I'm very worried about lag.

[Sicklylol]

I know everything is still in pre-alpha, but let's use this thread to discuss what how stable we think the game will be. I never played PS1, but from what I can tell the game was plagued with warping and terrible lag. Will Planetside 2 be any different? Have the Devs commented on the net code?

[Immigrant]

Don't worry, be happy! :D I'm quite sure that devs haven't forgotten about that.

[Rainfur]

I know everything is still in pre-alpha, but let's use this thread to discuss what how stable we think the game will be. I never played PS1, but from what I can tell the game was plagued with warping and terrible lag. Will Planetside 2 be any different? Have the Devs commented on the net code?

The net code for that game was not very good, I'd expect little to no lag in this one, as the team is more experienced, and new technologies will have come out in the transisiton between the two. However, if your internet speed is slow, it doesn't matter. =/

[The Kush]

I know everything is still in pre-alpha, but let's use this thread to discuss what how stable we think the game will be. I never played PS1, but from what I can tell the game was plagued with warping and terrible lag. Will Planetside 2 be any different? Have the Devs commented on the net code?

No you are being way over the top. It was not that bad or I wouldn't have played.

[Sicklylol]

Have they commented on what improvements they are making, or is this all speculation?

[Stardouser]

I'm curious as to whether they're going to use client side hit detection. You know, that enables you to be shot 3 seconds after running around a corner.

Related to being shot around the corner, is there going to be ricochet in the bullet physics?

[Kipper]

Have they commented on what improvements they are making, or is this all speculation?

I think "improvements" is probably the wrong term, that implies they are taking PS1 and patching it up. I feel fairly confident in suggesting that the net code will have been entirely rewritten.

10 years of development in MMO and online gaming, not to mention broadband infrastructure - I'm sure the system will cope provided the player meets basic bandwidth and system requirements.

[SKYeXile]

Netcode in PS1 was fine, its about the only MMO you can play with a high ping at a competitive level, yet alone a shooter.

[Mastachief]

I'm curious as to whether they're going to use client side hit detection. You know, that enables you to be shot 3 seconds after running around a corner.

Related to being shot around the corner, is there going to be ricochet in the bullet physics?


Planetside 2 will be a combination of client and server hit detection.

They first game had it's flaws but it was still a great technical achievement for 2003

[RadarX]

Lag and stability are top concerns and we have folks on them.

[KTNApollo]

Lag and stability are top concerns and we have folks on them.

Could you say that you have top men working on it? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=yoy4_h7Pb3M)

[Dreamcast]

Planetside came out when a bunch of people used 56k...Luckily I had DSL which made things better..

But comparing speeds of then till now, is way better now...So I think most people should handle it...the only problem now is how the game is designed.

[Crazyduckling]

9 years in technology is a lot. Plus, they have experience in those 9 years to make corrections. No one else has that but SOE.

[GameCobra]

The other issue is PC handling for people that are still 9 years old =P

would those PCs still work, i wonder?

[DirtyBird]

Some of us played PS1 from across the other side of the world and it was playable.
Sure there was a bit of lag but that was to be expected and you adjusted.
It was a bit difficult against a bunny hopping jackhammer or dodging Magriders.
I expect it would develop a great deal after 9 years.

[Toppopia]

I found these specifications about my laptop, i could only find these.

Intel Core i7 CPU q720 @ 1.60GHz, 4 cores, 8 logic processors.
RAM 4GB
NVIDIA GeForce GT 230M

But people say that graphics card is bad so my laptop probably won't run this game, but when i look it up it says it is pretty good. Or am i missing something?

[duomaxwl]

Netcode in PS1 was fine, its about the only MMO you can play with a high ping at a competitive level, yet alone a shooter.

This.
The netcode was designed for dial up, and it was an amazing accomplishment at the time. I have no doubt they will do great things with Planetside 2. Everybody needs to stop panicking until we get our hands on it. Even then, don't panic, but help them fix it with feedback.

[DirtyBird]

I remember looking at some of the PS1 pics with the long grass etc and thinking how cool it all looked. But come game time, all those distractions were turned off and it certainly helped my old machine back then.
Today with a far superior PC setup I will probably still turn all of that off if I can to maximise performance.

[Xaine]

I played Planetside 1 a lot, and honestly - i wouldn't say it suffered from warping or terrible lag at all.

99% of the time it was perfectly playable. I have no idea where this idea comes from.

[Mjolnir]

Could you say that you have top men working on it? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=yoy4_h7Pb3M)

Top.


Men.

[cellinaire]

I know everything is still in pre-alpha, but let's use this thread to discuss what how stable we think the game will be. I never played PS1, but from what I can tell the game was plagued with warping and terrible lag. Will Planetside 2 be any different? Have the Devs commented on the net code?

I'm worried about that, too. But no need for this kind of thread to pop up on this forum almost every other day. ;)

[cellinaire]

I know what you are saying but many show up here lately and many more will in the future. Maybe too lazy to search but if you find it redundant there really is no need for you to reply is there?

With many new members showing up, and yeah there's no need for me to reply. But is there a reason I'm not allowed to write that, I don't know. And it isn't even like I'm replying in every thread of this kind.

Better not get too serious, I'd guess :cool:

[FINALCUT]

Could you say that you have top men working on it? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=yoy4_h7Pb3M)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoy4_h7Pb3M

I'm not worried.:lol::groovy:

[Koenside]

I'm really concerned about lag as well, because this isn't PS1 with 133v133v133 its 666v666v666. That's a lot more players and a lot more objects that need to be tracked. Even if battles are more spread out, there will be times where there could be battles with up to 1400 people at once.

However if they pull this off, I can't see PS2 not being the most epic game EVER.

[KALU]

I managed to play PS1 8-9 years ago from Australia on West coast severs at about 200-250MS and it was playable so with today's tech i think everything will be ok :)

[SKYeXile]

I managed to play PS1 8-9 years ago from Australia on West coast severs at about 200-250MS and it was playable so with today's tech i think everything will be ok :)

Yea i can play BF3 or COD on US servers alright, its not as good as playing on AU server sure, but its nowhere near as bad as playing something like unreal or halo on high ping servers.

I think were in good hands though, SOE seems to be the only company with the tech and ambition to pull something like this off. I honestly would not trust anybody else to do it.

[Toppopia]

I managed to play PS1 8-9 years ago from Australia on West coast severs at about 200-250MS and it was playable so with today's tech i think everything will be ok :)

This makes me feel alot better about being in New Zealand. :)

[SKYeXile]

This makes me feel alot better about being in New Zealand. :)

I play from Australia and held top weekly kills and XP for months straight. like i say, the netcode is great. These Americans don't know wtf they're talking about.

[KALU]

All i am hoping / praying for are WEST COAST servers - it does make a difference for us Oceanic players :)

Having the West coast servers shaved about 50-100ms off from memory.

Had no idea you are an Aussie SKYeXile! - good to know :)

[DirtyBird]

Oceanic players are kinda of use to it now but to those in the USA that have to switch from East Coast to West Coast or vice versa its considered game breaking.
In AU we have no issues playing on servers on the other side of the country (eg. Perth > Syd) or across the Tasman to NZ.

What about those services offering lower pings, could they be implemented into the game or provided by SOE. They seemed to work quite well for those using them in WoW.
Perhaps another side cash opportunity for SOE.

[SKYeXile]

Oceanic players are kinda of use to it now but to those in the USA that have to switch from East Coast to West Coast or vice versa its considered game breaking.
In AU we have no issues playing on servers on the other side of the country (eg. Perth > Syd) or across the Tasman to NZ.

What about those services offering lower pings, could they be implemented into the game or provided by SOE. They seemed to work quite well for those using them in WoW.
Perhaps another side cash opportunity for SOE.

nah thats just because wows netcode was shit. they have fixed it now, no reason to use a tunnel, you wont beat 150ms to san jose. id expect 180ms ping min if you play on the east coast of aust. Which imo is playable for us.

this is my speedtest from work.

http://www.speedtest.net/result/1977287013.png

on occasion i got close to that ping in PS(on markov anyway), but it would range from 180-220. a tunnel isn't going to do much to fix the 13,000km off travel across the pacific.

this is SOE, no blizzard. blizzard had this enabled in wow:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagle%27s_algorithm
Applications that expect real time responses can react poorly with Nagle's algorithm. Applications such as networked multiplayer video games expect that actions in the game are sent immediately, while the algorithm purposefully delays transmission, increasing bandwidth at the expense of latency. For this reason applications with low-bandwidth time-sensitive transmissions typically use TCP_NODELAY to bypass the Nagle delay.[3]



thats why we all got fucked up pings, cause they're RETARDED.

[Nabeshin]

As long as I don't get chinasided in the back after being seperated by 3 flights of tower stairs I'll live with whatever they come up with.

[SKYeXile]

As long as I don't get chinasided in the back after being seperated by 3 flights of tower stairs I'll live with whatever they come up with.

it is still going to behave like clinetside, so thats probably likly...dont know about 3 stairs flight, but yea, still expect to die around corners.

[Nabeshin]

it is still going to behave like clinetside, so thats probably likly...dont know about 3 stairs flight, but yea, still expect to die around corners.

You could have lied just to make me feel better Sky, you bastard.

[Brusi]

The other issue is PC handling for people that are still 9 years old =P

would those PCs still work, i wonder?

Are we talking about 9 year olds playing Planetside? Cause i have a feeling that they will have some trouble at first, but will get better at it with practise.

They can learn the ropes from all the 12 year olds.

[Anderz]

Lag and stability are top concerns and we have folks on them.

I just HOPE to the high heavens that there is an Australian server. Any FPS with a ping above 150-200 is crippling in my experience.

[KALU]

I just HOPE to the high heavens that there is an Australian server. Any FPS with a ping above 150-200 is crippling in my experience.

I dont think we will be getting a AUS server - so dont get your hopes up sorry dude...

I would play on U.S anyways as i have all my friends from PS1 on there, and they are actually more important to me than ping surprisingly.....

[DirtyBird]

No really relevant to anything but, if you are still at work SKYeXile try that test to the San Jose Internode link, I assume you used the SmugMug? cos i get a similar result as you to there and shit to the other.

[SKYeXile]

No really relevant to anything but, if you are still at work SKYeXile try that test to the San Jose Internode link, I assume you used the SmugMug? cos i get a similar result as you to there and shit to the other.

That was the internode, but that connection is raw fibre, location right on the backbone, if you get better than that, you;re doing pretty well. best iv ever got it to san jose is 150ms.

this is my test from home.

http://www.speedtest.net/result/1977364442.png

[KALU]

I just HOPE to the high heavens that there is an Australian server. Any FPS with a ping above 150-200 is crippling in my experience.

That was the internode, but that connection is raw fibre, location right on the backbone, if you get better than that, you;re doing pretty well. best iv ever got it to san jose is 150ms.

this is my test from home.

http://www.speedtest.net/result/1977364442.png

yep 200ms sound BANG ON! correct from memory of the old west coast servers.

Very playable IMO

[IHateMMOs]

I played Planetside on a gaming LAPTOP and it was smooth as hell, and that was years ago, now they have the technology to support that many players. Why are you guys so worried? Think happy thoughts.

[UKSwiFT]

Seeing as they've designed ForgeLight in-house specifically for this kind of thing, you can expect performance to be considerably better. Especially as higher speed connections are now the norm. I'd also say that their experience with dealing with what they had back in '03 puts them into a good position for avoiding the mistakes they made and building upon what worked well.

Lag would pretty much kill the game, so I'd say they probably have a sizeable investment in squashing any problems of that nature. I wouldn't worry.

[Xyntech]

PS1 did a pretty damn good job considering everything it had going against it at the time, and SOE has had a lot of experience since then. PS1 couldn't be tweaked hardly at all, while this time they seem to be keeping an eye towards the future with Forgelight. Combine this with the fact that network architecture and peoples internet connections have improved, and I don't think it's anything to get too worried about.

We know that Higby has said that having 1000 people standing in the same place would be a problem, but having all 500 players stand in the same place on a PS1 continent wasn't ever a real world scenario in actual gameplay. So as long as they do a good job of spreading the populations among a few major and several minor battles, I'm pretty confident that PS2 will perform as well as or better than PS1 across the board.

This really falls into the same category as F2P concerns though. It's just a fact of the matter that the game needs to perform well to keep players interested. I'm confident that the devs have this, because they need to have it. If they don't have it handled, then there is no amount of doubt or confidence in the world that would change the fact that the game would fail.

So just don't lose any sleep over it and let the professionals do their job. This isn't one of those gameplay or balance or aesthetic issues where we can really make a valuable contribution to the development by talking an idea through.

[RadarX]

Could you say that you have top men working on it? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=yoy4_h7Pb3M)

I save that line for when the servers go down unexpectedly.

I could have elaborated yesterday but typing on an iPad can be awful so I'll do it now. We absolutely understand the effect lag can have on a gameplay experience especially in regards to PvP based FPS combat. It's a top priority and there are folks doing their absolute best to make sure the issue is mitigated if not eliminated all together.

[Karriz]

I'm a bit worried about bandwith usage. 64, even 128 players is all fine on my 1mb connection, but what about 2000? Is player data sent from the whole continent area?

[SniperSteve]

I'm a bit worried about bandwith usage. 64, even 128 players is all fine on my 1mb connection, but what about 2000? Is player data sent from the whole continent area?

First off, the bandwith required for each user on the map is not too much. For simplicity, allow me to consider the case where the connection is 1MB (not 1mb). Even if you had all of those 2000 players sending you 10 packets a second, that means each packet could be over 50 bytes. (lets say 3 longs for the XYZ coordinates [~3*8=24], then velocity vectors: 3 shorts [~3*2=6], then an id for the animation (reloading, crouching, jumping, etc) [2 bytes], then an unique ID for the weapon customization code (includes both the gun and the camo pattern)[4 bytes], then an unique id for the armor/vehicle(dictates the class as well) [2 bytes], an id for the weapon loadout [2 bytes], a list for the player customization specifics, assume at most 5 properties: [~2*5=10 bytes]
Total packet size: 24+6+2+4+2+2+10=50 bytes.) So it is plausible that even with 2000 people sending you packets at a reasonable rate the 1MB bandwidth would be able to handle it. Of course you could send packets for people nearby more frequently than people far away. You could also have multiple packet sizes for people far away vs. close up, where the far away ones will be just an XYZ, Velocity, and an armor but not customization details.

Admittedly, I have not taken into consideration the projectiles, but hopefully it shows you that 2000 people is certainly plausible on a 1MB connection. Now considering your 1mb connection, which is probably more common than an 8mb (1 Byte = 8 bits) connection, we can have the following optimization: Every 10 packets (assuming uniform distribution of when the 10th packet occurs for a given person) we send all of the customization details with the location/direction details, and include a unique id for each player, then we can store the customization details in-memory on the client for each person, which will be updated once a second. Thus, roughly speaking, we have a plausible netcode that will work quite well on your 1mb connection that can support 2000 people running around.


Furthermore, it has been said multiple times that the game uses modern netcode including only sending what you need. I think it was said by Higby that for example, the number of gernades a player has on his vest won't be sent to you until he is really close. Likewise a cloaker that should be 100% invisible won't even be sending you packets at all.

Of course the details of their implementation change, but you can be sure that they are not going to do something stupid like indiscriminately sending data for all the players on the server to everyone.


It was also said that if for some reason there were to be 1000 people standing in a room that it would lag. That is why they have the mission system in place to keep the battle spread out for the most part. (of course, this means while normally the battle will be spread out, sometimes we will get an insane concentrated battle) Also, I don't think any of us here even have an idea of just how many people 1000 players looks like. In PlanetSide, a group of 30 people in the Lobby of an interlink was INSANE.


We also should realize that there have been better algorithms developed for certain computational geometry and similar problems within the rather recent past. Some of these make a big difference in terms of efficiency. It would be cool to hear if there are any really neat algorithms being used that were not around when PS1 was developed. My guess is that there are and that the result is a significant performance boost.

[KTNApollo]

I save that line for when the servers go down unexpectedly.

I could have elaborated yesterday but typing on an iPad can be awful so I'll do it now. We absolutely understand the effect lag can have on a gameplay experience especially in regards to PvP based FPS combat. It's a top priority and there are folks doing their absolute best to make sure the issue is mitigated if not eliminated all together.

Game will be great!

[maradine]

I used to worry about lag. Then I realized that the average human reaction time (measured from people who want to know their reaction time (http://www.humanbenchmark.com/tests/reactiontime/)), is about 200ms. Tack onto that your input lag and display lag, and you're already shooting at ghosts. :D

Just enjoy the ride.

(edit: which is to say - the perception of smoothness is probably more important than your latency)
((edit part deux: I guess your input and display lag are already factored into that number. le derp.))

[MrBloodworth]

I believe in PS1 the client tracked ALL players on a cont in real time.

No.


Its because it was designed in the 56k Era, and front loaded all graphics.