Valve upgrades L4D2 Xbox 360 servers

By Tom Bramwell Published 26 November, 2009

Blames lag issues on demand.

Valve reckons it has eliminated latency issues with the Xbox 360 version of Left 4 Dead 2 following a series of tech changes.

"We have upgraded our network infrastructure to better accommodate the huge response to L4D2," the developer wrote on its blog.

"360 players will now have lag-free servers. We've also added more dedicated servers. We will continue to monitor the situation and add resources as needed."

Left 4 Dead 2 came out for PC and Xbox 360 last week, and you can read our review elsewhere on the site.

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About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (21) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • altitude2k #1 2 years ago

    How much does the game rely on servers other than for matchmaking? I always thought L4D worked using p2p...

  • DuvaDan88 #2 2 years ago

    Thank god. Tried playing Dark Carnival with a friend and we jumped around all over the place so it loos like that will be must do for tonight.

  • brof #3 2 years ago

    is the 360 Version really unplayable difficult?

  • OldMan #4 2 years ago

    Yes.

  • X #5 2 years ago

    I've had a fair bit of lag on L4D (1) over the past week - wonder if they share the same servers or if they have now added new ones for this game.

  • GamerG #6 2 years ago

    actually the 360 version has dedicated servers although you can switch it to p2p, hopefully these servers will sort out the problems people have been having


    @brof, the 360 version is fine now no need to worry
    Edited by 1 at 26/11/09 @ 09:11

  • mrlaurentisdead #7 2 years ago

    Far too little, slightly too late.

    Does anyone know if there's a difference between updating UK and US servers? Cos most Americans seem to be saying 'Hmm, seems a bit better', but most Britons seem to be saying 'They upgraded it?'

    Still unplayable with friends for me. Random 'quick find' games sometimes work, but then that's been true since launch.

  • AHiFi #8 2 years ago

    It really has been bad.

  • metalangel #9 2 years ago

    The demo was unplayably laggy when I was playing it on Tuesday.

  • StooMonster #10 2 years ago

    Wish they would fix the crash to desktop bug.

    Yes I know they said "Left 4 Dead 2 Crash issue
    We are aware of the issue with this game crashing to desktop with no error messages or dump files. This error can occur on start up or during game play. It has been reported that certain events can trigger the crash such as friendly fire or killing a witch. We will be pushing out a fix soon for this issue.

    We appreciate your patience in this matter." in their forums here http://fo rums.steampowered.com/forums/sh... but I am frustrated waiting, as neither single player game nor online with friends works for me. :'(

  • Buran #11 2 years ago

    @altitude2k:

    Dedicated servers were implemented in L4D 1 after the first week due PC players claiming about bad pings and deficient support.

  • altitude2k #12 2 years ago

    @ Buran:

    I didn't realise that, thanks.

  • TruWari3r #13 2 years ago

    I thought the lag was due the matchmaking practically always putting me in rooms with Yanks.

    Most games though pretty good, like 80% were playable.

  • dirk_aircool #14 2 years ago

    Good to see that the people who bought the game on release are the ones who get to suffer the most. Isn't it funny that the servers are always 'overloaded by UNEXPECTED demand ' when the games are released. I Fail to see how it can be unexpected that a game designed to be played online ,places an unexpected load on the game servers. Did they expect that no one would buy the game ?.
    Edited by 2 at 26/11/09 @ 11:17

  • XdarXideX #15 2 years ago

    Yay! Just in time as I finished AC2 last night... still need to collect the feathers though. Is anyone else finding Left 4 Dead 2 harder than the first? It could just be me.. or the fact my mates are now more inclined to run up to the infected I'm shooting and clobbering them with crowbars... getting in the way.

    @dirk

    I think they expected more people to be playing MW2 rather than L4D2.
    Edited by 1 at 26/11/09 @ 11:55

  • sneetch #16 2 years ago

    @XdarXideX
    Yay! Just in time as I finished AC2 last night... still need to collect the feathers though. Is anyone else finding Left 4 Dead 2 harder than the first? It could just be me.. or the fact my mates are now more inclined to run up to the infected I'm shooting and clobbering them with crowbars... getting in the way.

    My mate Joe is a particularly bad example of that these days, if he's not running off like a dog that's been kicked up the arse he's laying about himself with melee weapons and then he starts complaining about friendly fire. Leading me to say last night "stop staggering about in the line of fire like a drunken idiot and I won't shoot you but if you hit me with an axe one more time I'll shove this shottie so far up your... [rest of sentence muffled by jockey crotch]."

    Edit: Oh and yeah, much harder, the new special infected are horrible damage dealers, the boomer seems to have shorter range but I suspect that's just because they changed the way puke works now (it seems to be a ballistic arc now).
    Edited by 2 at 26/11/09 @ 12:20

  • kangarootoo #17 2 years ago

    "I always thought L4D worked using p2p..."

    You can choose.

    Not sure how many people on this thread realise, but you can choose to use a local server if you want. I had really bad lag in the demo as well, but then flipped this option so I was hosting the game on my own 360, and the lag disappeared.

  • sneetch #18 2 years ago

    @StooMonster

    A friend of mine had that problem, adding -lv to the launch command fixed it for him but I've heard it doesn't help everyone.

    Also there's this, dunno if you've already seen it.

    http://fo rums.steampowered.com/forums/sh...
    Edited by 1 at 26/11/09 @ 13:32

  • metalangel #19 2 years ago

    @kangarootoo- yup, trying that today as I won't be getting this if it will always be so damned laggy. Also, "ballistic arc puke"... THAT is why I play video games. Or is it binge drink? I forget.

    EDIT: Just played the demo twice, once on dedicated, once on a local server. Both decent, local slightly better.
    Edited by 1 at 26/11/09 @ 22:12

  • stuntmaster #20 2 years ago

    let hope they have fixed it as was a nightmare and worse when large volumes of zombies

  • DAN.E.B #21 2 years ago

    Thank God !!
    (and Valve!)