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solving MV lag... your idea's and imputs |
CeylousMirod Cadet
Joined: April 21, 2005 Posts: 19
| Posted: 2005-05-05 00:18  
Well when I dont know about something... I take it to the N'th degree. Who knows after I write this I might actually get into netorking since I know enough about putting PC's together I went on the internet/WWW to find out just what is lag and what if any different degrees of lag there is.
http://www.planetbattlefield.com/features/newbie/
I hope u can click on that link or not if you cant thats fine just type it in I guess if u want
Once at that page I scrolled down to technical issues. The question was
"the gameplay is laggy! what gives!" ... this was from a game called battlefield 1942 an MMOPG.
From what I've read so far theres 2 different kinds of lag.
1. Internet lag
2. client-side lag
Now the two questions I asked myself were...
"What kind of lag is being created in the MV???"
"If there are other forms of lag out there that I dont yet know of.......do they exist in the MV???"
I know at least from my limited time here at DS a number of things has happened to me in the MV when it comes to lag. (or my limited knowlege of it)
1. turning into planets.
2. stuck at jump alignment
3. not being able to see faction chat for a long time
Thats just some of the things I can think of off the top of my head. I imagine that the seasoned veterans of DS have come across more hickups then me. Ok well those are my two questions.
Now I can talk about something I do have some grasp of ,and that is hardware compatibilty. Does hardware compatibility help efficiency with DS? Also does compatibility make it easier for programming DS? I would think it would make it alot easier. If everyone was running the same hardware there would be:
1. Less device drivers needed to be written or included
2. Less dependence on other programs
3. Less CPU time would be needed to utilize other programs
I think that hardware compatibility is the main issue with lag... than again thats comming from someone who loves programming but has very little understanding of just how to impliment it. (hardware dude who only knows how to slap stuff into slots on a mobo) thats me
.... now... we dont live a perfect DS existance... BOOO We dont all have the same hardware. It would be nice.... but we dont. However I have been fiddleing with the idea of just making a game like this but CONSOLEIZED. (I know that word isnt in the dictionary). Thats right make just this particular game come with hardware and charge like $30 for it and then $10 a month. Llike one of those atari things u've seen in walmart or advertived on T.V. The little ones that just have batteries in it and u plug it right into your A.V. inputs on your T.V. flip on the toob and go. I acutally bought one of those for $8 and its pretty cool.
But do u kinda see what im comming from. Getting everyone on the same page WETHER ITS DIOLOGUE OR PULSES OF ELECTRICITY. I just had a chat with someone about lag in the MV. He or She was trying to come up with different ideas of how to stop/eliminate lag using zones etc. (forgot who his name was). I like it when people throw around ideas. Even if they dont fully understand that every single bit/byte needs to be perfectly aligned inorder for a game like DS to work smoothly. Ok i dont wanna make too long of a post. ty for reading i'll be watching this thread.
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RagAnok Admiral
Joined: February 02, 2004 Posts: 237
| Posted: 2005-05-05 04:18  
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On 2005-05-05 00:18, CeylousMirod wrote:
However I have been fiddleing with the idea of just making a game like this but CONSOLEIZED. (I know that word isnt in the dictionary). Thats right make just this particular game come with hardware and charge like $30 for it and then $10 a month.
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This was taken from the dev log
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On 2005-05-03 21:53, Feralwulf {I hug often} wrote:
02:33:56 [Admin]Tael: "my 6.0 media got borked, so only have .net 2003 to work with now..."
02:34:10 [Admin]Faustus: "well, everything will compile under both soon.. "
02:34:16 [Admin]Tael: "i cant compile to test things now, but no worries"
02:34:23 [Admin]Faustus: "because xbox development requires net.."
02:34:50 [*MYTH*]FireMoth: "hows the xbox development going anyways?"
02:34:52 [Admin]Tael: "you recompiled the armor changes tonight right? lol kluth just jumped a mir cruiser... "
02:34:54 [-GTN-]BackSlash: "still going ahead with the xbox?"
02:34:56 [Admin]Faustus: "well, make sure you get medusa, gamecq, and darkspace... put them into side-by-side..."
02:34:56 [*MYTH*]FireMoth: "or is it?"
02:35:25 [Admin]Faustus: "yeah, but the GNU port is higher priority for me now... because of this quad server I've got sitting here.."
02:35:48 [Admin]Faustus: "it's all related, once I can port it to another platform, it makes it alot easier to port to others.."
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I hope it helps
[ This Message was edited by: ragAnok on 2005-05-05 04:19 ]
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Telekinesis, thats what you need, just lay back and let your mind do the walking
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BackSlash Marshal Galactic Navy
Joined: March 23, 2003 Posts: 11183 From: Bristol, England
| Posted: 2005-05-05 07:21  
I'll but in and try fill in any gaps to my knowledge, any admin can feel free to shoot down the post like it was a 12 stone duck.
Basicly, there are several factors to the 'lag' we see in darkspace. I say 'lag' because, lag is just a slight delay in turning, and its not that we are seeing, but people say its lag. What it really is is mass de-sync. Where the CPU usage goes high, and the zone gets choked, therefor everyone in the zone gets a few seconds of de-sync, which is when our ships go round and round, or that effect when we turn left and right and the ship flickers back and forth.
What is causing the de-sync is a problem in the darkspace backend code. When Faustus coded 1.481, he re-coded the entire backend, and must have left a bug somewhere unseen, or gone through something thats just using more CPU than is needed. This means that when a certain something is happening, the CPU usage hits 100%, and the zones start to de-sync (sometimes slightly, sometimes majorly).
The other problem is the hardware, Darkspace uses a lot of objects in the MV. Faustus coded in a zone system so that when more live objects are in one zone, the cpu puts more time into that zone (therefore increasing performance). Faustus just baught a Quad Xeon server, and is moving over the backend to FreeBSD, so that he can put that on the server.
Darkspace would be near lag free without that bug, but things happen, and 0's turn to 1's without knowledge of the coder.
A faster connection wont solve this problem, although it would help on re-syncing as you recieve data faste, but on the whole, its a darkspace problem, that IS being fixed. Faustus has created a profiling system that allows him to see what threads are using how much of the CPU. That way, he can look through those parts of the code when they spike up, and change them acordingly. Take a look on beta under the topic "ProfilerClient".
Hope this helps...
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CeylousMirod Cadet
Joined: April 21, 2005 Posts: 19
| Posted: 2005-05-05 13:39  
OH btw taleal i'll respond to your post but I read backslashes last and its still in my noodle I'll type it after im done with this one it was a really good post from a hardware point of view about CONSOLIZEING
...."salivating" .... WOW... awesome input from the both of u I mean really cool and might I say highly informative. I havent done any "coding" since my days when I was 19. But I did understand backslash and he not only slammed the nail on the head with the hardware aspect of his post but also also drove it home when it comes to software. His one's and zero's comment was what was on my mind as well. Little transistors that are either open.. or closed. Its all gotta be insync every last one with with no remainder... otherwise its... BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH. I got a very good understanding from backslash on what the software side of desync/lag is.
I just have to .. just have to use caps with this -----> DEBUGGING THE BACKEND/DARKSPACE CODE MUST BE....... VERY VERY DEMANDING.
DEBUGGIN - I've spent days upon days debugging a simple calculator program I made while in college and I still didnt get it to work right (even with the cool colorcoded turbo C++ deal...I found that aspect of the compiler to be really cool) so I can somewhat.. just somewhat try and comprehend just what has the be situated and looked though while debugging DS. Hope all the debugging pays off and the most important thing I think about debugging is "TAKE YOUR TIME FAUSTUS" or whoever is debugging this stuff. I'd rather have 1 simple small thing thats fixed rather than alot of really nifty, neat, and cool things added that wont work. I personally dont care WHEN BETA IS FINALLY REALESED. You developers and debuggers out there probably dont need me to tell u this but...... KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK... yes good work. The time spent patently and mothodicly picking apart code, finding errors, etc. WILL BE VERY VERY WORTH IT.... when all this lag.... slowly.. VANASHES then the software will become more stable and reliable. (now that I think of it I might just call it something else other than lag like desyncing or something since most of the people in lobby chat believe that desync is acually a poor connection with SERVERS )
I have other questions and suggestions but I'll continue to reply after this one cuz I wanna go over with what Tael wrote in his post about my CONSOLIZING bit.
im going to thoroghly re-read again those first 2 posts cuz there good i'll post again right after this one.
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CeylousMirod Cadet
Joined: April 21, 2005 Posts: 19
| Posted: 2005-05-05 13:41  
i ment ragAlok not talel ok reading it again
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CeylousMirod Cadet
Joined: April 21, 2005 Posts: 19
| Posted: 2005-05-05 14:09  
MEGA JEE WILLIKERS!!!! I think I understand the 1st post now. You mean faustus is acutally trying to port DS code to other platform's that conform to RISC (xbox) processor technology? Also with the xbox pentium pro arcitecture isnt that RISC or is it only used in the video? Cuz I mean Whoa... if RISC is included in the processor as well then I wonder if he's going to have to re-write the entire code all over again to accept a different hardware architecture. If so then just how much psudocode/flowcharts are going to have to be ACTUALLY REWRITTEN all over again. That would be an absolutely massive undertaking and I could only guess at how much manpower is going to have to actually be used. Like switching from beta cassettes to DVD or 8 tracks to mp3's. CISC and RISC are that much different.
LAG -
Well if the code to this game is actually being ported to xbox... u can kiss whatever lag u have here for sure. I guess that solves the "DESYNC" issues that lobby chatters talk about. If this game is successfully ported to xbox I'd rather wait for xbox... but then again this games so cool I'll be playing if for awhile since im not going to school right now and I've got some mula in the bank thats paying my rent
TY for the post backslash and ragArok... again... HIGHLY INFORMATIVE.
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Legatus Immolation Marshal
Joined: December 20, 2004 Posts: 384
| Posted: 2005-05-05 14:56  
OMG SOO CONFUSING.... But really the most common Byte per second i get is entering MV at 3027 or somethin like that.. then there is Medium which is 8000-10000 and the highest ive had is 130000 bp/s
But i was connected at 3027 and so was quite a few other folk and really.. i wasnt getting any lags and others were.. ican only say its the servers fault or the game itself
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BackSlash Marshal Galactic Navy
Joined: March 23, 2003 Posts: 11183 From: Bristol, England
| Posted: 2005-05-05 15:35  
Its already been said, its the games fault, not the servers or the clients.
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