Interesting lag patterns...

BlackNova · Post by **BlackNova** » Sat Sep 06, 2008 11:10 pm

This is my sequence of lag events every single time.

1. get random ghost lag, usually 70%
2. as it goes down, i get disconnected
3. i log back in, can see others text, and can move, but cant see my own writing
4. Log out, log back in (to fix it) but i cant get into that server, as nothing happens when i click enter.
5. repeat this, after about 10 times, or 5 minutes, it lets me into the server
6. my lag then goes to 100%, and i disconnect a number of times before it finally reaches 0%, but it lets me see my text, and lets me into the server after the initial bit.
7. occasionally while im at 0.00% and 178ish, i get disconnected due to lag repeatedly, with no messages, or lag showing.
8. i either go for the night, or stay till everything clears up, usually resulting in a few hours of talking, and a couple of warp-eating, npc related deaths (which i dont actually see (the npc's) till i see the news flash)

Anyone else have events like this for lag? - only been happening for about 3 weeks/a month.

Nova

milo · Post by **milo** » Sun Sep 07, 2008 4:18 am

i've had lag problems to. similar to this but my ship isn't affectd by the lag since i can fly around fire and drop lasers and land on colonies without any delay as witnessed by myself and other people yet i still get disconnected every minute or so. this goes 20 mins on and then 20mins off pretty much the whole time i'm playing the last week or so

Post by **CaffeinatedCoder** » Mon Sep 08, 2008 9:03 pm

You're in England and our servers are on the west coast of the usa. I dont know how many hops you go through to get a packet to our servers but you could find out. The route that those packets take is dynamic depending on which hosts are currently online and running. I don't know about some of those issues that are caused due to the lag we can maybe fix some of those. The problem partially is that some part of those 20 or so hops you go to to get data to starport could go down or become non-responsive and cause you to lag out. We cant really stop that from happening.

Its on the to-do list to eventually get some servers in other places but we can't afford the time it would take to shop for them and the addional cost of buying new machines and the mess setting them up in another country. So its pretty far down the to-do list.

So I guess what I'm saying is that lag-outs and such are like the weather, sometimes it rains and sometimes it pours. There's only so much we can do about it. There is a way you can see your routing and the loss/delay to our servers.
Windows:
Start->Run
Type in cmd(xp and vista)
in the cmd window type:
tracert login.starportgame.com

That will breakdown how many hops to our servers and how many milliseconds each hop costs you. Sort of you're "weathervane" of how much lag you can expect. But as I said it can change very rapidly... the more hops the more chance that something goes wrong.

In Austin we're about 12-13 hops away from the servers.

Post by **CaffeinatedCoder** » Mon Sep 08, 2008 9:06 pm

I apologize if what I proposed is a band-aid and not a real fix. We're working on ways that we deal with lag and lagouts which will hopefully clean up some of the issues that occur in game when you lag out. But we'll never be able to fix "lag-outs"/"lag". That summation from the tracert program is like your baseline and we can't speed up your connection any faster without moving us or you

.

Professor · Post by **Professor** » Tue Sep 09, 2008 10:20 pm

Yea, my game has been lagging and d/cing soo, much the last month or so, it gets really annoying.

BlackNova · Post by **BlackNova** » Tue Sep 09, 2008 10:23 pm

CaffeinatedCoder wrote:I apologize if what I proposed is a band-aid and not a real fix. We're working on ways that we deal with lag and lagouts which will hopefully clean up some of the issues that occur in game when you lag out. But we'll never be able to fix "lag-outs"/"lag". That summation from the tracert program is like your baseline and we can't speed up your connection any faster without moving us or you .

Come over to england just for me

Yeh, i know what you mean, it is a very odd pattern though (luckily the minimize disconnections, and lag have now gone - the ghost lag doesnt happen as much now

Nova

I am 26 hops, and it goes up from the first hop, to the 26th hop from <1ms to 167ms - which doesnt mean much to me

Post by **CaffeinatedCoder** » Wed Sep 10, 2008 5:15 pm

Thats your latency, and thats not bad at all. Latency is how fast you can respond. So if the server sent you a message about where someone's ship is. It would take you 176ms to get that and display it there. Then you decide to fire at it. You then send up the message that you're shooting. That message takes 176 ms to get to the server. Thats .35 seconds lag. Say you're fighting someone that has half that. His response is about .17 seconds baseline. Latency is a killer.

Err I misstyped your latency but you get the idea.

BlackNova · Post by **BlackNova** » Wed Sep 10, 2008 5:18 pm

CaffeinatedCoder wrote:Thats your latency, and thats not bad at all. Latency is how fast you can respond. So if the server sent you a message about where someone's ship is. It would take you 176ms to get that and display it there. Then you decide to fire at it. You then send up the message that you're shooting. That message takes 176 ms to get to the server. Thats .35 seconds lag. Say you're fighting someone that has half that. His response is about .17 seconds baseline. Latency is a killer.

Err I misstyped your latency but you get the idea.

Thanks for the response, i get it now - would being 26 hops away make any major difference to the lag?

Nova

Post by **CaffeinatedCoder** » Wed Sep 10, 2008 5:24 pm

Each hop adds some latency. Hop = some router that forwards your data along. Kinda like a traffic light at an intersection.

Also and as this isnt my area of expertise I'm stretching here. I think once you get a route established for your packets you sorta use that until it stops working. But say one of those routers goes offline... a bunch of packets you sent are going to not arrive. They'll bounce back and you'll have to resend them on another route. So you can see how more hops is a larger penalty/risk of poor connections.

Finally there are pipeline issues. Imagine the traffic flowing on a road. The road is only so wide and can only accomodate so many cars. When it gets jammed it slows down. More hops = more roads = more risk of a high-traffic slowdown. There are some crazy-sick internet wires going from the UK to the USA so usually thats not an issue.

BlackNova · Post by **BlackNova** » Wed Sep 10, 2008 5:32 pm

Cool, well it seems to crash less within the last few days now, anyway, and i leave with an intricate knowledge of internet mechanics

/salute Tim

Nova

toast · Post by **toast** » Wed Sep 10, 2008 9:23 pm

this is quite possible the coolest thing i have learned in weeks if not months...

I live in new hampshire, and its 15 hops. Im usually like 140ish latency.

Haha this is so awesome...I never knew any of that stuff.

awmalzo · Post by **awmalzo** » Thu Sep 11, 2008 9:05 am

16 hops and 250ms :<, there is aparticular hop where my ping goes up from 100ms to 210ms :<