Synergy · published
The Synergy game client will now connect to all internet servers using the Steam Datagram Relay (SDR) by default.
This will:
Connecting to a server via a LAN IP address will remain unchanged. It will always connect via local IP directly and bypass the SDR as it would otherwise increase ping times by going over the internet instead of staying within the LAN. However, connecting to a server on the LAN via a SteamID (e.g. connect <steamid>) will use the SDR.
If you wish to instead connect to servers with your IP address (how it worked before) then disable this ConVar:
cl_sdr_prefer 0
cl_sdr_prefer 0 will not work when trying to connect to a Dedicated Server using an anonymized IP address (see below) or when connecting via a SteamID; the SDR will still be used in those cases.
Synergy Dedicated Servers will now use anonymized IP addresses by default.
This will:
If you prefer to continue displaying your server's real IP address in the server browser then add the following startup option to keep previous behavior:
-nofakeip
Clients will still attempt to connect via the SDR by default even with -nofakeip. If the server has -nofakeip and the client has cl_sdr_prefer disabled, the connection will not use the SDR - as it worked by default before this update.
Due to a possible Steam bug, servers using an anonymized IP address will not show up in the Steam Client's Server Browser, but it will show up in Synergy's in-game server browser. -nofakeip can be used to workaround this.
Listen servers are unchanged and will work as they did in the previous update (i.e. connect <friends-steamid>). UI updates are still in progress to make playing with Steam friends easier.
Happy New Years!