I noticed on Sunday that the STCC servers were passworded and this was because there was an event running. Does this mean there are events for Bronze, Sliver and Gold licence holders as well as Platimum? I had a hunt around but couldn't find any info on this.

Can anyone explain who can enter these events and where I should go to enter? Thanks all.

GF

There is only one event in the STCC atm, the year long STCC league which has limited availability. I close the public servers during this event in order to reduce bandwidth and absolutely minimise any possibility of lag on the server.

It might sound overzealous, but being broadcast based the last thing I want to broadcast is cars jittering about so anything I can do to reduce ping times I do.

Quote from Becky Rose :

There is only one event in the STCC atm, the year long STCC league which has limited availability. I close the public servers during this event in order to reduce bandwidth and absolutely minimise any possibility of lag on the server.

It might sound overzealous, but being broadcast based the last thing I want to broadcast is cars jittering about so anything I can do to reduce ping times I do.

Aaah I see. So the servers are all in the same location. That makes sense. Thanks for thr quick response Becks.

It needs to be understood that in computing the word 'server' is often missused, and is different from a 'service'.

The LFS Dedicated Host is effectively a service, which can sit on a computer and serve the game. Several instances of this service can run on a single server, the limit here is the cpu and ram power of the machine, and the speed of the internet connection.

In the case of the STCC servers currently they reside on the UKCT team server, and apart from a laughable £5 I gave to Sam - they're entirely funded by UKCT at a cost of around £100 a month. To which i'm eternally grateful and expect karma will get me back for in later life.

Soon I will be putting my own machine into the same datacentre, and possible/hopefully later a second machine into a different datacentre to provide for maximum redundancy in cases of outage, but the limiting factor here is money.

The new server will be dedicated to the STCC, so it has a full 100mbit (one hundred) internet connection to play with - on which several LFS dedicated host services will run... services which in all other threads on this forum will be referred to as servers, thus compounding the miss-use of the technical terminology and giving the impression that I own an entire datacentre ...

You know, i never realised it was that sort of money each month to provide a free service to the lfs community. I'm amazed!
Who exactly are UKCT, and do they cough up out of their own pocket each month to keep the servers running for people?
Can they apply for advertising revenue to help fund this?

Quote from al heeley :

You know, i never realised it was that sort of money each month to provide a free service to the lfs community. I'm amazed!
Who exactly are UKCT, and do they cough up out of their own pocket each month to keep the servers running for people?
Can they apply for advertising revenue to help fund this?

UKCT = UK Computeam Racing (i think!), born under a different guise of CCUK, they started on an AOL chatroom, and became a group of people who aquired a server collectively, and LFS is the main game they play as a team, and as such they tend to host a "few" servers on their huge server, and run a large-ish LFS team (only were all so slow you probably wouldn't notice us!)

There are several SA's (Server Admins) like SamH etc who cough up about £20 a month to keep the server going (about as they pay for the server, and will pay more if needed), and then there a few CA's who throw a fiver in the pot each month to help with anything else

UKCT, or UK Computing Team, are a team in LFS who also sometimes loose at other games too. They're a bunch of people who play games together, and also play on public servers, a team basically.

From what I can tell they started in an AOL chat room back when sideburns where cool, which was dedicated to the purpose of helping people with technical problems on their computer. The techies got together and started playing games, and at some point found there way into LFS.

I dont really know much more than that of the history of the team, I do know they're nuts, never put enough fuel in, know a lot about computers (but very little about fuel use), mistakenly believe that i'm a nice person and worth helping, and they're good to talk to on team speak even though they dont flatter me often enough with reassurances of my beauty.

Quote from Becky Rose :

even though they dont flatter me often enough with reassurances of my beauty.

don't worry Becky, were working on it!

UKCT has a fairly big team, but you'd only know of 2 or three of their drivers (and even then it's not because were quick, its just that were forum whores!), namely SamH (or "Wrong Server Guy" ), Jakg teh smapz0r and Dawesdust_12, aka Dustin Dawes, that crazy guy from Canadia!

It's Canadialand. Apparently.

Also technically i'm not a member of UKCT, but that's only because I wouldn't be seen dead wearing red & yellow together.

UKCT do have a website, UKCT.net, but *someone* is supposedly making one, and well.... hasn't!

EDIT - Becky, your just special!

Quote from Becky Rose :

they started in an AOL chat room [...] know a lot about computers

doesnt add up

they started in an AOL chat room [...] know a lot about computers

Quote from Shotglass :

doesnt add up

Lol... touché

There was a time when AOL wasn't evil, before they decided to hijack the Windows 95 Dial up Adapter, back when the internet was new AOL where a genuine value ISP. I know that this is the era that Sam started with them.

Anyway there's a lot of inexperienced people on AOL who need help (chosing a new ISP being one of the things you can help them with)...

Quote from YAY :

Dear Miss R R Igoe, Your Order has been packed and is in the process of being shipped.
----------------------------------------------------------
Goods Shipped:
£169.99 x 1 - AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4200+ (Socket 939) - OEM

Woohoo, I had to pay quite a lot more than with my original plan, and it isn't quite the processor I wanted - but at least it will arrive this century! Same day despatch too ... woohoo !

Now I need to find the time to setup the software and put the machine on soak test.

Quote from Becky Rose :

There was a time when AOL wasn't evil, before they decided to hijack the Windows 95 Dial up Adapter, back when the internet was new AOL where a genuine value ISP.

i figured that was the time when everybody who actually knew about pcs was using bbs to communicate

Quote from Becky Rose :

Woohoo, I had to pay quite a lot more than with my original plan, and it isn't quite the processor I wanted - but at least it will arrive this century! Same day despatch too ... woohoo !

Now I need to find the time to setup the software and put the machine on soak test.

i thought you had a 3800x2 ?

Shotglass, are you going for the most irrelevant reply of the week award? You're running in the top five so far if it makes you feel better.
You take O/T to a new level of artistic endeavour.

Quote :

i figured that was the time when everybody who actually knew about pcs was using bbs to communicate

They where, Sam for one was very much ahead of the times... He put his first 'online diary' on the web when there where only a total of 20,000 web pages. Personally I didn't pay the internet much attention back then, I was on Fidonet and Barnet though, but thankfully they never took off

Quote :

i thought you had a 3800x2 ?

That's why I went for a socket 939, my own PC has the 3800. The new CPU is going into my own PC so I drop less frames when recording, and the server is having my 3800.

Becky please don't encourage him.

Quote :

Becky please don't encourage him.

As long as the conversation is about me i'll encourage him all I like

Now, lets talk about what I had for dinner...

mmMMmm pie.

Quote from Becky Rose :

That's why I went for a socket 939, my own PC has the 3800. The new CPU is going into my own PC so I drop less frames when recording, and the server is having my 3800.

thats why i asked its a bit of a micro update isnt it ?

Quote from Becky Rose :

As long as the conversation is about me i'll encourage him all I like

Now, lets talk about what I had for dinner...

mmMMmm pie.

i see youre trying to claim the award for yourself

and no al im not

I'd just like to point out, for the record, that I've only used AOL once. And that was when I was trying to help a neighbour sort out their internet connection.

Honest.

LOL! It's funny, I've always felt that AOL was an obvious choice if you wanted to chat online.. though I understand why people dismiss it. We have our reasons though

AOL's chatrooms were much more appealing than IRC, which seemed to attract a lot more script kiddies and silly "i mon h4ck u whats ur ip" uberhackers. AOL had "regular" people, and with us (UKCT people) being mostly older and more "mature" (don't laugh) IT professionals, it was easier to escape the day job in AOL chatrooms than on IRC. When we felt like helping non-techies, there were plenty of people to help in the AOL chatrooms, with many more varied problems, and they'd gratefully receive the help.

So the UKCT team was born.. but not a racing team, but a team of IT professionals. Web devs, graphic designers, ebusiness managers, network security engineers, PC technicians, programmers.. most of it way over my head. We were in the throwes of setting up a workers co-op, we leased our first server, and then some idiot installed a Halo server on it. We instantly transformed into mindless gamers, and that's how we've stuck. LFS is the most played game among the UKCT crowd, but it's not the only one. We occasionally run a UT2004 server, a Battlefield2 server, and a few others too.

There are also a few of the original UKCT members still around who've never yet installed a single game on their machines, so UKCT still remains a group of friends who also play games, rather than a group of gamers who are also friends.

I've had an AOL account more or less since AOL started in the UK, so just about exactly 11 years now. I won't give it up until AOL itself falls into the pits of hell. That's several months away yet

Or getting charged for their "free" service :P... :hide:

Quote :

thats why i asked its a bit of a micro update isnt it ?

I understand now, I see. Yes it is, and it's not really what I wanted to get. The original shop was under £90 but weeks later I still didn't have a CPU, and I figured it's all very well being cheap but if I never get it then it's £90 spent on nothing. So I changed to another CPU and over a week later there was still no sign of it - I phoned them several times for due dates, and was told that they had no idea.

So I looked elsewhere and found that 939 chips where in short supply everywhere, in the end I had to either stick to the budget and get a single core CPU, or spend a frigging fortune for the only other 939 I could find that was actually in stock in a shop that I trusted enough to actually buy from.

I've ended up spending about £100 extra for a chip that isn't a huge leap - but it is a step forward.

Quote :

I won't give it up until AOL itself falls into the pits of hell

Just so everybody is aware Sam isn't one of the IT Professionals I was referring too, he's just an artist *snicker*