Removing the timer! IDEA LOOK!

starting something new! if this idea has been thrown around before, good for you.

why do we even bother putting timers in maps any more?

PUBLIC SERVERS

you join a public server playing a kz map and you press the start button and away you go to the top. the addons in the server tell you what time you got once you reach the top. the end timer has already been pressed by 400 other people that have joined the server hours before you have. so why is it even there? its not like its accurate to your actual time, its somebody elses!

probably 99% of all public kz servers have addons which keep track of your time, from when you press the start button to when you press the stop button.

this makes the actual timer inside the map completely useless

WR RUNS

timers in WR runs are slightly more important than on public servers. since you are the only person in the server pressing the start and stop button making the timer indicate your actual run time.

but does it actually? its pretty close, yes, but not WR demo accurate. there's always room for error on the in-game timer which then later gets looked at by the demo admins who tell you your real time.

even while in your own listenserver recording your WR run there are addons which tell you your end time also. and even that is more accurate than the ingame timer.

SO WHY DO WE STILL HAVE TO PUT A TIMER IN OUR MAPS?

from what i understand the engine counter-strike 1.6 runs on only allows a certain amount of resources per map.

for example the recommended limit of entities is 512.
kreedz time counter that you see in almost every kz map takes about 230 entities. thats a huge amount of your 512 limit taken right there.

so why do we bother adding the timer to our maps if 99.9% of the servers you will play on public or listen already has an addon that does the same thing the timer would, but is more accurate and much more multi-user friendly?

i think we should get rid of placing the huge entity sink timer into new kz maps and just add a start/stop button for the addons.

230 entity timer vs. 2 entity start/stop. seems like a no-brainer to me!

maps without the timer have so much more room for fun and complex things that involve entities because your entity pool would become that much greater! imagine much bigger bhop maps, a lot more detail, or just more awesome!

yes i am aware of timers which utilise smaller amounts of entities but it really isnt the point. whether its 230 more entities you can use in your map or 150. its still a lot. and theres still going to be the addon any ways!

tell me what you think, maybe im just missing something big, i dont know!

just my 2 cents,
painfully trying to finish synergy_x2 within the god damn entity limit,
your angry mapper pLANE

I dont know if this discussed before but how about make this timer? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpBj12Ih5Js seen after 12 sec. It starts your climb timer when you pass by a line as you can see, and well stops at the end of the map.

I undertand your concerns, but still I have to disagree...

Timer is a tribute piece of each proper climbing map. Many mappers even spend time customizing it, making it great part of the map theme. My point is that despite the fact there are proper tools for calculating exact real time, map timer is still great "cultural" item.


Now to mapping side... engine is indeed has plenty different limits, but with right knowledge timer would have less significant impact towards reaching some engine limit. Also there are many opportunities for optimization. You would rather hit some other stupid limit first, rather anything directly timer related in fact... in general of course.

To be specific timers have solid and point entities in there, and those things have different limits.
512 is precache limit is what you are talking about I assume. Only solid entities affect it. Different timers have around 13 - 45 solid entities. Client requires 170 files for precaching to run a game which leaves you over 300 precache slots for your solid entities, models and sprites... so 13 entities for the timer is not that much actually. There are also tricks for reducing Solid Entity amount like grouping or using func_detail instead of func_wall, or even -zhlt_usemodel. Again - there are ways for optimization, other than cutting timer out.

Entity limit is one other thing... timer has 200+ entities usually, BUT the limit for entity count is 1024 as far as I know, and its not hardcoded. This meant starting server with -num_edicts 2048 with raise it twice etc.


Conclusion.
Map timer uses less than 5-10% of engine resources. Engine has HUGE amount of different, and when reaching 70%+ on some of them you are in great danger to hit some undeclared memory limit. It makes more sense to optimize map itself (and more significant things that affects limits) rather than cutting out the timer.


PS. I would be glad to help you out with your synergy_x2 and find solutions for existing issues.

cheers!

jack frog, he suggested to remove the timer, but not the buttons