Post by Silentus on Jun 10, 2004 15:03:24 GMT
...Written by Addicted2RPG...
Here is a word on net lag.
Let's say Phoenix, me, Vugor, Aviar, and Getty are in the room.
If I move, it has to send a packet (hence bandwidth) to Phoenix, Vugor, Aviar, and Getty, so all four of them can see me moving on their screen.
If they are standing still, quite to your surprise, it sends a packet anyway. NWN likes to be reminded that people are still standing there. I've proven this =-) It was especially evident in the Viceroy meeting in Castille where nobody seemed to get a walking animation. Everyone just "jumped" to the new spot after a godawful wait.
So a consistent flow of updates is being broadcasted to us four. Remember boys and girls, NWN uses UDP NOT TCP.
This means that if a packet gets dropped, there is no error handling or re-send (TCP is slower, but is virtually gauranteed to get all your information through). So in UDP if you lose a packet, it just gets dropped, dead, bye-bye, into oblivion. If you click on something and you wait around and it NEVER happens, that means you probably lost a packet in UDP transport. In the tourney I've heard a few swears about people saying they casted a spell or attacked a person and the bloody game didn't do it. Mystery explained.
Now, NWN has a built in error-correction. It is still using UDP, but it does stuff to make sure I'm not BSing the server, like saying I moved really far and I didn't
Otherwise we could use hacks to make ourselves gods on-line.
So let's say Vugor does something, and Phoenix's machine is like "wtf?! That doesn't make sense?" because some packets got dropped, it will have to do a few resends. But it will do it on me, Getty, Aviar, and even Vugor himself, to make sure we are all happily re-synched again. Therein lies the problem. The more people in the room, the more people involved in the re-synch (where if we were spread out acrossed the server, there would be no additional broadcasting but to ourselves).
Phoenix has a point about fps. My new swoosh graphics card won't even notice even a kazillion players in the room, but the net-lag / rubber band effect is still there.
Driving with the keyboard: Sends more spam! It is worse on the server's network, but if the server's CPU is really busy, it won't have to do the auto-path calculation for you used for walking. It will just increment your location a hex with each packet. So when net lag is high, move with your mouse. When CPU lag is high, move with your keyboard. This is most especially true if you are interested in any kind of epic PvP
Lag causes crashes:
Sometimes NWN can't re-synch you. It panics and exits. You won't get any messages about the process being trapped though, the client will just quietly and abruptly terminate and put you back at your desktop. If you receive a message like "Error at 0X0000FFF", then that is a memory leak related crash. Although we cannot necessarily assume that there isn't memory leaks in the re-synch, so in theory more lag and packet loss makes you more prone to memory leaks You will find that you crash more often on laggy servers or laggy times as opposed to non-laggy ones.
Why does addicted know so much about NWN, is he a bioware employee?
Yes, Fredian is a subsidiary of Bioware. We run a server undercover to help support the NWN community.
NOT! =)
So yeah... Epic battle area... what Makz said....
See Dragon Age.
Here is a word on net lag.
Let's say Phoenix, me, Vugor, Aviar, and Getty are in the room.
If I move, it has to send a packet (hence bandwidth) to Phoenix, Vugor, Aviar, and Getty, so all four of them can see me moving on their screen.
If they are standing still, quite to your surprise, it sends a packet anyway. NWN likes to be reminded that people are still standing there. I've proven this =-) It was especially evident in the Viceroy meeting in Castille where nobody seemed to get a walking animation. Everyone just "jumped" to the new spot after a godawful wait.
So a consistent flow of updates is being broadcasted to us four. Remember boys and girls, NWN uses UDP NOT TCP.
This means that if a packet gets dropped, there is no error handling or re-send (TCP is slower, but is virtually gauranteed to get all your information through). So in UDP if you lose a packet, it just gets dropped, dead, bye-bye, into oblivion. If you click on something and you wait around and it NEVER happens, that means you probably lost a packet in UDP transport. In the tourney I've heard a few swears about people saying they casted a spell or attacked a person and the bloody game didn't do it. Mystery explained.
Now, NWN has a built in error-correction. It is still using UDP, but it does stuff to make sure I'm not BSing the server, like saying I moved really far and I didn't
Otherwise we could use hacks to make ourselves gods on-line. So let's say Vugor does something, and Phoenix's machine is like "wtf?! That doesn't make sense?" because some packets got dropped, it will have to do a few resends. But it will do it on me, Getty, Aviar, and even Vugor himself, to make sure we are all happily re-synched again. Therein lies the problem. The more people in the room, the more people involved in the re-synch (where if we were spread out acrossed the server, there would be no additional broadcasting but to ourselves).
Phoenix has a point about fps. My new swoosh graphics card won't even notice even a kazillion players in the room, but the net-lag / rubber band effect is still there.
Driving with the keyboard: Sends more spam! It is worse on the server's network, but if the server's CPU is really busy, it won't have to do the auto-path calculation for you used for walking. It will just increment your location a hex with each packet. So when net lag is high, move with your mouse. When CPU lag is high, move with your keyboard. This is most especially true if you are interested in any kind of epic PvP
Lag causes crashes:
Sometimes NWN can't re-synch you. It panics and exits. You won't get any messages about the process being trapped though, the client will just quietly and abruptly terminate and put you back at your desktop. If you receive a message like "Error at 0X0000FFF", then that is a memory leak related crash. Although we cannot necessarily assume that there isn't memory leaks in the re-synch, so in theory more lag and packet loss makes you more prone to memory leaks
You will find that you crash more often on laggy servers or laggy times as opposed to non-laggy ones.Why does addicted know so much about NWN, is he a bioware employee?
Yes, Fredian is a subsidiary of Bioware. We run a server undercover to help support the NWN community.
NOT! =)
So yeah... Epic battle area... what Makz said....
See Dragon Age.
