The Joys OF PB!

[old.[SCW]Fonz]

I am just about ready to give up on PB. Why you ask? Every! I mean every time we go to use it goes wrong.

We go to play important match tonight and before the game even begings it starts kicking people and saying there punk buster client is not running....

The list goes on of erros and problems.

We deceided not to use it, map change and boom my computer locks.... I reboot and played the match and no more locks ups..

If BWTFCL does decide to make it as part of every game next season, please make sure you sort out these issues. Well i said my piece. I think PB is a really good idea. I am one of the members of the clan who asked it be used for match. Shame it does not live up to the adversting.

Fonz

 

[echo]

Aye it is a great idea in theory, but too many cock-ups in practice

Pb = skankus maximus

 

[old.k70]

i dont know why we dont have problems but there is not one FsA member who had a problem with punkbuster so far.

getting a decent punkbuster server is important though.

 

[old.[748]Silent]

Fonz mate, pop into #748 and talk to either G-Man (Guppy) or Kain
.
Over the past week or so we have set up PB and have ironed out quite a few operational issues with great success - still a couple of glitches, but we are almost there
.
We now intend to use PB on all matches and our server will be PB required from now on - unless the community is willing to put in a little effort it will always be considered as 'that buggy program'
.
We need to effectivley all act as testers so that the technology can be made as user friendly as possible. It has to be worth a little aggravation now if the end result is a huge reduction in exploits being used (esp in league games, which is a current outstanding issue that we await comment on from the admin team)
.
So come chat to G/Kain .... Im sure they would be happy to help your guys get things sorted

 

[old.[748]G-Man]

yup sort out your server sort out your cvar.cfg and server setup and it runs fine, we all got kicked from a promotional match recently, even the ref :/ we all had pb running but i guess the server wasnt configed right, it was sorted during prematch of map 2 and nobody was kicked for map2 so its just a matter of running it and fixing it properly!!

 

[old.[748]G-Man]

raped from out forums posted by Silent

Both a new Server (v0.955) and Client (v0.965) have been released to our download page. The Client will go out via auto-update later today. Based on feedback from several admins, this Server update works much better than the last few releases.

client - http://www.punkbuster.com/downloads/pbcl965.exe

server - http://www.punkbuster.com/downloads/pbsv955.zip

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

[Tui]

Fonz, if that was the eVa match then I've mentioned briefly in the match report then the mass kicks were probably due to my doing. I modifed the pb server config to be less spammy and since I was running it on another machine, figured it was quicker to stop and start the executable rather than load the config from the server command line. Bad move considering the kicks due to "no pb client" immediately afterward.
The only problems prior to this were "Too many updates" - easily avoided if players have the latest version and don't rely on it being downloaded from the server and "Too many restarts" by [SCW]British/Proud (who had a nice ping of 200 btw). Read in the forums that setting server MaxRestarts high can fix this.

So I'm ready for the next one

 

[old.R@MoS]

i think the probalme is that with BW at the moment refs run the server off their Computers..

and so i think with a permanant PB server the probalmes will be fixed..

or if not imediatly will be further on.. but with the ref's doing it u are more likely to have a few different ref's non of which willl probably have the exact same setup

 

[[SCW]Proud]

Thanks for that info Tui, And whats wrong with our 200 Ping ! ;p

As for PB it was a bit of a last minute job to find it and then after the 1st kick - download the newer one.

ill have a look for this thread u mentioned, i have nothing against PB what so ever - as long as i dont get kicked and me sg go down :/

 

[Afx]

Used Punkbuster loads now and not one single problem.....If the people using it have the common sense to make sure they have the correct up to date version ebfore tryin to join a server then it shouldnt cause a single problem.
Liek k70 said a correctly configured server is v important but even the server is childs play to set up...Had a non spamming(no console chat to the server at all except it someone violated or didnt have a client running) server running on my pc the other night for a BC game and noone suffered any lag at all.
If you can manage to load up gamespy before you join a tfc server then i really fail to see why punkbuster can be so difficult/too much of a hassle....
Only problem i can see if from what i see and here more and more people are finding away around punkbuster,Although a pb server admin who knows what their doign can take screenshots from any clients pc now that should help to cut down on some hacks( i hope )

 

[scw-venom]

I really dont think people are actively seeking a way to avoid using Punkbuster its just that in a lot of cases it is hastily organised when called upon to use it. Most people, I would hope, want to play on a consistent playing field and PB is a means to do that however it does seem that some people do have genuine problems with Punkbuster.

I believe [748]'s approach in trying to help rather than the slightly more condescending approach would be more beneficial. The conclusion to this thread was provided by Tui and I hope that with a bit more practise my clan will be able to get over any PB teething problems soon.

 

[Rumble]

I had read about an another option open to the admin to check for cheating. What happens is at some point in the match the ref pauses the server and asks for a screenshot of the scores from all the players. This will show if anyone is using a wallhack because the sky turns either completely black or completely white depending on what type of hack they are using (not to mention see thru walls).

Im not sure if this method picks up the aimbots out there but it is another simple idea for the admin to consider.

 

[Afx]

I dont even think the game has to be paused to download screenshots from every client...And afaik wallhacks can be turned on and off so pausing to take screens would be kinda counterproductive,Far better to do it without everyone knowing(dont think the bandwidth it takes up is significant)
As for punkbuster being hastily set up id have to agree,We played a game recently with a quickly set up and badly configured server constantly spamming authentication messages(it didnt affect the game tooo much but was annoying) but just the other night i downloaded the newest server altered just 2 lines in the cfg file and voila a totally non spamming server within aboput 5 minutes of deciding to use it.....I just think people exagerate the difficulties with punkbuster when in most cases simply spending 5 minutes reading the readme is enough to solve virtually every problem.
Its not the be all and end all of cheat prevention but if it stops one cheater then its doing its job.