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Developer Update 9/27/2004... |
Faustus
Marshal
Palestar
Joined: May 29, 2001
Posts: 2748
From: Austin, Texas
|  Posted: 2004-09-27 11:23
OK, due to new developments in Beta, and the introduction of a priority based queue for sending data to the clients, it becomes less practical to keep the UDP communications layer because it now creates more problems than it solves...
Thus... I'm going to roll back to the code tonight, and go back to using the previous stream based communications layer with the new data queue and see what effect that has on the lag. I suspect it will perform just as good if not better than the UDP communications layer.
Not to mention, dial-up users should be able to connect to the MV again using the old stream based communications layer.
Before anyone gets their panties in a wad... this is only a test, and we can very easliy switch back to the UDP layer if lag gets worse... but I suspect everyone will see improvements.
-Richard
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Astral Viper
Cadet
Joined: February 27, 2003
Posts: 343
| Posted: 2004-09-27 11:40
your the boss for a reason big F
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GTN wasnt just a Fleet it was a Family we all were and still are and always will be brothers in our hearts.
From the ashes of Earth we rise like a pheonix spreading our wings
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Demorian
Fleet Admiral
Galactic Navy
Joined: October 06, 2001
Posts: 3406
From: Charlotte, North Carolina
| Posted: 2004-09-27 11:41
Quote:
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Before anyone gets their panties in a wad...
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I love you, Richard.
In a Truly,
Completely,
Purely heterosexual way.
-Dem
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Coeus {NCX-Charger}
Admiral, I can't read,
Sundered Weimeriners
Joined: February 16, 2004
Posts: 3635
From: South Philly
| Posted: 2004-09-27 11:41
Suck up 
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Darkspace: Twilight
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TAZ
Cadet
Joined: July 04, 2002
Posts: 143
From: U.S.A.
| Posted: 2004-09-27 11:47
Here is a spare pair of panties for those who didnt quite understand the request!!
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Pope
Fleet Admiral
Joined: June 11, 2002
Posts: 2449
From: World of tomorrow
| Posted: 2004-09-27 13:21
Minimal difference in playability between 25 kbit / s and full line speed.
Can you say "Yeeeeehaaa!"?
There seems to be an amount of Laggers (Fighters) in the air at which FPS and perceived connection quality drop massively. Unfortunately the Game ended before i could check this out further. This might simply be related to full L2 cache or something, so probably nothing that can be changed to easily.
All in all, i am impressed. Previous tests at 25 kbit/s showed a noticeable difference in playability, now there is near to none.
In the life MV there will be a lot more Factors, and we will see which parts of the priority scheduling need tweaking.
Can we have a "Woop Faustus!"?
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Rocki
Grand Admiral
Joined: August 13, 2002
Posts: 1029
| Posted: 2004-09-27 13:28
Woot... from the looks of it I'll be getting in the lobby again! Yay for big F!
[Edit]Wait, did the rollback happen already? If it has, I'm still screwed...
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Never send a human to do a cyborg's job...
[ This Message was edited by: Rock (What\'s with all these tags?) on 2004-09-27 13:30 ]
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Fatal Command (CO)
Chief Marshal
Fatal Squadron
Joined: November 27, 2002
Posts: 1159
From: Back in Texas and noticing some ppl are like canoes.....they need to be paddled.
| Posted: 2004-09-27 13:29
 dont have panties
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Coeus {NCX-Charger}
Admiral, I can't read,
Sundered Weimeriners
Joined: February 16, 2004
Posts: 3635
From: South Philly
| Posted: 2004-09-27 13:44
Que? What rollback? :|
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Pope
Fleet Admiral
Joined: June 11, 2002
Posts: 2449
From: World of tomorrow
| Posted: 2004-09-27 14:48
The rollback didn't happen, and should not have influenced the test at hand..
In any case the rollback will happen on Beta first. (i think!)
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Gideon
Cadet
Joined: September 14, 2001
Posts: 4604
From: Oregon, USA
| Posted: 2004-09-27 14:52
Quote:
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On 2004-09-27 14:48, sono wrote:
The rollback didn't happen, and should not have influenced the test at hand..
In any case the rollback will happen on Beta first. (i think!)
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Dude, Sono, read the post date, and the content of the post...
Posted on Sept. 27 (today).
Content states he will test the code rollback to TCP from UDP tonight,and test it on beta.
Rollback hasn't happened yet...
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The learned fool writes nonsense in better language that the unlearned - but it's still nonsense. - Benjamin Franklin
[ This Message was edited by: Gideon on 2004-09-27 14:53 ]
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...and lo, He looked upon His creation, and said, "Fo shizzle."
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Coeus {NCX-Charger}
Admiral, I can't read,
Sundered Weimeriners
Joined: February 16, 2004
Posts: 3635
From: South Philly
| Posted: 2004-09-27 14:56
Jeez... code rollback... sorry. Too much Asheron's Call... lol. There, a rollback means a database rollback - of stats & inventory... lol
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Gideon
Cadet
Joined: September 14, 2001
Posts: 4604
From: Oregon, USA
| Posted: 2004-09-27 15:00
Quote:
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On 2004-09-27 14:56, Coeus {NCX-Charger} wrote:
Jeez... code rollback... sorry. Too much Asheron's Call... lol. There, a rollback means a database rollback - of stats & inventory... lol
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Databases here are completely separate from server, communications, and client code.
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...and lo, He looked upon His creation, and said, "Fo shizzle."
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Pope
Fleet Admiral
Joined: June 11, 2002
Posts: 2449
From: World of tomorrow
| Posted: 2004-09-27 15:06
Quote:
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On 2004-09-27 14:52, Gideon wrote:
Dude, Sono, read the post date, and the content of the post...
Posted on Sept. 27 (today).
Content states he will test the code rollback to TCP from UDP tonight,and test it on beta.
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That's what i said, no?
Gee i managed to be unclear again
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[ This Message was edited by: $ono on 2004-09-27 15:12 ]
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kailii
Vice Admiral
Joined: March 06, 2004
Posts: 9
| Posted: 2004-09-27 17:35
Umm. UDP and TCP/IP both got their pros and cons, it depends on how the outcome of failure is handled.
TCP does it automatically, being the prime lag contributor besides bandwidth limitations so far. But the latter is worth another thread, i'll skip it.
Suggestions:
Within UDP, lost packets fire back on the programmer. Take care of them by requesting acknowledge reports by the clients in a seperate queue.
Never try to resend lost packets except chat (if it's handled seperately), as for an iron rule you'd create more confusion than solutions.
Lost packets feel fine in internal statistics, drop any client above 15% or so, you know the numbers better than I do. Never look back.
To compensate, create a "watchdog" (old reference I know), and have it scan for idle or low traffic communications. Send out complete coordinate data then, not just changes. Let the client decide what looks better to it, preferring constant streaming though.
Another point of view:
DS server/client communication looks like being quite unoptimized. Over the fence, MMORPGs know how to do it, because they have to. Imagine running a server farm servicing just a few 100,000 players?
In that case, rule of thumb says only transmit what is absolutely necessary, like what is already in place in DS: Player X is too far away from my position so i don't need to get his bearings.
Think further. Crunch that data down, compress it, let the client do the work like in: 5 torpedoes coming at me from that cruiser, not torpedo #1, #2, ... , #5.
Limitations of the game rules are in order as well. Two squads of fighters being launched from a ship is OK. Launch the third one and #1 goes up to DS heaven, delete it.
Software Architecture:
Never send out packets from everywhere in the game. Have them gather up in a queue knowing about current internet traffic to a specific client and maybe its capabilities. Does not hurt to assume everyone being on 56.6K though.
Every piece of information ready to get on the way - and you should be ready to forget about that noun and verb §$&§§$!" by now - is persistant on size, got a timestamp and a priority flagging. Three bits or so.
At this point, the queue decides. When to send, what's on delay status, what to skip, whom to kick.
Just some suggestions. But if you're not willing to follow at least a few of these thoretical step stones, i'm pretty sure there will be an active thread in the Eve forums about the demise of DS pretty soon. Just as we flagged some of their thoughts as rubbish somewhere here in these forums a few days ago.
With good reason? Time will tell.
kailii
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