Quark speeds up gaming at rAge

Quark, a high-speed fibre package, is providing a 40Gbps fibre connection to deliver an interruption-free gaming experience for an anticipated 600 NAG LAN gamers at rAge Expo 2023, from 8 to 10 December.

Through a collaboration between fibre provider Vuma and internet service provider Clear Access, the package seeks to provide an unparalleled gaming experience with impressive connectivity speeds, zero lag, and no contention.

Marketing manager at Clear Access Rob Nelson says: “Our partnership with Clear Access also positively impacts the functionality of the main event halls by providing exhibitors with quick and reliable internet connectivity, which is essential for the success of the whole event.”

One of the primary challenges faced by SA gamers has been the latency issues arising from the distant location of gaming servers, predominantly situated in Europe. Quark addresses this by efficiently connecting users to servers, minimising lag and providing fast ping rates.

“For South African gamers who are serious about ranking up and making their mark internationally, or even those who want an enhanced, lag and contention-free gaming experience, Quark is going to level the playing fields,” says Nelson.

Quark introduces three high-speed packages catering to both home and business users: Quark at 100 Mbps, Duo Quark at 200 Mbps, and Penta Quark at 500 Mbps. These speeds are achieved through enhanced routing on the fibre network facilitated by Clear Access, ensuring a high-quality online gaming experience.

“This is a game-changer for serious players in the country, being the first product of its kind aimed specifically at elevating the gaming experience through an incredibly resilient network,” says Nelson.

The Clear Access booth at rAge Expo is allowing only gamers to sign up for Quark, and provides an opportunity to test ping rates for their favourite games. Visitors can expect entertainment, including simulator games and the popular ‘button’ game from the previous year.

Quark is available through Clear Access to all home users on the Vuma network. As an added incentive, new subscribers will receive a UPS to keep routers powered, ensuring uninterrupted gaming day and night.

Nutanix powers BYOC at rAge

Nutanix is again running the Bring-your-own-Computer/Console (BYOC) LAN at rAge this weekend. A long-time partner of rAge, Nutanix provides the virtual backbone for South Africa’s biggest BYOC 24-hour, 3-day celebration of gaming.

The Nutanix team and the rAge IT crew have laid over 7km of network wiring and 1km of electrical wiring to establish a custom power distribution system alongside a backup generator, ensuring that the computers are always operational. 

Nutanix has tackled high performance, scalability, and reliability demands by employing hardware that accommodates various hardware setups, different virtualisation hypervisors, and multiple cloud platforms. A notable aspect of Nutanix is the Prism management layer, which offers an easy-to-use, comprehensive management solution for Nutanix infrastructures.

Phillip de Waal, systems engineering manager at Nutanix Sub-Saharan Africa, says: “Rage is not just a key event for gamers, but it’s also a gathering point for emerging talents who might venture into software development or IT careers. 

 _{Phillip de Waal, systems engineering manager at Nutanix Sub-Saharan Africa}

“By sponsoring and providing the infrastructure for the LAN, we, once again, effectively demonstrate Nutanix as an advanced platform to what we consider the future IT pioneers of our digital world. But beyond that, it is a great event that we love to support and showcase the true power of the Nutanix platform.”

At the 2022 rAge, the Nutanix environment served over 22TB to the LAN, a whopping 7.3TB of data was downloaded from the Internet, LAN traffic egress from the cache peaked at around 1.8Gbps and WAN ingress averaged at 6 Gbps. 

Of the Steam games played, the team could track 4125 hours and 39 minutes of Steam game time, which equates to around 171 person-hour days of gaming. Top games played included Counter-Strike: Global Offensive with 991 hours, Dota 2 at 864 hours, Call of Duty Modern Warfare II | Warzone at 645 hours, and Apex Legends at 137 hours played.

According to the stats, the LAN’s “top downloader” on the cache side grabbed 180GB of Steam content, followed by other users who moved 132GB, 77.7GB, and 71GB. The rAge LAN team also said that the additional services it could run on the cluster included highly available DHCP and DNS servers, game servers, a cache server, and a Valve appliance, among other bespoke client services required during the event.