Test Server Tutorial

[Venti]

First off make sure you have another 20gb of free space on your hard drive otherwise you'll run out

Pre-Patch instructions:

These steps will significantly cut down on your patching time. Although it staill takes about 40-60 minutes to copy the Assets folder but that beats 6-300 hours of patching

1. Copy your Vanguard Bin (Default Path: C:\Program Files\Sony\Vanguard\bin) folder to BinTest in the same folder so C:\Program Files\Sony\Vanguard\binTest

Creating a test server shortcut:

1. Copy your existing shortcut
2. Modify the Target box and add /testserver so you have, excluding the brackets ({}): {"C:\Program Files\Sony\Station\LaunchPad\LaunchPad.exe" "/gamepatchpath:C:\Program Files\Sony\Vanguard" /game:vanguard /noregion /realm:live /testserver /noversioncheck}
3. Save the modifications by clicking Apply

Patching:

This part still takes 1-2 hours. I can't wait to hear the complaints when update 1 goes live tomorrow

1. Start the shortcut you created above
2. Login as you would to live.
3. Go make dinner, clean the house, raid the ice box for beer.
4. Click play and enjoy the wonders of the test server

Using my scripts to aviod patching when switching to live and dev.

1. download the attached zipfile
2. Save the files to your vanguard directory (Default: C:\Program Files\Sony\Vanguard)
3. Modify your live shorcut to call C:\Program Files\Sony\Vanguard\StartLive.vbs instead of Vanguard.exe.
4. Modify your test server shorcut to call C:\Program Files\Sony\Vanguard\StartTest.vbs instead of Vanguard.exe.
5. Rename C:\Program Files\Sony\Vanguard\VGUIAssets to VGUIAssests.live
6. Copy C:\Program Files\Sony\Vanguard\VGUIAssets.live to VGUIAssets.test

[Lilith]

Don't copy those folders over. You'll only take up a lot more space than you need. (And the bin folder is tiny, its the assets that takes up all the space)

The test client only downloads the new files, not every single file already on your system.

Hard numbers... Assets test is 2.78 gigs. Live is 16.6 gigs.

[Venti]

Well thats better when I tried saturday it seemed to be downloading everything. Hence the 300 hour download estimate I was being given.

[Lilith]

I got the 300 hours when I first tried too, I think that was just due to network issues being laggy. I actually thought it was 300 minutes at first, haha. It actually only takes about an hour and a half to 2 hours on a decent cable line.

[Zoefyah]

Well nothing is working for me. Several days ago I did the copy everything over and after many hours of download I get update complete, but no play button. Full file scan leads to redownloading a bunch of previously downloaded files. Did this numerous times.

Then I threw everything away and did the straight download with the smaller files. Then download complete, still no play button. Full file scan starts a download of...you guessed it...previously downloaded files that promises to take many hours to download.

Its obvious to me that I'll never be on test as I'll soon give this up. I'm tired of trying.

[SwordMage]

Originally Posted by Zoefyah

Well nothing is working for me. Several days ago I did the copy everything over and after many hours of download I get update complete, but no play button. Full file scan leads to redownloading a bunch of previously downloaded files. Did this numerous times.

Then I threw everything away and did the straight download with the smaller files. Then download complete, still no play button. Full file scan starts a download of...you guessed it...previously downloaded files that promises to take many hours to download.

Its obvious to me that I'll never be on test as I'll soon give this up. I'm tired of trying.

I would seriously think about waiting a week and trying again. This whole test server thing has only been "up" for a few days and there are clearly a goodly number of problems getting it started.

Now that Update #1 is up on the live servers, I expect that we will get some love on the test server.

[Aethedeu]

Originally Posted by Venti

• download the attached zipfile

wheres that then?

[Zoefyah]

Originally Posted by SwordMage

I would seriously think about waiting a week and trying again. This whole test server thing has only been "up" for a few days and there are clearly a goodly number of problems getting it started.

Now that Update #1 is up on the live servers, I expect that we will get some love on the test server.

Aye, wasn't planning on giving up just yet. Just for now, RL has enough frustrations, and not going to let a game get me there.

[Fyrestrom]

Originally Posted by Venti

Well thats better when I tried saturday it seemed to be downloading everything. Hence the 300 hour download estimate I was being given.

The estimated time of download is extremely innaccurate early in the download process. You would do best to just ignore it. This has been an issue since very early in Beta.

[Venti]

Originally Posted by Fyrestrom

The estimated time of download is extremely innaccurate early in the download process. You would do best to just ignore it. This has been an issue since very early in Beta.

I know I still waited 2 hours before going thru the logs to see what it was actually doing only to find it was downloading every single file in bin and assets. So I copied those directories and finished the download in an hour. My downloading was all friday evening and saturday morning.

it also seems the change something as Lilith found it now is only downloading changed files.