Forums » General
Test Server Lag?
Um... yeah, it can be bad sometimes. Disconnect people even. Any idea what's the cause?
Probably because the test server is, like, an internal test server running on a single, really old machine, as opposed to the production server which is a cluster of relatively new machines?
You shoulda played when the production universe existed on a single Celeron in the 500MHz range. :-D
You shoulda played when the production universe existed on a single Celeron in the 500MHz range. :-D
o.O
It's also on a completely different network, the stability of which can fluctuate independently of the production cluster. Plus, we also restart it fairly often for development reasons, which immediately kicks everyone off. Goes with the territory.
We're looking into switching to more of a "Test server" and "Development server" kind of thing, where people writing missions and testing things can have a relatively stable platform, while our development machine is more actively unstable.
We're looking into switching to more of a "Test server" and "Development server" kind of thing, where people writing missions and testing things can have a relatively stable platform, while our development machine is more actively unstable.
Just a real general question before I go and spend money on subbing to this game.
1). Are the lag problems bad on your main game server?
(I ask this because having played DarkSpace for some time where the lag causes you to lose ships and in doing that prestige)
I have found that lag also highly restricts the expansion of the game in many ways including new players and would like o join a game where there is more than 10 players online most of the time.
Hoping that Vendetta is better than darkspace and that the users/players are more friendly than those in darkspace.
1). Are the lag problems bad on your main game server?
(I ask this because having played DarkSpace for some time where the lag causes you to lose ships and in doing that prestige)
I have found that lag also highly restricts the expansion of the game in many ways including new players and would like o join a game where there is more than 10 players online most of the time.
Hoping that Vendetta is better than darkspace and that the users/players are more friendly than those in darkspace.
Lag, server side at least, is not a problem usually. Your ISP's lag however we cannot help ;)
covolt, we have a free 8-hour trial. You've already signed up for an account, why don't you just download the client and give it a whirl? It'll probably answer a lot more of your questions.
Generally, our production server is pretty "lag" free. It has about 2000x as much horsepower as what is ask of it, at present, and it's on "decent" internet connectivity (Cogent/RoadRunner/Level3). But, the entire internet fluctuates, and we have no control over that, or what might happen between us and you. Plus, someone mentioned in another thread that you're in Australia? That's pretty far away, you may find that you have "lag" in pretty much any North American or European game, regardless of the game.
Ideal coast-to-coast latency in North America is about 45ms (and that's *ideal*, usually it's worse than that). That's for roughly 2500mi. Milwaukee to Sydney is 9,260 miles. So say, for easy figuring, IDEAL case would be 170ms round trip time, on top of whatever's induced by your cable/dsl, getting out of your local network, IP stack overhead on your machine from the CPU being heavily used, and so on. Plus, that's an ideal case that assumes enough bandwidth is available between those two points.. in my experience (which is some years out of date now), Australia usually saturates its connectivity to north america (since such a large chunk of the internet is here). If the links are saturated, then your "lag" is going to increase dramatically.
So, I would give it a shot, see how it works. Our game was originally designed for modem play (28.8kbit, 250ms latency), and our network protocol is probably one of the best in the industry, in terms of efficient usage. But nothing's perfect, and there's no magic to overcome network problems or latency induced by equipment over long distances.
Generally, our production server is pretty "lag" free. It has about 2000x as much horsepower as what is ask of it, at present, and it's on "decent" internet connectivity (Cogent/RoadRunner/Level3). But, the entire internet fluctuates, and we have no control over that, or what might happen between us and you. Plus, someone mentioned in another thread that you're in Australia? That's pretty far away, you may find that you have "lag" in pretty much any North American or European game, regardless of the game.
Ideal coast-to-coast latency in North America is about 45ms (and that's *ideal*, usually it's worse than that). That's for roughly 2500mi. Milwaukee to Sydney is 9,260 miles. So say, for easy figuring, IDEAL case would be 170ms round trip time, on top of whatever's induced by your cable/dsl, getting out of your local network, IP stack overhead on your machine from the CPU being heavily used, and so on. Plus, that's an ideal case that assumes enough bandwidth is available between those two points.. in my experience (which is some years out of date now), Australia usually saturates its connectivity to north america (since such a large chunk of the internet is here). If the links are saturated, then your "lag" is going to increase dramatically.
So, I would give it a shot, see how it works. Our game was originally designed for modem play (28.8kbit, 250ms latency), and our network protocol is probably one of the best in the industry, in terms of efficient usage. But nothing's perfect, and there's no magic to overcome network problems or latency induced by equipment over long distances.
I have recently had the misfortune of losing my DSL service (ask me about Earthlink some time) and have been playing via dialup. I only fight bots so I don't have to hear about my lag from live pilots, but the lag has been FAR less than I had anticipated. I've had one lag bubble that was problematic (in that I froze and then died in a hail of ions from every direction) but considering I'm connecting in dialup from California, I expected much worse.