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Dying |
Starcommander
Marshal
Joined: December 14, 2005
Posts: 579
From: In your base, stealing your cookies
|  Posted: 2010-08-03 07:57
Quote:
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On 2010-08-03 04:11, Necrotic wrote:
i think its intersting how they always assume it has to be your connection. Oh noes it couldnt be even possible for it to be server side. They have used that argument for years i think Azreal talked about this in a post about this type of thing before.
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Ain't dat the truth.
Whats a massive issue in this game is not the balance, but the server/client communication. I have been saying that for years and its always, always fallen of deaf ears. After-all there can be no wrong done in the name of the all perfect server.
Yes, the Lag of yesteryear(1.480) is gone, but in its place(1.50) is the desync. The failure of the server to update ones client and to CHECK that it was received. People from far countries are ones that should have this "desync" or just high ping since natural distance will be a factor. However, people in the SAME COUNTRY as the server shouldn't be having this issue AT ALL! So the servers in TX, I am in WA and the majority of the DS community is spread out across the US. So the ping between US based players and the server should be around 50-70ms for those who are out on the coasts. This game however is very strange as it doesn't obey normal servers that you see, for I who should have 70ms ping get a wonderful 150ms instead. I have wonderful super fast cable (6mb/dl, 3mb/up), so there is NO WAY it can be me.
I would be nice to see an update on the server code, adding some extra redundancies and the like to make sure the game properly updates the clients. Yes it would increase packet usage, but guess what, this is an MMO, MMO's aren't Dial-up friendly. When you have hundreds or more players, playing at the same time, theres going to be a lot of bandwidth used. Its the Nature of the Beast.
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DiepLuc
Chief Marshal
Joined: March 23, 2010
Posts: 1187
| Posted: 2010-08-03 11:10
DS has a great communication between client and server than any other MMO i've ever played.
P2P games has more horrible connection between players.
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Gejaheline
Fleet Admiral
Galactic Navy
Joined: March 19, 2005
Posts: 1127
From: UGTO MUNIN HQ, Mars
| Posted: 2010-08-04 07:55
Quote:
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On 2010-08-03 07:57, Starcommand of ICC *XO* wrote:
Whats a massive issue in this game is not the balance, but the server/client communication. I have been saying that for years and its always, always fallen of deaf ears. After-all there can be no wrong done in the name of the all perfect server.
Yes, the Lag of yesteryear(1.480) is gone, but in its place(1.50) is the desync. The failure of the server to update ones client and to CHECK that it was received. People from far countries are ones that should have this "desync" or just high ping since natural distance will be a factor. However, people in the SAME COUNTRY as the server shouldn't be having this issue AT ALL! So the servers in TX, I am in WA and the majority of the DS community is spread out across the US. So the ping between US based players and the server should be around 50-70ms for those who are out on the coasts. This game however is very strange as it doesn't obey normal servers that you see, for I who should have 70ms ping get a wonderful 150ms instead. I have wonderful super fast cable (6mb/dl, 3mb/up), so there is NO WAY it can be me.
I would be nice to see an update on the server code, adding some extra redundancies and the like to make sure the game properly updates the clients. Yes it would increase packet usage, but guess what, this is an MMO, MMO's aren't Dial-up friendly. When you have hundreds or more players, playing at the same time, theres going to be a lot of bandwidth used. Its the Nature of the Beast.
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Okay, lessee.
First off, latency is not the same as packet loss. A high ping does not mean that you have an unreliable connection, and a connection with a ping of 2ms is useless if you only recieve 1% of the packets sent.
Secondly, super-fast cable does not help if there is, somewhere along the route to the DS server, a piece of string instead of a wire. You might be able to download terabits of information a second from your local exchange, but that's as far as the super-fast connection you paid for extends. If the exchange is connected to the rest of the 'net with nothing but corroded copper, you've got a bottleneck.
Thirdly, if you have a connection that drops lots of packets, you can opt to use TCP instead of UDP, which will effectively increase your latency, but the server won't completely miss your movement orders and thus there will be fewer differences between client and server during a heated combat.
Now, in order to save on network traffic, the DS server and client cut down on communication. For example, the client will only send a message of "I am toggling my cloak" when you press V, it will not then keep saying "I'm cloaked, I'm cloaked" because this wastes time that could be better used saying "I'm positioned at XYZ and turning right".
This is a fairly standard approach, and I'm pretty sure DS uses the same techniques as any other system in order to stay synchronised in as efficient manner as possible.
Naturally, it's never perfect. It's concievable that you have a whole ruck of packets dropped, either from the server or from the client, resulting in desynchronisation because client and server are waiting for packets to time-out before resending (by which time they're out-of-date), are dealing with packets that have been sent twice due to latency and timing out, are dealing with dropped acknowledgements, and so on and so forth.
Since we're dealing with a nigh-never-ending stream of updates that comes to a screeching halt if a packet gets dropped, a single packet loss can be pretty devastating.
At the server end, there's not really much that can be done about this that hasn't already been done. There's no way to replace that bit of string that packets are being routed through; you just have to resend the message and hope it gets through and that the acknowledgement gets back.
"Well," I hear you cry, "why not send more packets and more information? Our badass internet connections can handle it!"
Well, sure, you could probably handle it. Every so often, you get one extra packet telling you how many hull HP you have left or whatever. Even if there were a hundred enemies nearby, it wouldn't be all that much information for you to take.
But think about it the other way. The server has to send these packets out, over its one net connection. So for every one packet you recieve, there's another hundred going out to those hundred other players at the same time. And they're all going to need a hundred updates because there's a hundred other people nearby, which the server also needs to send out. In comparison to you, where you're recieving a hundred extra packets, the server is having to send out an extra ten thousand packets. And then you add to this updates for AI, planets, missiles, and so on, which need to go out to every player.
Now, it's got a pretty beefy connection by necessity, but it's far from unlimited, which is why most action games limit player counts to about 32 or less; they have to do a LOT of work to keep everything accurate.
TL;DR: There's nowt can be done. Sure, we could increase the net traffic, but that creates client-server lag. Would you like desync, where you die because you don't realise that you're almost dead, or would you like lots of lag, where you die because you accidentally flew into a sun or were killed by someone five minutes ago?
[ This Message was edited by: Gejaheline on 2010-08-04 07:56 ]
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BackSlash
Marshal
Galactic Navy
Joined: March 23, 2003
Posts: 11183
From: Bristol, England
| Posted: 2010-08-04 08:19
FYI, we're already knocking on the upper limit of low-end broadband connections, and we're not comfortable with further increasing the amount of information being sent back and forward.
If you have sync issues, disable UDP in setup.
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Lithium
Chief Marshal
Joined: June 29, 2003
Posts: 109
| Posted: 2010-08-04 08:32
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On 2010-08-04 07:55, Gejaheline wrote:
In comparison to you, where you're recieving a hundred extra packets, the server is having to send out an extra ten thousand packets. And then you add to this updates for AI, planets, missiles, and so on, which need to go out to every player.
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Ten thousand is not a large number for packet.
Anyway, players actualy need one essential informations packet (hull, armor, shield, JD, dictor, cloak) every one second is enough.
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Gejaheline
Fleet Admiral
Galactic Navy
Joined: March 19, 2005
Posts: 1127
From: UGTO MUNIN HQ, Mars
| Posted: 2010-08-04 09:36
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On 2010-08-04 08:32, Lithium wrote:
Ten thousand is not a large number for packet.
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I think you got the wrong end of the stick there.
Adding a requirement for any number of extra packets per player when there are 100 players means that the server has to deal with 10,000% of the traffic increase of any individual player, which is a hefty increase.
If the game is taxing your net connection, imagine what the server's connection must feel like.
Okay, so maybe we don't have 100 players online in-game very often, but you have to account for planets, missiles, AI and so forth, too.
As for sending one update packet a second, imagine what happens when a handful of those get dropped or delayed. You could quite easily suffer a lot of damage in three or four seconds if you're in a bad situation. Increasing the rate of updates causes latency issues due to bandwidth and can't really mitigate packet-dropping.
In short, it's not a trivial problem that can be magically cured by rerouting more power to the ethernet cables or somesuch.
Pretty much everything that gets done gets looked at to ensure that it doesn't impact bandwidth requirements and thus aggravate latency/connection issues. Missiles and fighters, for example, are being looked at to see if they can be reduced in number by grouping them together as a single object in order to reduce the number of things that need to be individually updated.
Well, I suppose if people gave DS lots and lots of money it might be possible to upgrade the server's internet connection speeds, but that doesn't really help users who have bad connections for some reason.
Anyway, that's enough from me. Feel free to continue with complaining, although I would recommend doing something more constructive with your time if I was being perfectly honest.
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Lithium
Chief Marshal
Joined: June 29, 2003
Posts: 109
| Posted: 2010-08-04 13:04
Quote:
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On 2010-08-04 09:36, Gejaheline wrote:
As for sending one update packet a second, imagine what happens when a handful of those get dropped or delayed. You could quite easily suffer a lot of damage in three or four seconds if you're in a bad situation.
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Three or four seconds in a bad situation is much better than die.
And we need it.
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BackSlash
Marshal
Galactic Navy
Joined: March 23, 2003
Posts: 11183
From: Bristol, England
| Posted: 2010-08-04 15:19
Quote:
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On 2010-08-04 13:04, Lithium wrote:
Quote:
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On 2010-08-04 09:36, Gejaheline wrote:
As for sending one update packet a second, imagine what happens when a handful of those get dropped or delayed. You could quite easily suffer a lot of damage in three or four seconds if you're in a bad situation.
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Three or four seconds in a bad situation is much better than die.
And we need it.
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I'm going to suggest you go read up on how things like this work. You can't (and we won't) just increase the frequency of packets being sent, that increase the bandwidth requirements a lot.
The server itself is no-where near maxing it's bandwidth output, the issue we have is increasing the bandwidth requirements of the game to the point where players with even low-end broadband connections cannot play, which is what you're suggestion.
If the server, for example, is sending out 30 MB/s, and 20MB/s is movement/damage data, and you double the frequency of updates, you increase the output of the server to 50 MB/s - a huge jump.
A lot of the desync issues are due to simple latency and interpritation. On your screen your weapons may have just hit the enemy, whereas on his screen and the server, it will have missed him.
There is no magic fix.
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Chewy Squirrel
Chief Marshal
Joined: January 27, 2003
Posts: 304
From: NYC
| Posted: 2010-08-04 15:53
The problem seems to be that there is no check packet for hull from the server sent out ever. You can be sitting there at a depot with your client telling you you are at 50% hull while in reality you are at 100%, and this will never correct. I am not even talking about 1 update a second on hull/armor, just one complete update to make sure everything is correctly displayed every 30 seconds would be a huge improvement over the current situation. Logging out and logging back in just to get your hull displayed correctly is a little bit silly. There should definitely be some sort of redundancy in place for such an important number.
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Lithium
Chief Marshal
Joined: June 29, 2003
Posts: 109
| Posted: 2010-08-04 23:53
Quote:
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On 2010-08-04 15:19, BackSlash wrote:
If the server, for example, is sending out 30 MB/s, and 20MB/s is movement/damage data, and you double the frequency of updates, you increase the output of the server to 50 MB/s - a huge jump.
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One essential informations packet every one second uses less than 100 bytes/s.
It's only 10KB/s for 100 players.
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NoBoDx
Grand Admiral
Joined: October 14, 2003
Posts: 784
From: Germany / NRW
| Posted: 2010-08-20 02:45
sorry for digging up an old threat 
what about a re-sync button (maybe in the start-screen, where you select play, view..)
so when you have the feeling that youre desync'ed you can refresh your status and the status of the close area around you
you could also add a timer (button is locked for 20sec) after usage
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Kaoschan
Fleet Admiral
Interstellar Cultural Confederation United
Joined: October 11, 2008
Posts: 133
From: Germany
| Posted: 2010-08-20 03:23
Just a quick question (please don't kill me)
Was the netcode optimized at a given time? if yes to what degrees?
perhaps someone can think of another way to optimize the netcode in order to reduce networklag/desync?
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Pakhos[+R]
Chief Marshal
Pitch Black
Joined: May 31, 2002
Posts: 1352
From: Clean room lab
| Posted: 2010-08-20 09:51
Quote:
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On 2010-08-02 10:57, BackSlash wrote:
Whilst you see yourself at 30% hull, everyone else may see you at 5%. And whilst you might see yourself jumping away, on the server, you may still be where you were as the server is still waiting for the jump command, or has received it later than it should.
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Dejavu...
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JBud
Marshal
Joined: February 26, 2008
Posts: 1900
From: Behind you.
| Posted: 2010-08-20 09:59
Incidentally, relogging several times can literally cause desync. Ironically, you may have brought this upon yourself.
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Reznor
Marshal
Joined: March 29, 2010
Posts: 316
| Posted: 2010-08-20 17:10
I second the notion for a "resync" button with a timer. Even a longer timer would be fine as long as it works the first time. Seems like the longer you play the worse it gets, it takes time for it to "build up" so to speak.
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