I tried this out last night, and loved it. My in game FPS almost doubled, and my stream (once I worked the kinks out) looked a lot smoother.

Here's what I found:

-Using their version of Screen Region for TF2 caused a massive stream FPS drop. I'm not sure why, but my stream hovered around 15fps instead of the 30 I had it set to. using their program capture bumped the stream FPS to 30, and did not affect my ingame FPS at all. I'm not sure why OBS couldn't handle my screen region.

-If you're layering something on top of your game footage, such as a webcam, a smaller screen region, an image, etc, know that the program is currently backwards. The "top" layer is actually the bottom. If you have a webcam, and you select "Move to top" it will actually put it BEHIND your game footage. This actually had me thinking that my webcame wasn't working.

-The stream bitrate doesn't seem to be variable. In Xsplit, you could set it high on the off chance that your stream would spike to that rate (however unlikely). OBS will try to use that rate regardless of whether it needs to or not. I usually had my rate set to 3500 in Xsplit, but that was causing some video issues for people who had connections or computers that couldn't keep up. A rate of 2000-2500 is plenty for a 720p stream.

Hopefully this will help a few people who are running into the same issues that I had.

Valve does NOT like when you do things like this. If you modify the sv_tags to get into quickplay, you run the risk of being delisted from the master server. That means that the only way to get traffic to your servers is via people connecting manually.

THAT'S MY NICHE, DUDER! You stay away.

One thing about jump_QuBa is that it can't be downloaded from ingame.

Linux is case sensitive, so when it sees the capital letters, things get messy. Make sure that the case is matched on the game server and fastdl server (and in the mapcycle), or just make it all lowercase to ensure things work.

For a long while my main focus was networking, so I had to do subnetting pretty much every day. Mainly class C subnets, but occasionally in the class B space.

I have no idea what this even is.

"Subnetting" is the process of dividing IP blocks up into smaller groups. I work for an ISP, and can definitely subnet using a variety of methods (though everything is done with a CIDR slash notation, anyways). I have no idea how this came about...

As someone who has developed a HUD, here are my two cents.

First, I probably wouldn't participate. Developing a HUD is incredibly hard work, and I've already sunk dozens of hours into my HUD (from scratch, no less) which I am incredibly happy with. There is no way I'd start over.

Second, you can't really verify that something is or is not stolen. Pretty much every HUD element (not fonts or animations) is static, with the exception of X, Y, Z positions, and size. The static straight lines I use on my HUD have the same essential "code" that everyone else's straight lines use. The same thing with the missing HUD features, like spectator/teammate health.

Third, to go with my previous point, locking out existing HUDs or modifications stifles creativity. A lot of technology and entertainment is based on iterative design. There is a reason a lot of popular HUDs look similar: some people modified existing HUDs, others took inspiration from them and created their own. I know that if I could enter my HUD into a competition, I'd focus more on fixing the small bugs and pixel adjustments, iterating on things that are lackluster, and working more on the missing features.

Lastly, as mentioned above, developing a HUD is really, really time consuming. Even the "base" features (moving health/ammo elements and charge bars) can take a few days to accomplish. This turns a lot of people off. There's no click and drag interface, just editing raw res files. So you'd need to allow a few weeks or a month for this competition (which can cause people to lose interest).

I'm not saying you shouldn't do it, but you need to take a broader look at how HUDs are developed, and figure out the best way to go about this competition.

A smaller one on our own to see how it goes, yeah!

How can I help? I have spare TF2 servers, a spare mumble, and some free time. All east coast, and none of it costs me a dime.

http://www.twitch.tv/anthal

I stream almost daily, and mainly TF2. I'm currently only a backup for a team right now, since I'll be on vacation for a portion of this coming season.