Name			: HLPriority
Filename		: hlprior.zip
Version			: 1
Date			: April 9, 2001
Author			: Rich Whitehouse
E-mail			: thefatal@telefragged.com
Web site		: http://www.telefragged.com/thefatal/

Additional credits	: Alan 'Strider' Kivlin, for writing priority
			  code for a program intended for QuakeWorld
			  servers.

Running this program will allow you to play Half-Life by running a
dedicated server and a client on the same computer, at an acceptable
speed. Without the program my ping shoots around between 100-200, but
with it my ping stays between 10 and 20. The results may vary depending
on the speed of your computer, but the program has options for setting
the level of priority so you can attempt to finetune the settings to
the speed of your computer. I use the default settings, which is
8 for the low priority value and 0 for the high.

From what I hear, it's also possible to manually set the dedicated
server's priority under some versions of Windows (namely the NT-based
ones), so that could make this program somewhat useless, but I'm not
really sure about how that works or if this program would still be
better. It also includes the option to automatically restart your
server for you (see below), which I'm sure other programs exist for,
but it's useful anyway.

To use the program, first start your HL dedicated server. The title
of the HLDS window should be "HLDS", but if it isn't, you'll need to
change that within the program. After the server is running, start
hlprior.exe and click the "Set Priority" button. Next, start your
client, but remember to start the client on a different port than the
server or you'll have trouble authenticating. If your server is running
on the default port (27015), then try port 27020 or something along
those lines for your client. To specify the client port, just add
-port # to the command line. For example:

c:\games\hl\hl.exe -console -game scihunt -port 27020

Then once your client is started, go to the LAN game section of the
multiplayer menu and your dedicated server should be there. Just join
and play.

It's also worth noting, for server admins, that this tool has an option
to automatically restart the server if it quits. This is naturally
useful if your server keeps crashing for whatever reason and you don't
want to have to keep restarting it yourself. I've also noticed that
when the window is minimized to the system tray (click the HLPriority
tray icon to put it there), it seems to work slightly better. This
could have something to do with the way Windows prioritizes the program
itself when hidden, but I have no idea. I just thought it was worth
noting as well.

Anyway, that should be all, then. Please visit my web site/forums/IRC
channel if you have any problems.
