Randofu
Smash Journeyman
I am a graduate student in Networking. I'm currently surveying online games to get a sense of how well they perform, what latencies are required to use them, etc. I'm also a Brawl fan, so some of you may have seen me around here before.
I finally got around to surveying Brawl a little bit today, and what I saw when reading these forums was reprehensible. I have avoided Brawl's online play (and discussion thereof) like the plague, after my initial advice that Brawl's online play would not work very well (before the game came out) met with so much scorn. Now, I see that people have been giving some very misguided advice in some cases, so I'd like to try to help with that as much as I can.
Before I call for questions, I will confirm that the following advice is correct:
1) Using a wired connection will reduce lag. As far as I can tell, this probably isn't due to wireless interference. I'm not exactly sure what the cause is, but some people have suggested shoddy wireless cards (which would make sense with Nintendo's hardware philosophy).
2) Reducing downloads from other computers which share your connection will reduce lag. I think this is obvious, but basically your downloads can cause your connection to the Internet to become congested, which results in packet delays and drops, both of which contribute to lag in Brawl.
3) Playing opponents near you in terms of NETWORK LATENCY is the only way to get acceptable performance. Someone can be near you geographically but far away from you in terms of network latency, especially if you use different ISPs. I don't really have the time to make something like this, but someone could try to set up a network coordinate system such as Pyxida to try to discover Brawl players who have low latency.
With those out of the way, if you have any other networking questions I can try to answer them for you. I may need to run a few tests or look into some research papers before I can get back to you on certain questions. For specific ISP information I might not be too helpful. I'll try my best though.
I finally got around to surveying Brawl a little bit today, and what I saw when reading these forums was reprehensible. I have avoided Brawl's online play (and discussion thereof) like the plague, after my initial advice that Brawl's online play would not work very well (before the game came out) met with so much scorn. Now, I see that people have been giving some very misguided advice in some cases, so I'd like to try to help with that as much as I can.
Before I call for questions, I will confirm that the following advice is correct:
1) Using a wired connection will reduce lag. As far as I can tell, this probably isn't due to wireless interference. I'm not exactly sure what the cause is, but some people have suggested shoddy wireless cards (which would make sense with Nintendo's hardware philosophy).
2) Reducing downloads from other computers which share your connection will reduce lag. I think this is obvious, but basically your downloads can cause your connection to the Internet to become congested, which results in packet delays and drops, both of which contribute to lag in Brawl.
3) Playing opponents near you in terms of NETWORK LATENCY is the only way to get acceptable performance. Someone can be near you geographically but far away from you in terms of network latency, especially if you use different ISPs. I don't really have the time to make something like this, but someone could try to set up a network coordinate system such as Pyxida to try to discover Brawl players who have low latency.
With those out of the way, if you have any other networking questions I can try to answer them for you. I may need to run a few tests or look into some research papers before I can get back to you on certain questions. For specific ISP information I might not be too helpful. I'll try my best though.
