Un-Lag patch possible?

[Jedi_WilliamKy]

I tried it again last night and this game is just completely unplayable on a 56k modem. I couldn't find a server with less than 500ms ping. Most were between 500-700. Even though my connection is ****ty, I can play Everquest really well and their servers are in San Diego, CA about 2500 miles away from me. I usually ping their servers around 300ms, which is still high, but very playable.

 

 

 

Out of curiousity, do you normally play games with only the minimum requirements? Do you know what that means? It means it runs at that speed, nothing more. It doesn't mean it runs well, it doesn't mean you won't have a slide show, all it means is that it works. This goes hand-in-hand with the connection, it works on 56k, and they told you that. They didn't say you'd have a ping of 50 with one.

 

The game is completely unplayable with a 56k. It DOESN'T work.

[Bio Warrior]

if you find a good dedicated server it might work but if your attempting to get it to work on zone theres no way it will work cause im on cable and i get 999 ping just by a 56k user joinin cause after all cable users slow down 56kers cause its a different connection and 56kers slow down cable and dsl

[xgalaxy]

All Quake based game's netcode has always sucked, especially with the Quake 3 engine. Quake 2 was a lot better but Quake 3's netcode blows.

 

I'm connected to a 24mbps line shared across a network of about 500 people. I also have above and beyond the computer system requirements to run JK2 and I think the lag in this game is horrible.

 

I'll refresh the server list and alot of hte servers report below 80 pings but when I actually connect to the server its upwords in the 150's. Which isn't bad in itself but the lag spikes are KILLING ME. It will literally spike into the 600's and even 900's.

 

Granted a 150 ping isn't bad but when it spikes that bad there definately is a problem!

[Essobie]

Originally posted by NeoTrunks

You guys should check out unlagged for quake 3. I don't have a URL on hand, though. Urban Terror uses it (http://www.urbanterror.net). True Combat also uses it (http://dynamic2.gamespy.com/~q3t/). I'm sure if Raven asked the coders of Unlagged, they'd be happy to contribute.

 

Yeah... they like, HIRED one. Bryan Dube (aka Apoxol) formerly the lead coder of the Urban Terror team actually has his name in the credits for Additional Multiplayer Coding.

 

Unfortunately, the unlagged code is really only useful for hitscan weapons, and there's only the Disruptor (Quake Railgun). All the other weapons are projectile that you have to lead ANYway. Got a high ping? Lead more. It worked for me back in the Quake 1 and 2 days, it can work for you today! =)

 

Essobie

[Vanor]

Originally posted by Jedi_WilliamKy

The game is completely unplayable with a 56k. It DOESN'T work.

 

It may not work for you, but it works great on my 56k line. I get pings between 175 and 250 normaly, and find the game to be pretty much lag free even with 5 or 6 people in it.

[madrebel]

Originally posted by NeoTrunks

You guys should check out unlagged for quake 3. I don't have a URL on hand, though. Urban Terror uses it (http://www.urbanterror.net). True Combat also uses it (http://dynamic2.gamespy.com/~q3t/). I'm sure if Raven asked the coders of Unlagged, they'd be happy to contribute.

unllaged only works for hitscan type weapons. so only the disruptor would be affected in this game.

[vellox]

I think you guys are missing the point. Sure, the problem does mostly lie with the poor quality of phone lines, but part of the problem definately falls on Raven's shoulders. The game is powered by the Quake 3 engine, which means that at it's core, Quake 3 and Jedi Knight 2 use the same code. I can play a pure Deathmatch Quake 3 game and get between 160ms-250ms without any packet loss, whereas in Jedi Knight 2, I'll be lucky to get 400-600ms and be constantly bombarded with "Connection Interrupted". Jedi Knight 2s netcode needs optimisation because as it stands, there are many unhappy 56kers who I beleive for the most part bought the game for the multiplayer component and this component is truly a frustrating one for modem users.

[madrebel]

Originally posted by vellox

I think you guys are missing the point. Sure, the problem does mostly lie with the poor quality of phone lines, but part of the problem definately falls on Raven's shoulders. The game is powered by the Quake 3 engine, which means that at it's core, Quake 3 and Jedi Knight 2 use the same code. I can play a pure Deathmatch Quake 3 game and get between 160ms-250ms without any packet loss, whereas in Jedi Knight 2, I'll be lucky to get 400-600ms and be constantly bombarded with "Connection Interrupted". Jedi Knight 2s netcode needs optimisation because as it stands, there are many unhappy 56kers who I beleive for the most part bought the game for the multiplayer component and this component is truly a frustrating one for modem users.

sounds like a case of crappy servers or youre playing on someone else's crappy listen server. the problem with game slik jedi knight is they attract a very broad un technical audience. medal of honor had the same problem. Give it time for really good high bandwidth servers to roll around. then ***** about the net code.

 

p.s. dont play on the zone.

[Lucky]

For starters, whoever was talkin bout the 25k txt document is a lil misinformed. Q3 uses UDP and not tcp/ip. It makes a *huge* difference.

 

All of you having trouble need to think about where yer connecting to. If yer connecting to a dedicated server run on a 56k, its gonna lag terribly. If you have 28k of bandwidth you can play this game decently, but you have to pick your servers wisely.

 

At this point, it might mean there are only 3-4 servers u can actually get a good experience on. One of em might be a T3 on a college campus in England. Who knows. Finding these 3-4 servers out of the 2-300 that are out there is difficult. But it can be done.

 

As the game matures there will be an increase in good servers, this was previously mentioned. Lag can be caused by hundereds of different factors, and there's really no way to circumvent it on a large scale release like this.

 

Too many individual problems. You *can* however find away around it on yer own. And thats the best you can do. I've got 5-6 dialupers in my clan and they've been *playing*. They don't always have the best time, but they can definitely play.

 

Take it upon yerself to find a few good servers and you'll have a happy time. Hell, i do that now and im on cable. It just ensures that I *never* have to worry about lag or gametype or any other enumerable conditions I might not like.

 

Be smart about it and don't just try to dump it on the coders at Raven as some magical "lag" problem. It constitutes a hundered different issues, all of which contribute to yer crappy experience. I feel for yah, but don't let the immensity of the task keep you from trying to solve the problem yerself. Lots of folks have done it.

 

BTW, I bet the urban terror guy worked on the lightsaber. You'll notice it doesn't cue yer movements or swings when u have it out. I'm not sure about actual client side detection with it yet, but you'll definitely never fall victim to trigger lag when yer usin git.

 

 

Lucky

[MechDeus]

Originally posted by xgalaxy

I'll refresh the server list and alot of hte servers report below 80 pings but when I actually connect to the server its upwords in the 150's. Which isn't bad in itself but the lag spikes are KILLING ME. It will literally spike into the 600's and even 900's.

Funnily enough, I'm usually the opposite. I'll get servers reports of 140 ping, and once I start playing I'll get between 60-80. However, the first day or two that the game came out I couldn't get anything less then 200 in-game (and servers were all reporting pings of 350 at the smallest), but that was the first couple days so it's understandable.

 

I use All-Seeing-Eye for checking servers, myself, the in-game one blows and has some of the worst ping reporting I've ever seen(just like in Q3). It'll tell me there's a server with a 1 ping (yes, 1), and, of course, it's actually closer to 300. Bastard proggie that one is.

[MechDeus]

Originally posted by Lucky

For starters, whoever was talkin bout the 25k txt document is a lil misinformed. Q3 uses UDP and not tcp/ip. It makes a *huge* difference.

That'd be me, my bad.

 

I end up having most of my multipleyer experiences through personal TCP/IP with friends (RL and non), so I'm more used to that. And that way, I know who to compain to about lag issues... Already done that once with JKII; A friend has one crappy ass pure server that he tried to set up for JKII, but was lagging us at close to 200. We actually got better speeds having him become a false part of our network and running a LAN game. Go figure.

[[PoB]ArMAgeDDoN]

Originally posted by MechDeus

Mattock: Out of curiousity, do you normally play games with only the minimum requirements? Do you know what that means? It means it runs at that speed, nothing more. It doesn't mean it runs well, it doesn't mean you won't have a slide show, all it means is that it works. This goes hand-in-hand with the connection, it works on 56k, and they told you that. They didn't say you'd have a ping of 50 with one.

I just feel the need to reply to this one, anyway:

 

Your right, they didn't say we would get a ping of 50 with this game, but they didn't say that we would get Connection Interrupted all the time and a 600+ ping either, did they? Nope. Now that argument can do either way but if we are talking about what they arent saying then Im right, too.

 

And (before I say this I dont want any bull**** about different game, doesnt apply here type stuff) on RtCW I can get about a 200+ ping (which is pretty good, for me anyway) and yes I know that RtCW is mostly dedicated servers but you are able to get a decent ping in a Q3 game, and thats my point. Anyway I feel that if Raven (I dont mean to bash you all and call you fools, but just hear me out, because you did make a good game) could of picked a peer-to-peer friendlier engine. Because that was what JK1 was based on, and in all fairness thats what the most of us want (you know Im right about this) because the JK universe was just not ment to be played on dedicated servers. Because if any of you old timers remember that JK was kept together by dedicated gamers, running peer-to-peer games.

 

Yes I know Im using JK1 as a crutch but I feel that Raven should of done a little more research into the community that kept the first game alive for so long and see what made it tick. I know it would of been (ALOT) more work to create an engine from the ground up, but for the most part 56kers make up the online majority, and I feel that they should of made/picked a game engine more connection friendly. As one person put it, you should work for the masses not towards the lucky few that have broadband connections. Anyway thats just my thoughts on the subject. Do with them what you will.

[madrebel]

the majority of the people i know hated jk1 netcode. in its time it was a valid option. noawdays its not an option. there are way too many high bandwidth servers out there to not take advantage of client server. peer to peer is good for sharing mp3s. realtime apps are not good on peer to peer yet. maybe in 5 more years but not now. Not to mention the server has to render all the 3d AND act as the server in Q3.

 

jk1 netcode sucked. there is a reason quake2 was always more popular. the netcode was head and shoulders above jk1.

[Bruck Chun]

I agree with Mattock totally. Most broadband users dont know what 56kers go through. Raven didnt do enough testing indeed. Im almost disheartand I payed 70 bucks for this un-playable multiplayer support.

[Lucky]

unplayable to whom? I haven't met anybody who can't play it yet. I've simply seen you post repeatedly that you can't figure it out.

 

My advice to you: *figure it out*. There is bound to be at least 1 server in this entire world that suits your unique needs. If not then i pity you because yer in the .001% of people who bought this game that really CAN'T play it.

 

Rewriting q3's networking module would require another few months of development. q3 suits most folks now. Why should they spend the 20 grand a month it takes for them to actually create a game to suite the handful of poor suckers who bought a game they couldn't play?

 

The cost/benefit ratio is too high. Unless you solve yer own problem yer SOL.

 

 

Lucky

[Guest Obi]

Unplayable to anyone on a 56k who can't find one of the 1 in 200 dedicated servers on which they'll have a good game on, that's who, Lucky. And certainly unplayable to any 56ker on the zone. I was a huge JK player, and I loved that game, even inspite of it's strange netcode. If I had broadband, I probably wouldn't care about the 56kers either, but I certainly would if I was marketing a game with a huge 56k following(JK I community.) I also don't have broadband, so I very much care about the bulk population(56k connections, many of which aren't on bad lines as has been previously stated.) I've played around 10 games so far online. Out of those 10, only one had bearable lag. Though I'm on a 56k I get an almost perfect 52k connection and I'm on very clean lines. The pings I get are not playable at all.

 

I've tried the /rate 3000 command, and while it helped, it didn't make any drastic improvement. I absolutely love everything Raven has done with JK II. I think the animations, force, saber and weapons are all absolutely spectacular, well thought-out and well balanced. The only thing I can't stand is the lag. I want so very badly to be able to enjoy a decent game online, like I did in the predecessor to this game, Jedi Knight. But alas, I can't. It's not really Raven's fault, it's definitely got much to do with the engine. But I am arguing against those of you broadband users who are telling us 56kers that it's perfectly playable, because it's very much not perfectly playable. I wish that Raven could and would do something about this lag. But it's probably that there is little that can be done.

[Essobie]

I'm going to say something here that may crush a few people's hopes and dreams, but here it goes anyway:

 

First Person Shooters will never go back to Peer-to-Peer architecture because it is a horribly flawed gaming model that is about the least secure multiplayer experience you can have.

 

The only way that 56kers can get a "feeling" of a lagless game is if it WERE mostly client side, and then you'd be back to shooting at ghosts like you do in JK1. If you are happy with that, that's fine... but that doesn't make the statement false that peer-to-peer FPS is gone for good.

 

So what does this mean for the 56ker in JK2? Well, the bots are entertaining at least... but frankly you are up poopcreek when it comes to playing on the Internet. Broadband, while not EVERYWHERE, IS in places with the most people... plenty enough people to sell a game to that requires broadband.

 

Last peer to peer game I played that was worth a crap was Clusterball... and to me, it would have been a lot better had it NOT been peer to peer. It's mainly the reason I left it, and the reason I left JK1 and Interstate 76, and Descent 2.

 

Would I give up playing FPS's multiplayer if I couldn't have broadband? That's easy: yes. I would give it up. That's how certain I am that it is required.

 

Essobie

[Mattock]

If peer to peer is horribly flawed, then this way must be too.

 

If the vast majority of people who are currently on the internet cannot play on this type of game, then this code is horribly flawed as well.

nuff said.

[madrebel]

Originally posted by Mattock

If peer to peer is horribly flawed, then this way must be too.

 

If the vast majority of people who are currently on the internet cannot play on this type of game, then this code is horribly flawed as well.

nuff said.

mattock YOU are not the vast majority.

 

there are plenty of 56k players out there that play quite well.

 

1. you must have a good hardware modem, winmodems WONT work as well.

2. you must use an isp that is as physically close to you as possible

3. tweak you modem settings like there is no tomorrow

4. tweak the in game settings to best fit you connection.

 

go to http://www.tweak3d.net they have lots of good tweak articles for you.

 

get isdn if you can afford it. but dont whine about the client/server architecture not working. the best online fps games use it. name 1 peer to peer online game that has more people playing it than say, uake2 at its prime, or counter-strike now. You cant so stfd and stfu. go cry about your modem else where. Raven cant fix the internet.

[Tap]

Get gamespy. It makes it much easier to find those few good servers. I first played on the zone and damn near cried(exaggerating for effect) it was so bad. Then I tried game spy and I was able to find some good games and even a few really good ones. For all you jk "old timers" stuck with dial-up, which I am one, it's not gonna be the same as it once was. But with alot of searching and patience good times can be had!

[Mattock]

I didn't say fix the internet, don't be so hostile.

 

I have been to EVERY tweak site you can imagine. I have had 3 different dialup modems. I have tried EVERY local ISP in my town. I live in a SMALL town where we don't have rich mommy and daddy's to buy us ISDN as if it were even available in our town. I'm NOT asking Raven to fix the internet or my crappy phone lines. I'm asking them to clean up the net code A LITTLE BIT which they are perfectly capable of doing but were too lazy to do the first time around.

 

People can tell me to not make this comparison all they want but I will just keep on.

 

Tribes 2 was HORRIBLE on 56k modems when it first came out. But they released a patch and now its fantastic. If they can, so can anyone else.

[SPY_jmr1]

carful your starting to get close to troll bait hear...

 

i am sorry that it (jkii) did not live up to your expectaions(sp??) for the mp. as it has been said oveandoverandoveandoverandover again(is that a song? ) tribes2 IS NOT IS NOT Q3 and never will be. raven chose to make this game for the few(maybe more then we think now?) who have broadband internet, be it cable dsl dental fillings what ever:rolleyes: that was there choice. if you sent them a 4-5 mil $ check/money order, i am shure that raven/id/lec would be more then happy to make you a game that worked on 56k dialup.

 

i wish you dont. wanna know why? cos then we'd have to hear how noone is useing the server of the game that only YOU own becouse you hired raven to make it for YOU.

 

[/rant]

 

ok back to what we wear talking about.

 

i am on a 64k isdn line. the mp gameplay is mucth like ef and rtcw mp demos, that is to say with a ping of about anyware from 150 to 350 with spikes higher.

if you want to join a 32 player ffa dm on 56k, follow thise direcions: step 1; remove head from rec............ well maybe not.

 

dream on! aint never gonna happen! there is no posable way to move that mucth info over that pipe! dont bring up t2 again pls, it does not seem to have any bering on this problem.

 

what you must do is: disregard anyting over 16 players AT ALL. 8 is better. 8 close players is best. i am on a line hardly better then a 56k buyt do i complain? no i hav efun playing this WONDERFUL! game instead. i can find a server any time i want useing the built in broser(how ever bad it is to some of you, its better than the zone:rolleyes: ) to find a server i can PLAY on! if the lag is to bad, i find a new server.

 

if its that horable to get crummy pings then TAKE IT BACK TO THE STORE!

 

aorry your pissed at raven for not consulting you on how to make there game:rolleyes:

 

ps: ever heard of a LAN party? hear look it up http://www.google.com

 

pps ***holes at swb, 500 feet out of range for dsl........

 

 

force long post level 76:D 2056 letters

[Landorin]

I made some rules to improve online gaming with JK 2, look here: http://www.lucasforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=37353

[Jedi_WilliamKy]

It's pretty obvious this thread is going to degenerate into a 56k vs. broadband user argument. I've been in several arguments on a lot of different message boards and the broadband users all seem to have this elitist attitude. That attitude is typically, "The game works great for me , get broadband or get the hell out". They also seem to have this very far-fetched attitude that the whole gaming universe should revolve around them. They don't seem to understand that broadband is not available everywhere, in fact, it's not available in most of the U.S. There are other factors also why people may not have broadband. Cost being the main issue. Most parents probably aren't going to pay the extra money for their children to have broadband, especially if the parents aren't going to be using it.

 

So let me give you a link to the OFFICIAL Nielson/NetRatings as of March 2002.

 

http://cyberatlas.internet.com/markets/broadband/article/0,,10099_985891,00.html#table

 

Narrowband users outnumber you almost 4 to 1. The gap IS shrinking as broadband gets more widespread. So I will concede that point to you. You also need to consider though, that broadband is hitting a roadblock. Many companies are going belly-up bankrupt because they spent a ton of money to roll out the backbone and haven't recouped that investment.

 

If you look at the numbers, 22,000,000 people are using broadband. Of that number, 60% or 13,000,000 are using it for gaming. 13 million is a pretty small target audience don't you think???

 

And this is where I slam the game companies. It is possible to make today's games run pretty decent on a 56k connection, but as others have pointed out, it drives up the development cost and takes more EFFORT. Pure laziness rules the day when it comes to optimizing net games for the MAJORITY of users out there.

[SPY_jmr1]

i am not going to comment on the 56k vs. broadband, beyond this: dsl would cost have as mutch as the isdn we have now. it would prefrom(sp?) 3 times better. wicth one do you think we'd rather have/use? what do you think the phone comp. would rather do:more money, less service or less money for them more for the consumer?

 

ok rant at southwestbell over.

 

the numbers you put up there are interresting.

 

if 13 million peaple have bb internet(sounds about right)and use it for gameing, how many will buy this game? lets say 1/3rd:thats about 4300000 or so. now onlyy some will get the tin for about 50us$ say also 1/3rd thats 1440000; that produses 7220000 dollars in sales. that leaves 2860000 nerds to buy the box version at say 40$ that is 114400000. total bbinet sales: 121620000$ OR over 121 and a 1/2 million dollors. thats better then some movies.

 

what kinda money did this game take to make? could you break even on the kinda money we are talking about?

 

NOTE: the above numbers are RANDOM GUESSES!

 

sending the flaming debate in a new diretion:D