Lag !once and for all settled!

[Stiler]

Ok after arguing in gamespy to stupid people, would any network tech guy like to correct me if i'm wrong. But if you have a bad ping and join a game, that in effect will NOT make the server lag will it? i have heard that that doesn't cause lag but only to you not everyelse.

 

[insdav3]

the majority of people say laggers / high pingers lag other people playing... maybe it's just a myth.

Maybe the server uses more bandwitdth to try to catch up the other person? Just a thought

 

[Czar]

thats wrong, lag only effects your time sending data to the server, it does not cause the game to slow down for other people.

 

[iamwiz82]

<< thats wrong, lag only effects your time sending data to the server, it does not cause the game to slow down for other people. >>



not true in all games. For example, MOHAA slows down play for others so that high ping guys have the same chances as low ping guys. If you dont believe me, go play game with one person who has a huge ping.

 

[Pacfanweb]

<<thats wrong, lag only effects your time sending data to the server, it does not cause the game to slow down for other people. >>

I don't believe that. I've been playing UT plenty of times, and everyone had good ping. Then, one dude comes in with crappy ping and everyone's goes to hell.
The guy leaves, and everything is alright again.

I've seen that many, many times.

 

[Czar]

<<

<< thats wrong, lag only effects your time sending data to the server, it does not cause the game to slow down for other people. >>



not true in all games. For example, MOHAA slows down play for others so that high ping guys have the same chances as low ping guys. If you dont believe me, go play game with one person who has a huge ping. >>


I'v only playd it on lan so I dont know what ping is when it comes to that game

but if a game does that then it is done intentionaly by the programers and has nothing to do with the network.

 

[jobberd]

Does a fileserver slow down for everyone because one user has a high ping?

 

[Vic]

People who lag do not cause lag for other players on a server. In order for that to happen, it would mean that the server pinged each individual player in turn, waiting for each individual response before pinging the next player. That, of course, would be really crappy netcode. In reality, with the netcode in almost all games, the server pings and communicates with players constantly and in any order, and does not wait for individual responses before attempting to communicate with the next. The netcode is multi-threaded, meaning that the server handles all the client communications simultaneously. Therefore, one lagging player does not lag the whole server.
So how did so many people get this mistaken belief?
Well... first, older netcode (in old Q1 for example) was not quite so versatile.
Second, lagging players in many games can be hard to track because of their tendency to "warp."
Third, not all lag is caused by a server's bandwidth problems. In fact, a lot of lag occurs when a server has too many players on it and its CPU and/or memory is overloaded. People cry out, "Kick the laggers!" and then do, and whadayaknow, the lag is gone! But not because they happened to kick the people with high pings, but because the server is no longer overloaded.

/edit: some have brought up issues with games that have "lag compensators" for people with high pings, for example Q3 engine-based games like MOHAA (I haven't played the multiplayer on this one) or Q3UT (urban terror, I play this one a lot). This "lag" has been purposefully placed into the netcode in order to level out the playing field between LPB's and HPW's. Personally, I hate this, but then I go by the old skool belief that having a faster computer is just part of the game and that some people should get off their cans and upgrade.

 

[Czar]

<< <<thats wrong, lag only effects your time sending data to the server, it does not cause the game to slow down for other people. >>

I don't believe that. I've been playing UT plenty of times, and everyone had good ping. Then, one dude comes in with crappy ping and everyone's goes to hell.
The guy leaves, and everything is alright again.

I've seen that many, many times. >>


I've playd UT for a long long time, was probably one of the best players in Iceland though that doesnt say much. Anyway, most of us had ADSL or ISDN and when someone with a modem or from someplace outside of iceland joined nothing slowed down. Never ever happened, when I joined servers in norway or denmark I was seeing plenty of people with ping under 100 while I had 150-300.

 

[Stiler]

i swear people are so dumb, they still don't beleive me.

 

[sandorski]

Not true, high pingers do not lag low pingers. In fact, for some games low pingers with high fps can cause lag. The reason being: In some games data is sent to the server based on a players fps, if that player is getting 200fps and everyone else is getting 30fps, the player getting 200fps is sending much much more data to the server than the other players. This can overload the server and cause lag. This is the primary reason why games cap the fps when playing multiplayer.