-number format)
4) sudo apt install nvidia-381 (Change 381 to the version you found earlier)
6) In the additional drivers tab change to Nvidia
7) restart

- You will find that raw input is completely borked on Linux. I haven't found a workaround for this. Instead turn off mouse acceleration to do this do the following.

If on Ubuntu/Debian:

First, find the id of your mouse from ls /dev/input/byu-id

david@tesla ls /dev/input/by-id/ | grep mouse
usb-Kingsis_Peripherals_ZOWIE_Gaming_mouse-event-mouse
usb-Kingsis_Peripherals_ZOWIE_Gaming_mouse-mouse

Find your mouse in the list chose the one without the -event. Remove the leading -usb and the ending -mouse along with the underscores, replacing them with spaces:

xinput set-prop "Kingsis Peripherals ZOWIE Gaming mouse" "Device Accel Profile" -1

If this works to your liking then let's create a script to run when your user logs in.

You can put the script where you want. I prefer to make a scripts directory in my home directory for scripts that are executed by my user account.

#!/bin/bash
xinput set-prop "Kingsis Peripherals ZOWIE Gaming mouse" "Device Accel Profile" -1

Next let's give it proper execute permissions. REPLACE MY USERNAME WITH YOURS.
chmod +x ~/.scripts/no-mouse-accel.sh
sudo echo "/home/user-name/.scripts/no-mouse-accel.sh &" >> ~/.xprofile

If you are using Arch then do the following to disable mouse acceleration:

Edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-mouse-acceleration.conf as root. Do not replace the "My Mouse" identifier, the default works fine.

Section "InputClass"
Identifier "My Mouse"
Driver "libinput"
MatchIsPointer "yes"
Option "AccelProfile" "flat"
EndSection

Save the file and exit

- if you chose to go down the Arch Linux path use Pacaur instead of Yaourt. If one application fails to build the entire build process for everything else specified stops. It handles this a lot nicer as well as it asks if you want to see all the pkgbuild files at the start so after you view them you can go get a cup of coffee while your packages compile/install automatically, rather than viewing each as the package comes up in the que.

Example output

$ yaourt -S package-with-dependencies
View PKGBUILD of dependency1? n
:: Installing dependency1...
View PKGBUILD of dependency2? n
:: Installing dependency2...
View PKGBUILD of package-with-dependencies? n
:: Installing package-with-dependencies...

$ pacaur -S package-with-dependencies
View PKGBUILD of dependency1? n
View PKGBUILD of dependency2? n
View PKGBUILD of package-with-dependencies? n
:: Installing dependency1...
:: Installing dependency2...
:: Installing package-with-dependencies

Linux has a lot of choices you can make for what you to run on your system. I'd recommend creating a test playground VM to play with things before you put them on your system.

Some resources I recommend.
The Arch wiki: This documentation is essentially the gold standard for a distribution documentation. Most if it is useful even on other distributions.
The Linux Sysadmin basics course by TutoralLinux. This is great for learning the basics of Linux system administration and utilizing one of Linux's best features: The command line.

If you want help installing and configuring Linux feel free to add me.

Try the following:

- Uninstall the game from steam.
- Exit steam from the system tray
- Delete the directory in c:\Program Files (x86)\steam\steamapps\common\Team Fortress 2\
- Delete the directory in c:\Program Files (x86)\steam\steamapps\temp
- Delete the directory in c:\Program Files (x86)\steam\steamapps\downloading
- Remove the folder in the registry location "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Valve\Source\tf\Settings"
- Reboot
- install steam via steam://install/440
- verify that the game installed correctly via steam://validate/440

Thanks for the archive links when i checked this earlier they failed to load properly, seems to be resolved now.

Have you checked the basic stuff like what clock speed the CPU running at, what the power settings are, what the temps are, etc.

Hello all,

I'm working on rebuilding the bball.tf website and server base. Servers are back up and running but the website needs some work. According to damon he doesn't have any of the source code of the original site so i'm starting from scratch. i'd like to see if anyone happened to get their hands on the original code or has photos of how the website was originally. Screenshots or video snippets would be extremely appreciated to help me get a base for what i should be looking to recreate. Any logos or other assets of the site would also be extremely useful!

Regards.
Burning

I'll be working on something to make registering for events/tournaments easier in the future through the bball.tf website. I'll let you all know when its ready.

Can someone pm me his ip address so I can add it to a blacklist for the servers I manage? (I'm doubtful it will do very much since he likely has a dynamic ip as most home users do) (Please send attached to an rcon status output to show its the correct ip address i'm blacklisting.)

Just buy a samsung 850 evo or buy the pro variant if you want something a bit faster (+20MIB) with a longer warranty. (10 year over the 5 year of the evo model) Reasoning is they are simply solidly built ssd drives. I'd recommend skipping any of that cheap budget ssd crap if you can. Reasoning is that most of them use shitty flash and degrade quickly over the span of a few years.

There are some other good quality ssd's out there so just look around.

As for NVME. Your unlikely to notice the diffrence day to day. It only really comes into play in heavy read/write/io operations. (Basically you'd know if you needed it.)

Linux is great and I highly recommend it to those who are willing to sit down and learn it. It has a learning curve to get used to. (Such as command line for package installs and maintenance.) I personally consider it to be far better with its efficiency from day to day use and performance under heavy applications that can benefit from it. Things like being able to update EVERYTHING with a simple alias command, not having pop ups telling you to restart for updates. No waiting 10-30 minutes for your computer to install updates. (Seriously how is Microsoft STILL doing this???) The ability to truly have ownership over your operating system. It does what you tell it to, not the other way around.

However you must keep this in mind. It can't run exe applications. While there are compatibility applications out there like wine it can't all of them. If you play esea your shit outta luck as the client only works under Windows.

Tf2 runs flawlessly under my system.

Add me if you want help switching to it or dual booting.

So I am finally going over my demo archive to make a frag movie for some fun. I have some demos from about a year ago. however on cp_Badlands demos they all crash about half way through. No crash logs or anything. When going to the tick specified it locks up half way through the demo then crashes. It seems that only certain cp_badlands demos are affected.

Has anyone here had this issue and how did you solve it?

Regards

Yes it was plugged in through power during our testing. Will test temperatures once we get him up and running with Antergos. [Currently running into a problem with the optimums graphics driver. Working on resolving it.]

Its a brand new computer, with a fresh copy of Windows 10 on it.

Here are the steps I have done for him prior to having him put Linux on the computer. (Since it plain works better in a lot of ways)

Fresh install of windows 10 (I never trust the factory installs ever)
Removal of all windows 10 junkware. (Stuff like the xbox app and cortana)
Adjusting power settings for high performance
Setting the Nvidia GPU as default for global and game specific settings.
Adjustment of Windows services and startup checks
Default tf2 install. (Never head back the results of this though so im not sure if he did it or not)
Removal of Windows 10 spyware junk

We ran into problems with both games and overall system performance being sluggish. Will report back once I find out how the Antergos LInux install goes for him.

I find it odd since his old computer ran better and had lower end specifications.