When you join the server the file downloads are nice and zippy again. Sorry to anyone who was experiencing the slow downloads.

Hey there. No I have a gameservers redirect. I was going to ask you about your experience with it anyways once I did some other posts.

So here is an annoying experience I have with gameserver's auto compressing of files. Let's say I upload 1 new map file, and 1 new texture file that the map uses. I then join my server as a player to make sure the map is ok (and I KNOW I am the first person to do the download, because a different map will be playing, and I login and do a switchlevel). Anyways, it sees I need to download the map, but it is ultra-slow??, so it is downloading the normal file, not the compressed file. I let it get to 0.5% downloaded, then I disconnect, then I reconnect. This time the map download is zippy, so I am getting the compressed redirect. Then when the map is downloaded, then it starts downloading the texture, and it is slow. Repeat cycle. Only the first download of each file is slow.

If I then clear my pc's UT cache, and then join the server again, no problem, all downloads zippy.

Since my move, I was getting ZERO traffic. So I wondered if my compressed files had been transferred. I connected with a fresh install of UT and lo and behold, all first time downloads of needed files were slow. AAARRRGH!

So I joined every single map last night (only 40) to get all the 'first time' file downloads out of the way, so that no other player will experience it (and leave).

More detail when it is a first time download of file:
- It says 'downloading DM-SuchAndSuch.unr' 0.0%, but it pauses for a couple of seconds.
- then it disconnects and says 'connecting'.
- the time it takes to reconnect is kind of relative to the size of the file.
- it reconnects, but the download is slow.

I believe what happens is that the file compression occurs the first time it is needed. But you don't get the result of the compression, you get the regular file.

Do you experience this? Upload a new map and be the first to download it, see if it is slow.

Anyways, if I ever moved my server again, I'd talk to gameservers about this. For now it is done so no big deal. From this point on when I upload new stuff it is just a few files at a time, so no big deal to join as a player and get the compression done. But what if I have 100 maps next time. No way!