Server Lag

[adrenaline]

seems there is a significant delay on all hosts on gos.net... which leads me to believe its the server itself, not the hosts. many others have noticed this as well. whuddup with that?

[punkUser]

Game hosting does not go through the metaserver at all, it's all directly between the host and players hence why folks who are firewalled/behind NAT cannot host.

The only difference might be due to film recording. That should have minimal effect since it's really about the overhead of having one additional player in a game, but please do try some games in the non-films rooms and see if they lag too. Also use the in-game ping feature in 1.8 (press delete) and let me know what sorts of pings you're getting. Try some games on known good hosts near you as well and see if you still get lots of delay.

Bit scatter-shot I know, but as I said, the metaserver isn't really involved once a game is hosted except for the potential film streaming. It's possible that is affecting stuff which is why you should try some in the other room (with the same host, back to back ideally), but sort of unlikely.

Long shot if you still get lag in both rooms, try TCP/IP and let me know. But again, playing a game in the non-films room should have no overhead over any other netgame.

[adrenaline]

Well ya... the games last night were played in a film room... that makes sense then. I looked at the pings using del... hosts that showed ~50ms in lobby were all ~130ms+ in game. Even the hosts complain that they feel the delay... so it must be the film streaming. It's a nice feature, but I don't see anyone wanting to play a MWC match with that constant delay. I'm at work, otherwise I'd test it a little more... perhaps tonight. With autosave films being integrated in the last couple builds, I don't really see films being an issue anymore, anyways.

[Giant Killer General]

punk, I don't get that. it doesn't have to stream the whole game for you to be able to click the "save film" button in the post-game, why do you need to stream it during the game? I didn't realize that it worked like that. this would be a major problem IF what adren says is true, which I don't think is really 100% confirmed yet. I haven't noticed it, but if yur talking about 80 ms, that would be tough to notice. but really any additional delay is always a bad thing.

[adrenaline]

you may not have been playing in a "Films" room yet, GKG. We tried a few different hosts last night, and everyone INCLUDING the host felt the delay. I even hosted my own game solo and felt it. Give it a shot.

[Giant Killer General]

people have only been playing in the films room this entire time.

I just tried hosting a game solo to really look for it. I noticed absolutely no delay. soooo looks like this is not really 100% confirmed yet.

[adrenaline]

weird... i tried it a few times last night. use a dorf and run around a bit changing directions... it's a bit more noticeable in someone else's host, but i could still notice it on my own host. and not all game have been played in a films room... we played a bunch in a non-films room the other night and no one complained of the delay there.

[punkUser]

I looked at the pings using del... hosts that showed ~50ms in lobby were all ~130ms+ in game.

That's expected, the lobby "pings" are really approximate and only one direction, whereas the ingame ones are more of a "round trip time", i.e. how long from you clicking a command to seeing the response on your screen. 130ms should be plenty fast to not perceive a delay.

Even the hosts complain that they feel the delay... so it must be the film streaming.

Hosts should never really feel delay, even with film streaming (similar to host doesn't see delay if a client is lagging). This one is odd and needs more investigation. So you're saying you feel delay when hosting by yourself? And it's noticably more than playing SP? Is it different in a non-films room or TCP/IP? It's possible that something with the film streaming is buggy or interacting badly with some network connections, but it's fairly unlikely...

It's a nice feature, but I don't see anyone wanting to play a MWC match with that constant delay.

I don't get any delay on a decent host, so I don't think it's that simple. For instance, all of par's games yesterday were totally fine, and all in the films room. Got some lag on shadow's host, but I hear he's in Russia or something, so that's expected.

this would be a major problem IF what adren says is true, which I don't think is really 100% confirmed yet

Right, agreed this would be an issue, but I don't think this is proven.

I haven't noticed it, but if yur talking about 80 ms, that would be tough to notice. but really any additional delay is always a bad thing.

No it doesn't add any additional latency directly (see my comment about the ping discrepancies ingame vs lobby), it adds a small amount of bandwidth approximately equal to having one additional player in your game. So if you host a 4 player game in a film room, it's about the same bandwidth load on the host as a 5 player game hosted in a non-film room. Myth uses a tiny amount of bandwidth by today's standards, so only really bad connections (like, remote 3g connections or modems or similar) should notice any difference.

we played a bunch in a non-films room the other night and no one complained of the delay there.

Like I said, no one complained of delay in pars games yesterday too, so I don't think it's that simple. If you can notice it when you're playing by yourself then could you do the tests I mentioned above and let me know where you see it and where you don't (films room, non-films room, TCP/IP, SP)? Try to be as accurate as possible... if it's hard to distinguish, I need to know that.

There's no conceptual reason why the films thing should be causing overhead on decent connections, so if it somehow is, we need to debug it. The fact that it doesn't happen all the time/to everyone though seems to indicate it may not be the root issue, but more investigation is needed. Even with autosave films, it's a useful feature since it allows all the tourney stuff to be nicely linked to films without people have to post them, other people can download films they were not a part of easily, etc. Furthermore it's the basis of some future features like viewing in-progress games (and eventually joining potentially), viewing past games right from the lobby, viewing synced films together (for casting, etc), multiplayer save games, metaserver routing (to enable anyone to host) and more.

[Giant Killer General]

ok so the film streaming should never cause delay then, at the very worst it could only cause very slight lag.

[punkUser]

ok so the film streaming should never cause delay then, at the very worst it could only cause very slight lag.

Yeah if the host is like "at the limit" of their bandwidth and adding one more player would cause lag for them then it has a similar effect to adding that one more player. But like I said, Myth uses practically no bandwidth...

As a rough estimate, you can look at the size of a film, divide it by the time the game took and multiply it by the number of players in the game for the outgoing bandwidth requirement for the host. This works because the host is actually roughly "streaming the film" to each player in the game (hence why the metaserver is about the same overhead as one additional player).

So take this game for instance: http://games.gateofstorms.net/games/158. Film is roughly 116KB * 9 players / 587 seconds ~ 1.78KB/s average required by the host.
That's roughly 0.014 megabits/s, so yeah, modem territory. Adding one extra client barely changes that (0.015) so even folks with terrible 0.256 megabit upload speed have >10x the required bandwidth assuming they are not saturating their connection with P2P traffic or similar.

In reality it might be a little higher due to packet overhead, but not by a ton. Myth basically only sends data when someone issues a command, so even 16 high APM folks just can't generate a ton of traffic on the grand scheme of internet speeds

[adrenaline]

Well I dunno... everyone in the games last night complained about the same thing, and we tried a few different hosts. Kryptos' host (he said he felt delay while hosting as well), battleaxe's host (same thing), and some other guy can't remember his name. We play a game of KG and trying to heal herons in the delay was laughable... both for me and the person I was fighting. I then hosted my own game, myself the only person in the game, and could still notice the delay.

I'll test it more rigorously tonight, but there were 6+ people in these games all saying the exact same thing about the delay... just saying, it wasn't only me.

[punkUser]

I'll test it more rigorously tonight, but there were 6+ people in these games all saying the exact same thing about the delay... just saying, it wasn't only me.

Oh I'm not saying it is - normally when there's delay for everyone in the game it's a host thing, but hard to know for sure. Just trying to narrow things down here is all.

For instance if you experience delay in the "laughable" variety again, please try the non-films room with exactly the same host/players, and if it's still there as well, please try TCP/IP if possible (or mariusnet once its back up).

[adrenaline]

Come to think of it, EW was in some of the games as well... and also commented on the delay. I didn't say the delay is "laughable"... trying to heal a red heron in time with the delay is "laughable". Just picture 6 herons healing a bit too late and dying one after another. That was our KG game. And a bunch of dorfs dodging arrows just a bit too late and dying... etc. It was like watching myth amateur hour.

[punkUser]

Right, I just mean if you run into a case where it's really obvious (not just slight), please try those other cases and see whether it's like "flawless" in one of the other ones. I'm trying to separate out variables so I can figure out where things are going wrong

[adrenaline]

I should have some time to look at it tonight... I'll give you an update later.

[adrenaline]

just tested it out and oddly enough it seems ok now :S

[punkUser]

Hmm ok, well keep an eye out and keep me informed. Definitely not something that is expected!

[Asmodian]

I have got significant lag in every game I have played on this server. My connection is not great but I never experienced anything like this on Marius so I'm not sure what is going on.

[punkUser]

I have got significant lag in every game I have played on this server. My connection is not great but I never experienced anything like this on Marius so I'm not sure what is going on.

Same notes as I told adren... but really if you're just a client, I'm not sure how the metaserver could be making any difference to you.

[Zak]

its not the server, its probably a mix of the new DTEX and 1.8

[punkUser]

its not the server, its probably a mix of the new DTEX and 1.8

If you're talking about client performance (fps), then yes some computers may not be able to handle dtex. Overall, at the same settings 1.8 should generally be slightly faster than 1.7.2, but things like adding dtex (due to JG's nice pack) and extended zoom increase the workload.

[Zak]

I've had delayed loads on 1.8 that don't happen on 1.7.2

[punkUser]

Can you explain what you mean by "delayed loads"?

[Zak]

The loading bar will take longer to finish

[punkUser]

Should generally be slightly faster if anything, but again, you gotta compare apples to apples. If you're using dtex now (or on more maps) and weren't before, that obviously affects load time.

[Zak]

Yeah but I noticed that lag before I put the new dtex in