ServerFilter - If It Still Does Something...

In the eqclient.ini file there is an option to add:

ServerFilter=[0/1]

I believe that by making ServerFilter=1 you tell the server to not send you information that you don't use.

For example, if under Options > Filters, you have Melee Hits set to Me Only, the server will not send you information on melee hits besides your own. This reduces the bandwidth used, since if you don't even use the information, why send it? In addition, it might slow down the client, since the client has to receive the information, filter, and discard it.

My question is this: Does ServerFilter do anything any more? If it does, why don't we just remove the ability for it to do anything and just have the server by default not send you information you don't need?

I never understood why you would ever want the server to waste bandwidth sending you information that serves no purpose.

I suppose that for internal SOE testing purposes it might serve some purpose, but in that case, again, it should default to 1 [on] without the need to even have it listed in the eqclient.ini at all, until someone at SOE adds "ServerFilter=0" to their own eqclient.ini for testing.

Currently, the default eqclient.ini seems to have "ServerFilter=0" in it. Why? Why is it set to 0 and why is it listed there at all? The game should not send you useless information unless you manually add "ServerFilter=0" for testing.

I'm sure I've posted on this issue in the past years ago [probably several times]. But doing a search on it comes up with nothing.

Using my phd in Google searches I unearthed the patch message for this command.

March 27, 2001

- Added server-side filtering for chat and combat messages. This will
allow you to turn off guild chat, shouts, auctions, oocs, 'my misses',
'others misses', 'others hits', 'attacker misses me', PC spells (all
options), NPC spells and Bard songs (all options) at the server instead
of at the client. This can reduce that amount of data sent to you over
your connection, and can help those with slower connections with better
performance and connectivity.

This is really really interesting to read. I'm going to try this rather then just making a chat window and filtering everything to that hidden window.

I have to go into the EQ files to do this? Or is this some option that I never noticed in the options menu?

Kuwiq
Erollsi Marr

If this indeed works like the patch message implies then I agree with Fanra, it should be on by default.

That being said, going to try this out. Very, very, nice find - had no idea this even existed (whether it works or not, we'll soon find out)

I knew about its existence but haven't heard confirmation in the last six or seven years of it still working or not.

If someone does somehow test it and can confirm that less data is coming through as a result of it, please do post here and let us know.

To filter out this stuff, in-game just go to Options > Filters tab (Alt-O is the default to open Options, I believe). Then on the Filters tab, just change the settings to what you want.

It will then no longer show up in any chat window.

What ServerFilter does is, in addition, is have the Server not even send you the stuff at all. It is not necessary in order to filter what goes in the chat window. However, using ServerFilter should reduce the bandwidth between your computer and SOE's servers. It might also slightly speed up your computer since it no longer has to filter out the stuff, although I'm not sure about that part.

To enable ServerFilter, find the file "eqclient.ini" in your EverQuest folder and edit it. In that file should be "ServerFilter=0". Just change the "0" to "1" and save the file.

I'm really hoping one of the programmers at SOE spots this thread and realizes that (unless there was a stealth change) SOE has been wasting the bandwidth of both SOE (which must cost SOE a bundle) and the bandwidth of the players and they should change it to default to "ServerFilter=1".

Cleaning up the eqclient.ini by removing "ServerFilter" entirely and having the client just filter by default unless "ServerFilter=0" is added is just a nice extra that I think is good programming practice to not clutter up ini files with unnecessary lines.

Indeed, to deal with the thousands of players who are currently playing with ServerFilter=0 unknowingly wasting bandwidth, SOE should patch their eqclient.ini files for them, with, of course, it mentioned in the patch message so that those who wish to set ServerFilter=0 (maybe some parsing program requires it) can do so, while 99% of the players who don't need it can save both themselves and SOE some bandwidth.

Well the only "issue" i see with that option, is it will screw things up for raid DPS meter and raid DPS analytic tools.

I'm bumping this almost four year old thread because I never got an answer from SOE.

A guildmember trying to parse some raids mentioned that it was lagging out his raiding when he enabled everyone's hits and misses and spells. So I was wondering if he can use ServerFilter= to help with this, both on the computer doing the parsing and the other computers on his network also playing EQ at the same time.

Raid specific lag is almost definitely (like 99%+) not to do with filtering. The culprit is almost always virus/malware protection chain-scanning the log file as it's written. Every protection utility, including the default Windows Defender, has option available to set an exception for files/directories/programs. Your guildmate needs to "whitelist" everquest/logs - their problem will end.

In Windows Defender it'll look like this: