HLTV Readme Version 1.1.0.

1. Spectator Section
HLTV offers the ability to have thousands of spectators watch online gam
es.
To watch a game, start Half-Life, open the Multiplayer menu and
select 'Spectate Games'. Half-Life will search for currently broadcasted
games and show them in a list like normal game servers. You recognize
HLTV games by the little eye icon (and the green text). Select the game
in
the list that you would like to spectate and click on 'Spectate' to watc
h
the game.
You can spectate the game in different modes: Chase Cam, First Person,
Free Look and Map Overview. To change modes press JUMP (by default SPACE
key). Each time you enter a new mode, HLTV automatically chooses the
most interesting player to follow. If you want to chase a particular pla
yer
press FIRE to choose next player. You can also enable a small inset
window by pressing DUCK (by default the CTRL key), showing a different
view then the main view. A brown view cone shows you your position
in the overview map. The overview map can be rotated with mouse, zoomed
in/out with FORWARD/BACK or moved with MOVELEFT/MOVERIGHT keys. Player
names under their icons can be disabled with 'cl_drawnames 0'.
If important games are announced to be broadcasted via HLTV, they often
provide IP:Port addresses of HLTV proxies. Instead of searching them via
the internal server browser, you can also lower the console and
use the 'connect' command to connect to a certain game. For example:
]connect 192.168.130.42:27020
Don't forget to add the given HLTV port, most commonly 27020.
While spectating a game using HLTV, you can join the game by entering
the 'joingame' command. But this feature must be enabled by the HLTV
proxy administator. Anyway, spectators can see the game server IP and
other information using the 'status' command.

2. Administator Section
The core of HLTV is the hltv.exe proxy application. To broadcast a game
running on a certain game server, the HLTV proxy connects to this game
server and collects all the needed data. Spectator clients join a
multicast stream that is used by the HLTV proxy to broadcast this game.
If multicast technology is not available because the LAN or ISP routers
do not support multicast, clients can connect directly to the HLTV
proxy. The number of clients that one HLTV proxy can serve depends on
available hardware and network resources. HLTV proxies can also connect
to each other to offer more spectator slots.
A HLTV base configuration looks like this:
Players <-> HL Game Server -> HLTV Master Proxy
 The Master Proxy relays the game to other proxies or spectators:
Master Proxy -> Spectators
Master Proxy -> Relay Proxy -> Spectators
Or if multicast is available, the Master Proxy broadcasts into the
multicast network and spectators just listen to these data streams:
Master Proxy -> Multicast Network -> Spectators
In all configurations, only one HLTV proxy is connected to the game serv
er.
This HLTV proxy is called the Master Proxy. This Master Proxy sets the
game delay and analyzes the game data to position the camera in directed
spectator mode. All other HLTV proxies that are connected to the Master
Proxy as described above (called Relay Proxies) form a chain, or tree.
Each Relay Proxy transmits the game only to spectator clients that are
connected to itself. The Relay Proxies can not delay the game or alter
how the game is viewed; this is done by the Master Proxy. Only the Maste
r
Proxy is allowed to send to a multicast group (Class D IP). It is very
important that each proxy uses its own multicast group, otherwise the
different game streams interfere with each other.
The HLTV proxy tells the WON master servers about its broadcasted game.
Thus, users can spectate a game simply by using the built-in Half-Life
server browser, connecting to a HLTV proxy the same way as connecting to
a normal game. Users also can use the console to connect to a HLTV proxy
with the 'connect' command, the same way as connecting to a normal game.
If the HLTV proxy broadcasts the game via multicast, the client
automatically tries to join the multicast stream, if possible.

The HLTV proxy's console accepts the following commands:

connect <host:port> - connect to server/proxy on the given port (def
ault 27015)
disconnect - disconnects the proxy from server/proxy
quit - quits the HLTV appliaction
exit - same as quit
retry - reconnects to last server/proxy
autoretry <n> - if n > 0 the proxy retries last connection eve
ry n seconds
name <string> - set the proxy's client name
password - sets the server password
clients - lists all connected spectator clients with IDs
(not players in game)
kick <ID> - kicks a spectator client from proxy
say <string> - sends a text message to all spectators
infotext <string> - set game info text
allowjoingame <0|1> - if enabled, spectators may join game easily wi
th the 'joingame' command
chatmode <0|1|2> - if chatmode is 0, spectators can't chat. If se
t to 1, only
spectators connected to the same proxy can see
their chat
messages. In chatmode 2 all spectators can cha
t between
 each other (then Master and all Relay proxies
must have
set chatmode 2). Multicast spectators can't ch
at at all,
since they don't have a real connection.
ping <host:port> - pings a HL server on the given port (default 2
7015)
heartbeat - sends a status packet to registerd WON master
servers
rcon <string> - sends a remote control command to other server
/proxy
rcon_address <IP:port> - sets the remote control target address
rcon_password <string> - sets the password for the remote controlled ho
st
proxypassword <string> - the proxy's rcon password
clientpassword - set the client password for this proxy
rate <n> - bandwith rate the server sends data to the pro
xy in bytes/second
updaterate <n> - updates per seconds send from server to proxy
maxclientrate <n> - sets the maximum bandwith rate for spectator c
lients
delay <n> - delays the game stream for n seconds on the Ma
ster Proxy.
The default value is 30 seconds to avoid cheat
ing. A minimum
of 10 seconds is needed for the director modul
e.
delayreconnect <0|1> - if enabled, proxy will delay reconnect on leve
lchange until rest
of game in buffer is broadcasted.
loop <0|1> - if loop is 1 and the proxy disconnects or the
demo file
is over, all clients are kept connected and th
e last game
is replayed.
multicast <0|1> - starts or stops multicast on Master Proxy. ISP
or LAN must support multicast.
connectip <IP:Port> - sets the class D IP for the multicast connect
group (default 234.5.5.1:27025)
gameip <IP:Port> - sets the class D IP for the multicast game gro
up (default 234.5.5.2:27025)
fullupdateinterval <n> - all n frames an uncompressed packet is transmi
tted to allow clients to recover
from packetloss in multicast (default all 20 f
rames)
cmdlist - shows all registered proxy commands
logfile <0|1> - starts/stops console logging in hltv.log
status - prints status informations about all active mo
dules
exec <filename> - executes a .cfg file
developer <0|1> - additional status messages are shown in develo
per mode
fakeloss <n> - simulates packet loss, n = probability of a mi
ssing unit (default 0.0)
 record <filename> - records all following games into files like fi
lename1.dm to filename99.dem
playback <filename> - starts broadcasting a previously recorded demo
(endless if loop is 1)
stop - stops demo file playback

The console tries to complete a command name by hitting 'TAB'. All

commands in the config file "hltv.cfg" are executed during startup.
Some parameters can only be set in the command line:
-maxframes <n> - sets the minimum buffered frames (default 2400
)
-cachesize <n> - frame cache size (default 32 frames)
-port <n> - sets the HLTV proxy port that spectators conne
ct to (default 27020)
-maxclients <n> - how many clients can be served by this HLTV pr
oxy ( default 128 )
-comm <filename> - sets a master server info file other than wonc
omm.lst
-multicastttl <n> - sets the Time-To-Live value for multicast pack
ets
-highpriority - starts the HLTV proxy as high priority process
-nomaster - the HLTV proxy doesn't report to WON master se
rvers at all
-ip <IP> - forces the proxy to use this IP on a multihome
d host
These parameters cannot be changed during runtime, thus they can't be
used in the config file.
All console commands can be used in the command line, if a "+" is prepen
ded to them:
hltv.exe +connect localhost:27015 -port 27021 +rate 7000
A Half-Life server can set sv_proxies <n>, to determine how many proxies
are allowed to connect. If HLTV proxies should be forbidden, set it to 0
,
otherwise 1 to allow for a Master Proxy. Other values are experimental.
With the new Half-Life voice technology, one client can comment the game
for all other spectators. This commentator has to connect to the
Master Proxy as a normal spectator and then enter:
commentator <password>
The password is the same as the proxy's RCON password. The commentator
then can speak as in a normal game and all other spectators will hear th
e
commentary at the same time. Also the commentator text chat will be show
n
as center text. If a spectator records this game, the speech is stored
within the demo file.