lag, Help

[Houdini]

What lag? i always get kicked out because mine is too high. Help!

[temporal distraction]

Lag is the amount of time it takes the signals to go from one computer to another across a network. Bad lag (for purposes of this game) is usually over 300ms. While in the game type /lagstats into the chat area to see the lag for everyone playing.

Usually you have bad lag because your home connection is too slow. Dial-up is not quite fast enough for this game. Get a broadband connection and your bad lag will most likely go away. Running other programs that are using up the bandwidth will cause bad lag - ie: up or down-loading large files, OS updates, etc.

It is bad form to rejoin a game after being kicked for bad lag. If that happens to you, you should find a different map to play on for a while, or quit the game until you can fix the problem.

[Hannibal]

ATD, Dont hate on Dial-up users.

Houdini, I think A-T-D covered it all pretty well. What server(s) do you play on mostly, and what does it say in the lagkick message, after 'You have been kicked for excessive lag'?

[firewire]

I think that there's more to it. /lagstats does not give an accurate picture. I have an adsl connection and still get kicked occassionally. A server will tell me that I have an high lag, while /lagstats says I don't.

Video card response must be part of the problem. My tank often blows up before I see the incoming shot. What is the minimum frame rate for useful game playing.

One more thing: I think there are still a lot of cheaters out there with subtle alterations such as a narrow hit zone. When I can watch a row of direct hits without exploding or see tanks react to invisible bullets, I know something isn't kosher.

[joevano]

I think that there's more to it. /lagstats does not give an accurate picture. I have an adsl connection and still get kicked occassionally. A server will tell me that I have an high lag, while /lagstats says I don't.

Video card response must be part of the problem. My tank often blows up before I see the incoming shot. What is the minimum frame rate for useful game playing.

One more thing: I think there are still a lot of cheaters out there with subtle alterations such as a narrow hit zone. When I can watch a row of direct hits without exploding or see tanks react to invisible bullets, I know something isn't kosher.

No video card performance has nothing to do with lag. Lag is all about network performance. Misconfigured network settings can cause lag, being physically far from a server can cause lag, and a bad connection can cause lag, or (I guess) if you processor was being really taxed... that is about it.The server kicks for lag strickly based on /lagstats. Not hitting when you see direct hits is almost always an effect of lag. So is your other symptom of blowing up before you see the bullets. You could try a more current video card driver, but I don't think that is it. Yes, there are cheaters out there, but the most likely cause is lag.

[firewire]

Well, I almost always feel like I'm two seconds behind everyone else. I know my connection is not slow. It may not be the world's fastest, but it's not slow.

[GMMan]

I would like to differ about the point on video card does not affect network. If you have a intergrated graphics or a card without a GPU, all the work of graphics gets diverted to the CPU. If the CPU is working on graphics as well as network data, it's gonna develop lag because it can't process the graphics fast enough, and I think that the CPU puts graphics at a priority.

(Devs, please come in and tell us the truth! )

[joevano]

I would like to differ about the point on video card does not affect network. If you have a intergrated graphics or a card without a GPU, all the work of graphics gets diverted to the CPU. If the CPU is working on graphics as well as network data, it's gonna develop lag because it can't process the graphics fast enough, and I think that the CPU puts graphics at a priority.

(Devs, please come in and tell us the truth! )

Yes, lag could be caused if a CPU was under heavy load, I said that above. But if that is the case with only BZ flag running, then it is a case of incorrect video settings in the game for your graphics card or a video driver that is not up to date. Turn down the quality (the biggest problem for low end video card is usually 'Experimental' quality) and/or get a newer driver ...and your problems will go away (if that is what is causing it). You can tell before hand if it is a likely cannidate, by pressing 't' whil in game. This will show you your Frames Per Second just above the top left hand corner of your mouse box. If your FPS is really low (below 30 I would say) then you should change your settings until it is above 30.

[firewire]

I would like to differ about the point on video card does not affect network. If you have a intergrated graphics or a card without a GPU, all the work of graphics gets diverted to the CPU. If the CPU is working on graphics as well as network data, it's gonna develop lag because it can't process the graphics fast enough, and I think that the CPU puts graphics at a priority.

I think that's exactly what is happening to me. My CPU works full time when I play BZflag, and the fps is usually about under 30.

[TD-Linux]

Yes, if your graphics aren't hardware accelerated, you can get _really_ laggy. I'm on a 5Mb/s connection, but when I use my old old computer to play BZFLag (10 FPS, 320x240, every option turned down as low as you can go) my lag is often in excess of 500ms.

To improve performance with BZFlag:
First go into your videocard configuration utility if you have one, and make sure VSync is off, and AA/AF is off.
Then, go into BZFlag and make sure Antisotropic is off.
Then, lower your screen resolution in BZFlag.
Lower texturing detail.
Turn down quality.
Etc...

[Sky King]

Just few thoughts...

1. I agree with others, that BZ works the main CPU pretty hard even if you have a graphics card... On my HP laptop with an ATI card, my CPU still tuns at 100% while playing, and that heavy usage does affect your CPU's ability to interact with the network card.

2. I am not sure how much of a performance lag you pay for anisotropic filtering. It does work the GPU harder at program load time, and can use a LOT more memory on your graphics card. I haven't noticed any graphics frame rate hit for having anisotropic on or off, but I need to play with it some more.

3. Be careful about lowering your graphics settings too low if you DO have a graphics card on board. On my laptop, quality has to be set high. If you set it to any lower setting, it decides to let the main CPU handle the work load and a moderately fast pentium still can't keep up with a budget video card. BZ on my laptop is so slow it's unplayable without putting the GPU to work. At least on a laptop, the GPU is a huge power hog and heat source and they don't want to fire that bad boy up unless they have to.

[BinarySpike]

I think that there's more to it. /lagstats does not give an accurate picture. I have an adsl connection and still get kicked occassionally. A server will tell me that I have an high lag, while /lagstats says I don't.

Lagstats are average of of your actual lag, if all of a sudden you get a lag spike then you could get kicked... cause it would take a minute for the average to get that high.

Video card response must be part of the problem. My tank often blows up before I see the incoming shot. What is the minimum frame rate for useful game playing.

If you are under 20 fps then that's the case, the other case is you aren't watching radar

One more thing: I think there are still a lot of cheaters out there with subtle alterations such as a narrow hit zone. When I can watch a row of direct hits without exploding or see tanks react to invisible bullets, I know something isn't kosher.

Please don't accuse people of cheating, That seriously gets me mad cause everybody accuses everybody of cheating.
(although almost everybody nowdays has or knows how to cheat... )

That is jitter. Jitter is where your network packet is lost before it gets to the server. This can cause your tank to continue driving through a wall on everyone elses client, then suddenly appear behind you.

(if it happens for to long the person goes [nr])

[nr] is where the server can successfully send packets but no packets are being sent back.
(and on the old 2.0.2 there was a bug I saw a couple times where players would go [nr] but be able to pick up flags and cap them...)

That happens when someone caps or genocides and the client doesn't get the packet (server jitter :-P)
so the client thinks he's alive and the server registers him as dead.

Idk though if that was fixed in 2.0.4+