DCS Program Down Pending...

[Player0]

Hi Guys,

I've disabled DCS. I beleive this to be a cause of MAJOR traffic congestion on the LiquidNinjas.com site recently. Because of recent peaks in DCS use, it's usage was pushing the limits of my bandwidth. This was causing slowdowns for LiquidNinjas.com, as well as my other hosted sites.

As of right now, the removal of DCS is temporary. If I find that the sites speed do not improve in the next day or so, I will look in to alternatives. However, I have a feeling that DCS was the culprit for our problems and its likely that I'll HAVE to disable it in its current form.

I will attempt to enable DCS for LiquidNinjas members, and perhaps a handful of other sites upon request. I will also look in to coding options to reduce the bandwidth usage. These options may include daily static image generation, and probably hosting these static images on mirror servers, or allowing website owners daily download access to host their own sigs.

Honestly, although I can revise DCS to work more efficiently, Im not sure about actually doing it. There are a lot of similar services out there, possibly with better support and bandwidth, and i have other projects I am much more interested in. DCS was a project to help me learn PHP and just to see if I could do something interesting like stats sigs. Ive been really proud about how popular it's been. But where does it go from here?

I think my limited bandwidth would be better served for other purposes. If I had $2000 right now, I'd be able to get improved hosting capabilities and probably be able to host DCS no matter what the traffic. But, we're a small site with no funds and cant afford to support a program with such a large user base.

Keep tuned for more details. PS - If anyone notices any differences in speed, or doesnt, please post here.

[Josh18657]

I kinda don't want to admit it but the forums are much faster now. I hate to see you stop with the stats since they are the best I have found. Wish I could help with the fundage situation but I'm pretty well tapped out at the moment. I would be able to help with a mirror or even maybe host some of the stats or whatever you may need in the way of web space since I am still running my own servers for my small site. just let me know if I can be of any help. And once again, please don't give up on a great thing you have started here.

Josh

[Drake]

What kinda bandwidth are you looking at? Aristec Corporation has 10GB+ bandwidth/mo that we're not using.

[dfrancis]

Much faster.

[Synthohol]

hey, will my 3000/768 broadband help?
i dont mind hosting a stats server if you set it up, just dont ask me to understand it;)

[DCMan]

What sort of bandwidth are you talking? Depending on that, I could lend a directory or 7 on my webserver if its just storage you need?

[Player0]

It needs 768K-1024K up speed per month, probably over 200G of bandwidth per month.

Steve, yeah, that would work but it needs a powerful server and a static IP.

[Player0]

Nope, its not storage. It requires a massive SQL connection, hosting probably 1.5-2 million records.

DCS needs a nice little rewrite I guess. It wouldnt be hard to dump static images in to a folder and then transfer those nightly to a server just dedicated for image hosting. But it greatly reduces the updates on the server, and im not sure how large the image transfer would be per night.

The load is bandwidth frankily though. I dont think caching the images as static will reduce the bandwidth. Even running some extra gzip compression isnt going to help much with images. I spent a lot of time optimizing the databases and stuff but I mean...there are so many thousands of users on it right now its just insane.

[Drake]

It's a well used service, ever considered charging?

[Player0]

I tried asking for donations for it several months ago. I received very little. If I can get a few hundred people to sign up for $5 a year, Id not only restore the service, id do lots of cool things with it.

No one is gonna pay for what they can get for free. On the other hand, if I get enough people interested in a pay for service, Ill consider it. They just need to come here and mention their support.

[Josh18657]

I know I would support you player, it is definatly a great service. Any chance you would have a team discount :)

[Player0]

Its not me setting the price really. Im certainly not profiting by anything. DCS needs expensive bandwidth, that cost would need to be split between everyone. Its just too popular.

[Josh18657]

This must be a bust time for the forums cause there being slower then they were yesterday when I posted. Maybe it wasn't all the stats programs fault :D

[Evil_Genius]

Perhaps instead of trying to ask indivigual users to donate. you could ask entire sites to donate. I think HArd ocp could scrap together 500 bucks for you. Even if they did it 1 dollar at a time. Just charge per site inclusion.

[Player0]

I know that the forums arent slower heh.

[Josh18657]

I know that the forums arent slower heh.

Maybe it was on my end but earlier they were slower. I don't really think it was me cause the ABIT forums came up as fast as ever. BTW, the LN forums are fine now.

[WackyComputer]

The only reason it's slightly faster for me is because I don't have to load everyones sig to view a thread.

[naxos]

I'm more than willing to send in a donation for DCS. Its such a great program :)

[Nettik]

Could set the site up to only allow the default image for the site using it unless you donated. And the non-donators have a faded "please donate" phrase going across the image for those that just want the standard image. Also meaning they get no custosmization if they do not donat. :(

:Nettik

[Nut]

I would donate some $ for the DCS cause. I support other sites that I frequent and know that bandwidth isn't free. In fact I WILL send some funds right after I post this. Only had 6 beers so my mind is clear :drinky:

[Nut]

Zing. Its been sent. $25 not much but I hope it helps some.

[Player0]

Thanks for the support guys. DCS will at least be restored for LN members. Please dont send funds for DCS however. Im appreciative of them, and if youd like me to keep them for general LN use that would be great. Unfortunately, I cant reenable DCS for other sites or spend time recoding it without a couple thousand dollars upfront, and Ill never make enough from donations. But thanks for the support :)

[Nettik]

How much does Google put out, not enough for DCS but certainly more than nothing?

:Nettik

[Player0]

Google & CrazyPC, Sponsorship, and Admin payments dont come close to paying for the bandwidth we currently use, not counting the expensive upgrades id need to put DCS back on.

[Nut]

No worries Player0, that was just to support the site in general. I had no intentions of my small contribution enabling DCS for the whole site or even for me. I've been coming here since Oct. 04 on a regular basis and just wanted to give something back. Thanks for having a very informitive and friendly site.

[Evil_Genius]

"Only had 6 beers so my mind is clear" if I had a dollar for every time I have said that.

[Nut]

"Only had 6 beers so my mind is clear" if I had a dollar for every time I have said that.

Ah yes but without those beers you should see the rubbish going through my head. :elaugh1:

[Player0]

Hee, thx NutBag. Ill set you to a sponsored member then as soon as I can. Then youll have access to all the pr0n on this site LOL.

Yeah, I just dont want people donating soely for DCS. I mean, if I collect a few hundred dollars for it, I still cant continue it, then people will want refunds or will be pissed and im not really equiped for either of that ;)

The only thing that will restore DCS to its previous open and free state will be a large petition type deal. If I can get a hundred or so DCS users to post here and promise a $5-$10-$15 donation, then ill go ahead and set DCS up and accept those donations. Ill put DCS on its own server somewhere with its own bandwidth (since upgrading the bandwidth where i am is prohibitively expensive).

[dynasig]

Yes, it is spam, and yes, I do mind, and if you wondered if I would, you should have asked before posting this.

[Kill-Switch]

Thanks Nut_Bag for donating to LN :)

You should now have access to the shader side of the site LOL ;)

[DCMan]

Shadier? Where??! ;) :D

[Player0]

Stats restored for LN users.

I will consider enabling other teams that request for restored access based on their past support of our site. Please contact me here.

[Kill-Switch]

Shadier? Where??! ;) :D

I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you .... either that or you can become a Sponsored Member and I'll tell you anyway ;)

Hehe, in all seriousness Sponsored Members have access to their own little section which for some reason ends up being flooded with pr0n ... could have something to do with the no restrictions on what can be posted there LOL

BTW thanks Tom for reactivating the stats for us guys, my sig was looking a little bare without it :D

[DCMan]

I already am a sponsored member!

[Kill-Switch]

I already am a sponsored member!

Well then you already know where the Sponsored Members forum is and what's lurking in there ;)

[DCMan]

lol - nuff said!

[dynasig]

No, we're not going through sig withdrawel.

[Flybye]

Well then you already know where the Sponsored Members forum is and what's lurking in there ;)
Yeah you better watch out for some of Kill-Switch's threads ;)

Player0, did you ever get any type of donations from the RX-7 guys?

[Player0]

Not sure, i dun really track donations apart from what goes to dcs and what goes to ln.

Oh, the rx7 is still down? whats the team # again? Ill get it up.

[Flybye]

39215

Thanks :)

[Kill-Switch]

Yeah you better watch out for some of Kill-Switch's threads ;)

LOL Most of my threads are pretty tasteful ... well ... ummm ... well at least they are better than some other threads in there :thumbsup:

[fall-apart]

Also wondering if you could re-enable Sudhian's sigs (10688)... we look like we're folding a bunch of little red X's :)

If that's not possible, would you consider releasing the DCS program so that it could be run off another server for our team? Thanks for what you've done so far!

[Player0]

I cant renable Sudhian Im afraid. The site is too large. The big sites with lots of traffic are what I cant afford.

I have no plans to release DCS public at this time but I am working on a new version that will allow for off-site caching.

[fall-apart]

Okay, I understand - some of our forums get hit pretty hard, so with 50 people's sigs all getting loaded each time someone views a thread, that could be a big load. I'll be looking forward to the next iteration of DCS then, thanks!