New to online play, trouble with online client

[Hiphiphooray]

Just got my Project64k setup to play online and I've managed to connect to a few games but the lag is just unbearable. Basically, either I receive some graphics error and the entire program freezes up, or we play lagged the entire time. It says I have a ping of 96 and a delay of 6-9 frames, but this cant be right. My computer is extreme new (vista) and my internet connect is 54mbs (wireless). Are there any settings that need to be changed or any ways to reduce this lag?

I've gone through both basic tutorials on how to setup online play so the generic stuff is already taken care of. I don't use full screen mode, and am playing on 800 x 600 resolution even though my computer is 1900x1200 (id like to increase resolution if i can).

Any tips are greatly appreciated!

 

[ciaza]

You can have a brand-spanking new computer and amazing internet as much as you like but that won't change the fact you're however many kilometres away from the server. Ping is determined mainly from location, so if I'm in Australia trying to connect to Galaxy I'm not going to have a good ping. Find out what server is located closest to you and connect to that one.

As for the graphics error I can't help you as I do not use Vista. I would recommend trying Project64k Vista Edition if you have not done so already.

 

[th3kuzinator]

Just got my Project64k setup to play online and I've managed to connect to a few games but the lag is just unbearable. Basically, either I receive some graphics error and the entire program freezes up, or we play lagged the entire time. It says I have a ping of 96 and a delay of 6-9 frames, but this cant be right. My computer is extreme new (vista) and my internet connect is 54mbs (wireless). Are there any settings that need to be changed or any ways to reduce this lag?

I've gone through both basic tutorials on how to setup online play so the generic stuff is already taken care of. I don't use full screen mode, and am playing on 800 x 600 resolution even though my computer is 1900x1200 (id like to increase resolution if i can).

Any tips are greatly appreciated!

Welcome to the boards :3

If you are using vista use P64kVE (like ciaza said)

Ping and delay are NOT relative to your connection, it is relative to your distance from the server which is currently located in Chicago.

If you are lagging all game then it is either you internet connection or computer.
Since you state your computer is new (and spyware free I hope) then it must be your internet connection.

If you are using any type of wifi, you will lag regardless of its strength. However, if you hide your SSID or create a password for the router your connection speed will surely improve.

I am on Wifi and play with a resolution of 800 x 600 and am fairly lag free (and my computer is pretty old too). If you have 6-9 frames of delay then you are probably located far away from chicago and you cannot do anything about this.

I would also suggest updating your kaillera client from here

Any more question you have are probably in this thread

http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=262536

Happy Smashing!
-kuz

 

[Hiphiphooray]

You can have a brand-spanking new computer and amazing internet as much as you like but that won't change the fact you're however many kilometres away from the server. Ping is determined mainly from location, so if I'm in Australia trying to connect to Galaxy I'm not going to have a good ping. Find out what server is located closest to you and connect to that one.

As for the graphics error I can't help you as I do not use Vista. I would recommend trying Project64k Vista Edition if you have not done so already.

I'm playing on vista edition and have most recent updated client. Does P2P play cause less lag? Will it cause less if we r still further away?


I live in South Carolina and the Chicago server causes a lot of lag, but no other servers are populated. Does this mean I'm **** out of luck?

 

[th3kuzinator]

I'm playing on vista edition and have most recent updated client. Does P2P play cause less lag? Will it cause less if we r still further away?


I live in South Carolina and the Chicago server causes a lot of lag, but no other servers are populated. Does this mean I'm **** out of luck?

Though galaxy is somewhat laggy, it is probably your connection.

Can you post a picture of your results from speedtest?

P2P will help in most cases. Depending on where your opponent lives of course. However, if you have a bad connection and host p2p --> bad idea.

 

[Hiphiphooray]

I'm currently away from my computer but ill have it posted by 2moro if ur still interested.

So do most people play online through p2p with someone nearby then?

 

[asianaussie]

most people seem to play on server actually, which is silly

 

[th3kuzinator]

most people seem to play on server actually, which is silly

agreed. Which is mostly brought on by people being too lazy to simply PM their IP to someone or by people not understanding how to forward ports.

Either way, its silly.

 

[Sempiternity]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but lag has nothing to do with your connection speed. It's all gotta do with how well it handles packets.

I remember firo saying something about how kaillera was designed for play on even a dial-up connection. If you have bad network traffic or your internet provider sucks at keeping packets in line, then you're gonna lag.

I think kaillera depends on every packet successfully reaching its destination (which really isn't the best way to go about things), so every time you lose one, or it arrives out of order, etc. you're going to experience lag. I keep telling people to run tests here http://ndt.anl.gov:7123/ and peruse the results from the statistics tab to see how well your ISP is doing in the packet department.

I still don't know what packet queuing really is, but apparently it's bad, and makes you lag, and I got a whole ****load of it!

 

[dandan]

the easiest way to determine whether you lag or not on the server is to do a lot (1000 or so should suffice) pings on it (just type in cmd "ping [server ip] -n 1000"), see what is the average and then see what is the max, if you see the max is far from the average (20ms or more) then you are having lag spikes.
those can be caused by numerous reasons, but the most apparent is the fact you are using wireless, you really should connect physically to the router.
if you see no spikes, then maybe you played with people who lag, or perhaps the servers was hiccuping at the time (though i am pretty sure it was the wireless connection).
hope that helped.

 

[#HBC | ѕoup]

Hello fellow Vista user, how's it feel with the memory leaks galore?

Rawr taught me this, and it works fine.

on your vista, press ctrl+shift+escape, opening your control panel. then go to processes.

Right-Click on your project64k.exe(i use KVE because i suck) and click 'set priroty'

Don't forget to close out anything not being used while playing!

anyways, set your priority to 'real time', if you can't, just set it to high.

what this does is help decrease memory leaks and also helps the computer focus on one program decreasing lag.

hope this helps!

 

[firo]

The above posters are correct. Kaillera depends on smooth packet transmission rather than speed. Bad wireless routers can cause this, especially if the connection is shared, but a router with a good firmware (like ddwrt or tomato) will work fine. What should be implemented is the ability to establish a p2p connection directly within the server window.

 

[th3kuzinator]

What should be implemented is the ability to establish a p2p connection directly within the server window.

I would love this.

 

[Korrupshen]

Like Soupa said, if you have anything running in the background "close" it.

 

[dandan]

ddwrt is amazing, makes the routers so much more powerful, open source project success :D

 

[Hiphiphooray]

Like Soupa said, if you have anything running in the background "close" it.

I've used the program game booster, found here: http://www.iobit.com/gamebooster.html

basically you click "game mode" and it closes everything that can be possibly be closed except the game itself. when your done, u click "normal mode" and it turns everything back to normal. Really increases performance for those with shared computers with tons of programs and background services.


th3kuzinator, here are the results from speedtest:

http://www.speedtest.net/result/1022551450.png



Sempiternity, I took results from your link as well and have no idea what it means >.<

"running 10s outbound test (client-to-server [C2S]) . . . . . 882.0kb/s
running 10s inbound test (server-to-client [S2C]) . . . . . . 3.02Mb/s
The slowest link in the end-to-end path is a 10 Mbps Ethernet subnet
Information: Other network traffic is congesting the link
[S2C]: Packet queuing detected"

anyone? =P

 

[dandan]

you really should do the pings, it is so easy to see if you lag there.

 

[Sempiternity]

You've got network congestion which is never good, and packet queuing which is even worse. I'm pretty sure it's the equivalent of a traffic jam, just on the internet. Try taking that test at different (obscure) times during the day and see if anything changes. Check the Statistics tab to see what percentage of the time you're packets are being held up.

Spoiler

This is the info you want. As you can see, it's a peak hour (7pm), so I've got serious packet queuing going on (80%!), packets being straight up lost and the connection STALLING as a result (yeah, that'll **** up online play), idle connection meaning nothing's happening (say hello to frozen game for several seconds), and general network traffic that slows things down.

The network limitation of my connection is also rather high, although it's always like that.

Suffice to say that I'm ****ed for kaillera, at least at school, and you are too.

Good luck playing without lag!

 

[Hiphiphooray]

You've got network congestion which is never good, and packet queuing which is even worse. I'm pretty sure it's the equivalent of a traffic jam, just on the internet. Try taking that test at different (obscure) times during the day and see if anything changes. Check the Statistics tab to see what percentage of the time you're packets are being held up.

Spoiler

This is the info you want. As you can see, it's a peak hour (7pm), so I've got serious packet queuing going on (80%!), packets being straight up lost and the connection STALLING as a result (yeah, that'll **** up online play), idle connection meaning nothing's happening (say hello to frozen game for several seconds), and general network traffic that slows things down.

The network limitation of my connection is also rather high, although it's always like that.

Suffice to say that I'm ****ed for kaillera, at least at school, and you are too.

Good luck playing without lag!

Today around 3 - 4 i was playing alot better online. enough to actually not get booted from games =P.

Heres the results from the test at that time:

10 Mbps Ethernet link found.
Link set to Full Duplex mode
No network congestion discovered.
Good network cable(s) found
Normal duplex operation found.

Web100 reports the Round trip time = 142.71 msec; the Packet size = 1460 Bytes; and
There were 7 packets retransmitted, 326 duplicate acks received, and 329 SACK blocks received
The connection stalled 1 times due to packet loss
The connection was idle 0.37 seconds (3.36%) of the time
S2C throughput test: Packet queuing detected: 65.28%
This connection is receiver limited 10.04% of the time.
This connection is sender limited 45.42% of the time.
This connection is network limited 44.54% of the time.


Yet, id love to increase the performance of my computer if i can. Other than hooking up to the router directly, is there any way to improve the networking? How would using good firmware (like ddwrt or tomato) effect the performance?

 

[Hiphiphooray]

you really should do the pings, it is so easy to see if you lag there.

I'm already pretty certain I'm lagging, but I ran the pings anyway. My average was around 60-70 and my max was 201. Is there any methods that can reduce this without having to physically connect to the router?

 

[th3kuzinator]

Wow 201 was your max spike?! I sense a bad cable provider

 

[dandan]

is there no possibility for you to connect to your router, because i can almost assure you most of the connection problems will cease when you do so.

 

[Sempiternity]

Problems like these are really issues with your ISP... hate to break it to you.

2-4pm is generally when I get decent online play without too much lag, as well as the morning. If you can, play then, otherwise, it'll be really packed.

I suggest you try the test from everywhere you can; if you're at a friend's house, just ask if you can pop on their computer and run it, just to see what it looks like. However, I suspect that the internet all around you comes from the same ISP (if you're at/near a college campus), so you might be out of luck.

 

[Hiphiphooray]

I managed to connect directly to my router which did fix the majority of my problems. However, I'm still suck only playing from 2-4pm =/ **** ISP around here sucks!


Anyways, thanks for all the help guys. Hope to play some of you soon =)