Being held back

[xane]

If the bandwidth bottleneck is removed by no longer supporting modems, MMOGs will move towards a server controlled environment where the graphic instructions for the video card are contained in the packets instead of avatar information, the client side app will be little more than a display/input device driver.

MMOGs require a central server anyway, but the same could be done of smaller multiplayer games, after all, having the server control graphics directly would eliminate lag and huge amounts of hacking and exploits.

If you get the client side app to be smaller, you can then download it each time and eliminate client side hacks entirely.

 

[Durzel]

It's generally the case at the moment that clients are not trusted with any game-affecting data anyway isn't it? The only issue really with clients as they stand at the moment is wallhacks, etc which is almost impossible to prevent in any game that utilises client-side prediction (i.e. entity/player locations being sent to the player before they're able to visually see them)

There are also tools out there which sit below the game client, and intercept the DirectX calls themselves. So instead of drawing a solid texture, the game draws a transparent one, etc. Intel themselves did an OpenGL program that did just that - intercepted calls and allowed you to play Quake in wireframe, flat shaded, without hidden surface removal (which, I believe, is a DirectX primitive now as well), etc. Intels utility was obviously never intended for this purpose, but it worked effectively (I tested it myself a few years ago)

I don't think hacks are the prime motivator to be honest, or at least it shouldn't be. Bandwidth (or lack thereof) is the fundamental obstacle to many potential "huge" multiplayer experiences. So long as there is disparity between response times with different players, there will always be a certain amount of client-side prediction - it's a necessary evil.

I don't think you could ever end up with a thin client the likes of which you describe, outside of a pure LAN environment anyway.

 

[xane]

I think it was Asus that had the wireframe driver.

There is no "prediction" in a server controlled graphics driver, there is no need, all the calculations for everything are done server side, there is no lag either.

With graphics card technology still moving at an incredible rate, I don't see why this wont be considered.

Downloading a small client side driver app every game would eliminate cheating, the only way round is to have a hacked firmware in the video card.

 

[Mellow-]

Originally posted by Durzel
... broadband and DSL seem cheap to me ...

DSL is Broadband.

 

[leggy]

Not in my house it isnt

 

[Durzel]

Originally posted by Mellow-
DSL is Broadband.

Sorry I meant "Cable and DSL". Or something. Honest.

 

[throdgrain]

Oddly enough after my earlier post regarding bt charging me £250 to change to dsl, I got a phone call this afternoon from them saying they would now come round and convert me to adsl from isdn for free !
Yay , Ill have it in a couple of weeks

 

[Gumbo]

Originally posted by Xtro
Never had much of a prob with my Telewest cable connect til this week - pings of 200-300 on MOHAA....um no ta.

This is exactly what I'm talking about, another gamers connection bites the dust.

It might be great to have these games only available to broadband players, but there'll be no-one about who can play them before long. The infrastructure here will have to be improved before people can take advantage of these new games.

Mind you if you can sort it out so it doesn't matter if you are recieving information a couple of seconds after the guys you are playing with I guess it could work, I'm not techie enough to understand all that side of it, but it does seem that in fps type games this would be a fatal problem.

 

[stu]

You're not allowed on the M1 in a rickshaw. There's a very good reason for that.

If you can't get broadband, move, or get off the internet. End of, really.

 

[Mellow-]

Originally posted by Durzel
Sorry I meant "Cable and DSL". Or something. Honest.

Cable and ADSL are both broadband! Both are forms of DSL too

 

[Will]

Originally posted by Mellow-
Cable and ADSL are both broadband! Both are forms of DSL too

Cable isn't related to DSL

 

[nath]

But Cable is digital, you subscribe, and it's a line.. like.

 

[Durzel]

Don't dilute my thread with the same vacuous bile that fills all the other threads plz

 

[Embattle]

DSL tends to be new technology built on top of old technology whereas Cable tends to be more of a new technology built on newer technology although both have a bright future. BTW DSL is:

A family of digital telecommunications
protocols designed to allow high speed data communication
over the existing copper telephone lines between end-users
and telephone companies.

Cable uses fiber optics, not copper.

It is likely the modem based player will have to accept the fact that future games will see a minimum requirement of Broadband connection for online play, to a degree certain games even now seem to be much much better on broadband connections than modem....BF1942 being one of them.

 

[nath]

Ahh, but it stands for Digital Subscriber Line.. and although it does mean broadband over old copper things - it's a bit ambiguously named. Cable *is* a digital subscriber line, but not technically DSL :|

Suck my bile, daz

 

[Mellow-]

broadband transmission:

A type of data transmission in which a single medium (wire) can carry several channels at once. Cable TV, for example, uses broadband transmission. In contrast, baseband transmission allows only one signal at a time.

-------------

Cable Modem and ADSL (both forms of DSL) both send data over several channels at once. Hence more bandwidth and speed.






so nur.

 

[Gumbo]

Originally posted by Embattle
certain games even now seem to be much much better on broadband connections than modem....BF1942 being one of them.

I beg to differ in a slightly drunk way, as BF1942 is my current game of choice and my appallingly narrow ISDN gives me solid playability unlike many of my UK infrastructure challenged cable buddies, but this is probably really for a WTF is happening to cable thread.....

 

[Embattle]

Originally posted by Durzel
One of the things that irks me the most about playing multiplayer online games with my close circle of friends is "what could've been".

Like, imagining how amazing a game like GTA would be if it was massively multiplayer, how great realtime combat would be in a MMO setting. All of this, for the most part, is held back by one common denominator - modemers. I'm convinced that the reason programmers have to dedicate so much resources to "decent" multiplayer code is because of draconian bandwidth restrictions brought about by pikey modemers.

In an age of 3Ghz PCs with 128Mb graphics cards, games still end up having to pander to the lowest common denominator, the DX2-66 of the internet connectivity World, namely Jimmy Joe and his 56k "3kb/sec" shitty modem.

(I was going to ramble on for ages, but I've since got bored and need coffee)

The Government should initiate some kind of scheme to rid the UK of modems altogether, except in critical remote access situations, etc. People should either end up having to buy broadband/DSL (maybe ISDN) to play 21st Century multiplayer games. If they don't, or can't afford to, tough!

I reckon you'll find that it isn't only connections to blame for no MMOGs like GTA but partly because it is in the future line up, while they can carry on getting milk from the same udder why change

I personally feel they are not spending enough time on the whole network side of things, although I also don't believe they spend that much time in regards to making modem connections work, not that I care tbh. Part of the reason they don't spend that much time caring about a modemers connection is because they mainly design games for the US market.

I don't quite think you'll ever find the government initiating such a scheme since gaming isn't something which most people use the internet for on a regular basis. Most the time people tend to access email and browse the web and that can be done with basic 56k connections, not something I would like to go back to any time soon.

 

[Embattle]

Originally posted by Gumbo
I beg to differ in a slightly drunk way, as BF1942 is my current game of choice and my appallingly narrow ISDN gives me solid playability unlike many of my UK infrastructure challenged cable buddies, but this is probably really for a WTF is happening to cable thread.....

That is rare and the CM user base is increasing while the ISDN user base is decreasing reulsting in better performance in some cases with ISDN, although I was reffering to modem users any way

 

[Embattle]

I reckon the very thin client system is more suited to the MMOG type games because of the extra server/connection requirements needed to support such a method. I don't see it being used in the future FPS games like quake etc due to the lack of any real definable linked online revenue.

The idea of packet redundancy is nice but in the current market the extra overhead is only likely to go down well when it could be used for another connection.

 

[djpringle]

Being modem scum both home and abroad, I actually have to agree with what Durzel says. I've basically given up playing online due to even 20th century games being frankly piss poor fun.

Hopefully in the near future my local exchange will get upgraded, fat chance due to the number of OAPs but we live in hope. ISDN might be an option but I've always been put off by the horror stories of people having to pay vast sums to reconvert their line, hopefully Throd's bit of luck isn't a limited time deal.

 

[throdgrain]

Ive always been very pleased with ISDN, I only hope broadband lives up to its promise. Im not interested in downloaded the lastest episode of Buffy the bloody vampire slayer or whatever it is people do. Its only for gaming purposes.
As far as that goes, at the moment ISDN is well capable of playing online games. I play BF1942 to some effect I assure you !
Dont go thinking its only a small improvement on a modem, as far as gaming is concerned its light years ahead.

 

[gremlin]

Well I dunno about you lot, but the attraction of DSL/cable for me is the 'always on' (and unmetered) side of it. I'd be quite happy with 64k as long as I know I could say, run an SMTP server on my linux box or be able to ssh in from work.

Then again durz is probably a warez monkey

 

[stu]

Originally posted by gremlin
I'd be quite happy with 64k as long as I know I could say, run an SMTP server on my linux box or be able to ssh in from work.

Nerdling

Most of the T&C agreements for broadband providers "expressly forbid" the setting up of servers on their lines. Obviously it was intended to catch people hosting juarez, etc, and sucking up bandwidth when they're not there - but you'd probably fall foul of that clause.

Not that they ever monitor it of course. Allegedly.

 

[Will]

*looks innocent*

NTL actually allow servers in the T&C, as long as they are passworded.
Telewest actively scan for open proxies on various ports, other than that, it would take some major bandwidth usage to get spotted, even though the T&C outlaws servers.

Anyway, back on topic...I'd love to see games that take advantage of broadband properly, and don't have netcode written for the lowest possible connection. But I think we'd have to wait for the next generation of broadband networks being widely available in the US and in Europe before that would happen. Lets hope the UK gets them too.

By next gen, I really mean what the Scandinavian countries and Taiwan have at the moment, very fast, high bandwidth connections as standard.

 

[Quige]

Originally posted by Will.
By next gen, I really mean what the Scandinavian countries and Taiwan have at the moment, very fast, high bandwidth connections as standard.

.. or South Korea. I know they have a unique situation with 70% or so living in built up urban areas, but ...

South Korea is to spend a whopping $11bn on bringing a 1Mbps broadband service to every household in the country by 2005 ... That is why it has pumped in $1.5bn to help construct a high capacity infrastructure supplemented by a further $1bn through soft loans. ... It also made available more than $700m to fund R&D, provided subsidies for low-income households to purchase PCs and ensured that there was free IT training for those who wanted it.

compared with;

The UK Government, on the other hand, has so far only committed £30m to broadband and ruled out any tax breaks that might assist in the roll out of broadband networks.

source - http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/22/27962.html

Just shows the UK's "commitment" to becoming a broadband leader. Not.

 

[Will]

I've read that before. Now, thats dedication to a wired future.

The UK government leaves everything in the capable hands of Oftel and BT.

 

[Quige]

I think I read another article on the Reg about how they sent some parlimentary commitee to S. Korea to look into how they are doing things etc., ... I mean, like, does it take a genius to realise that, like most things in this world, the way to make it work is to actually stump up the cash! Still nice little jaunt for some MP's I guess.

Rereading the link off the last Reg link I came across this little gem of quote

In May 2002, the Korean Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC) said it wants to see 20Mbps services to the home by 2005.
And what of the UK? Only last week Oftel claimed a major victory by proclaiming that there were more than one million broadband users in the UK. Its definition of broadband? Any "always-on service, offering data rates of 128kbps and above".

 

[Embattle]

Sadly it isn't something the government can do too easily and comparing us to S Korea is pointless, you have to look at the bigger economic picture.

 

[Sar]

I'd say modemers are scum, but I've just spent a month on 28.8 fs.

They have my pity.

Well they would, but at least I had the sense not to try to play games online with it ffs.



/strokes ADSL.