NEXT GEN CONSOLES

[eFestivals]

Got to say am on VM 60MB connection and don't have any lag issues when playing online.

I know they are working at the head ends to replace all the kit there, hence them offering double broadband speeds as a roll out.

I should have included with what I said that it's not necessarily the case all-round for VM customers. It depends what equipment is on the circuit a person is connected to.

But it's defo the case that some of their switchgear is shite, and slows down gaming (and some other applications. eg: Skype) quite significantly despite the fast download speeds.

Edited July 31, 2012 by eFestivals

[jammy2211]

Anyone know what the best ISP for playing COD on? I have a 30MB Virgin Media Superhub and it's killing me on MW3 due to the Lag Compensation. I'm host nearly every game which puts me at a massive disadvantage. The game is unplayable some nights.

Is Virgin Media bad for online gaming generally (despits it's fast connection speeds) ? Or is just MW3 and the lag compensation that's causing me problems?

[the_hedge]

Our VM on wireless was absolutely woeful online... and the router was in like the room next to my PS3. ONce I ran a wire it ran a lot smoother, but still had bad times at sort of peak hours (6pmish) - but that .was probably cause it was a house of 5 students 1 of whom torrented a lot.

If you're on wireless get a wire going.

[Spartacus Mars]

Anyone know what the best ISP for playing COD on? I have a 30MB Virgin Media Superhub and it's killing me on MW3 due to the Lag Compensation. I'm host nearly every game which puts me at a massive disadvantage. The game is unplayable some nights. Is Virgin Media bad for online gaming generally (despits it's fast connection speeds) ? Or is just MW3 and the lag compensation that's causing me problems?

[the_hedge]

Vigin Media is legendarily bad for gaming. You could minimise yourself from being host by closing your ports. But if you have your modem set-up correctly, i.e. QoS, ports, and are using it wired, there's not much you can do save switching.

As has been said, it's nothing to do with download speeds, or upload speeds, it's to do with ping and network responsiveness. The amount of data being sent between your consoles is minuscule, the network load has barely increased since the mid-90s and Quake 1 and dial-up modem gaming.

As for WHO to move to... million dollar question. Anyone except Virgin pretty much.

Edited July 31, 2012 by the_hedge

[the_hedge]

Anyone used Plus Net for gaming? Apparantly they have a specific set up for gaming?

[The Nal]

[G-Stud]

Christ, Francis!

[jammy2211]

Anyone used Plus Net for gaming? Apparantly they have a specific set up for gaming?

Edited August 2, 2012 by jammy2211

[t8yman]

Why don't you go into your router settings and limit the speed on your Xbox's IP address to 6mbps, that way you won't get host?

[Spartacus Mars]

Well my ping is really good. It's around 19, the lower the bet

ter I believe? I have been told it's because my connection is' too good' I'm suffering due to the lag compensation on MW3 but just wanted others opinions.

[windy_miller]

Never had any problem with plus net for gaming - or anything at all. Top quality service all round.

[Purple Monkey]

Studio Liverpool is dead

[the_hedge]

A few people I know have put their VM Super Hub Router into Modem only mode and bought a decent Wireless router and have experienced much better connections.

Surely this would be no better than connecting the Super Hub to the Playstation via a wired connection?

[Spindles]

I probably shouldn't be admitting this, but I used to hack virgin (still do, occasionally, but only if my connection goes down, I'll throw a hacked modem on the line and spoof another modem from a different area to see where the fault lies) and know a fair bit about their system as a result.

I only read the last 2 pages, but there is some shocking information provided! I also used to be involved in writing computer games and know a fair bit about netcode, so I am fairly confident in what I say.

Just to be clear, if virgin have a bad reputation for gaming services, it is among people who don't know what they are talking about, virgin have long provided an excellent service for gamers and in the first few years of their cable network an active group of gamers were providing tracert information daily so that they could work to improve in areas where it was not so great (you are NEVER going to get a good game on a finnish server, this isn't the fault of virgin, this is geography).

the_hedge, if you are pinging 19 to a server your connection is good (check for packetloss as ping is not everything) and it is more likely that the issue you are experiencing is in the software or the server you are connecting to, not the connection at your end or the hardware provided.

"Lag compensation" is the worst myth to hit netcode and has degraded the experience for everyone so that people who whine the loudest (because their computers were crapped out with bad installs of bloated shite) can compete on an even field with those who have a decent rig and a decent connection, there was never any reason to allow this to move to consoles, as this is supposed to be an even field for everything apart from connection (which cannot, realistically, be resolved by software).

The way games communicate with servers evolved through various models in the 90s and the unreal engine's model where the server is authority and clients predict, then correct from server each tick (or less frequently if you prefer) has proven to be the most effective way to ensure that all players have a comparable experience and that no one player reduces the experience for others. Zero ping, lag compensation and other names for taking a working idea and breaking it just to justify the views of people who are wrong in their thinking shouldn't still be going on, but it is.

Sorry to rant, I'm sure it's clear it's not directed at anyone here (apart from the comment that virgin provide bad gaming connections) but netcode is something that should be simple and we reached a point where the best model was reached a long time ago, but somehow has been corrupted since by caving in to those who shout the loudest, that MW3 on a console contains software that corrupts the model just demonstrates this. Turn it off if it is an option, unless you are connecting to a server with a ping of 200+, in which case the better answer would be: connect to a better server.

Any modern connection on any decent machine should ping <50 to any server as far afield as france or the netherlands, once you get to germany, sweden or spain it's going to be degrading and by the time you get to ukraine or finland it will be unplayable. This is not the fault of your ISP, they are responsible only for the cable between you and them and the routing from them to the next major step up on the network.

[Spartacus Mars]

Actually true lag-compensation has been in every net game ever. What MW3 doesn't do is "lag compensation" as the term has been understood for years, decades even, it should be "host-advantage throttling" or something.

Anyway, popped-in to say SLEEPING DOGS is pretty much the best open-world game since Saint's Row 2 or Mercenaries 1.

[Spindles]

Ah, clearly you have some insight into the subject that I do not. My only knowledge comes from uscript coding since 98 in both modding and published titles on the unreal engine and a couple of decades of reading on the subject.

Not going to get into an argument though. I'm going to make some dinner, it'll be more productive.

[Spartacus Mars]

I started my programming on the Commodore Vic 20, then C64, then Amiga, then to PC where I extensively modded the Quake engine everything from QuakeLab tutorials to my own version of bots (PS, Quake is SO much better than Unreal, Carmack is genius or a cyborg from future - but probably both), have contributed to published games, have reviewed games for PC Format, had over a decade as a full-time programmer (though not games), now have a degree in Game Programming from Glasgow and am helping a fellow graduate make his honours-project game, and I'm putting more time into understanding and refining my variants of the A* algorithm.

That said, I'm NOT a network coder.

To me, to my tiny somewhat-autistic robot brain, lag compensation is what it says on the tin - compensating for lag because you NEED to synchronise - compensate - for varying lag between players, dropped packets, etc. What MW3 does (in addition to that) is "compensate" for host, i.e. it actively slows the host down, if you're playing MW3 PC you're advised to throttle your own GPU, on console you're advised to set your router NAT to Closed.

That has been called "lag compensation", both generally and by IW, but to me it's more properly called host throttling.

But as I say I'm primarily into AI (both heuristic, and the what I call the "apparent intelligence" facsimile most games have instead of anything approaching AI).

[Spindles]

Ah, because the previous post looked like quite a sweeping statement, thanks for making it clear you know what you are talking about. Most lag compensation I have seen (and like I say, I speak only from a uscript side) comes from the "zero-ping" base that emerged a few years ago and only serves to add an unnecessary confusion, providing a slider that takes the game from "working as it should" to "behaving erratically" when the player doesn't really need the option in almost all situations.

With Quake and basically all network games in the 90s the server pulled in data from the clients and the passed this data out to all of them, which leads to there being the potential for differences in what you see on screen on one client in terms of location, direction etc at any time, with varying latencies (much worse pre-cable modem/dsl days) this could be quite a large difference and, with some earlier netcode models would lead to the experience of all being dictated by the player with the worst connection, a player could literally "lag out" a server.

In '98 Tim Sweeney's model, where the server is always the authority and clients predict and are corrected, became the norm, other engines like source moved over (it was previously based on q2 engine) and now, unless a game is really badly coded (most are on middleware) this would be the model used.

In the middle of the last decade, however, a school of thought decided that, because this means that sometimes in high speed network games (FPS mostly, my own area) this meant that what YOU see on screen would sometimes not be the reality that the server or other players understand, then you would miss on a shot where you hit from what you saw. The compensation for this is to take the whole model and turn it on it's head, which pleased a minority but leads to a setting that, in a world where most people are playing with a sub 50 ping, is totally unnecessary and in fact, in the highest speed network gaming situations, just serves to make things choppier.

I saw a game I had worked on (and was alot of fun online) adopt this method in a later patch and the multiplayer aspect fall apart. In a high speed network situation (ping of 50 gives you 20 fps and so on) there shouldn't be a need to have the pc compensate through software when movement, direction, etc are updated at that rate, any attempt to just mangles the network experience.

Sorry if I came across as dismissive, it's just that your comment came across as a sweeping generalisation and is incorrect. Lag compensation has not been in every game ever, it came about in the later 90s as a result of the evolution of the client server model.

I've been programming myself since the z80 days also, not going to get epenis about it, I work in a call centre because I a suffer from mental illness and blow my life apart every few years, so I don't have any credentials to throw down there, but I am rather proud of what we achieved with Tactical Ops, I managed to lead a team that got our game on the GOTY edition of ut2004 and have worked on several non-profit mods since, the most recent (not working on atm because I've been ill, but they use my code and content) is www.http://criticalpointgame.com/ which is in the same tactical realism genre as MW et al, does not use additional lag correction beyond the standard middleware option and will be MUCH fun to play when released. Also the guns are pretty.

Edited August 22, 2012 by Spindles

[Spindles]

I also didn't explain the quake network model very well there, but I'm now too lazy to go back and type up a precise explanation of how quake, then quake 2 evolved the netcode model and how it reached the point it did in '98, if anyone REALLY wants to know the exact details of how server authority with client based prediction differs from how Quake used to do things, google is your friend.

[Spindles]

Studio Liverpool is dead

[lost]

think team 17 are still going, local to me and a couple of mates went there but I lost contact

Edited August 23, 2012 by lost

[Uncle Liam]

Can someone please give me very basic step by step instructions on how to get ROMS to work on emulators.

Downloaded Zsnes.Doesnt make sense anymore. The games used to be in it already!

[Spartacus Mars]

INTERESTING NETWORK STUFF

[Spindles]

Heh, cheers for the offer, but I haven't been able to work in months for health reasons and that isn't likely to change soon. I'm sat around all day recovering from surgery and still can't use my right arm (I use splashtop on a tablet as I can't use a mouse) and when I've recovered I'm going to have more surgery and lose the use of the left. Coding is my least favourite discipline (I fill in on projects in the area to help out simply because I have the experience) and primarily I'm more an artist, no disrespect to coders, of course, getting a good one is almost hard as getting a good animator.

When I am back to work (hobby hours, it's back to the call centre soon) it will be back to CP as the team is made of people I've been working with for over a decade at it's core.

*edit* text added below

To be fair, that makes it sound worse than it is, I can use the right arm more and more with each day and last night typed the exact post you are replying to on a real keyboard and used a mouse without too much difficulty, I just hadn't been able to for a while. I cannot overstate how much software keyboards frustrate me.

Edited August 23, 2012 by Spindles