Unplayable

[Esoteric]

Werner is under a great load of stress.

From invisible armies to enemies respawning out of destroyed ams's and various other signs like booting people at random at the same time....!! Seeeeeen many strange bugs, which usually come out and show themselves when werner is strained. I also see enemies runnning like on a treadmill that can be picked off so easily when there not even at that loc.

Werner cannot cope it really can't, the huge epic battles could be so much better if we had a better server or a second one.

So a simple message to the people who run this "you like our $$'s then I suggest you love us long time". People won't quit for swg necessarily but they will leave a game that they pay for which is unplayable not to do with client side hardware but to do with a stressed overcrowded under par to the US, Euro Server. Which apparently is run by ubisoft!!??

I was just having a fantastic battle with NC for our last ever base on that continent, was unplayable due to werner not being able to cope. Do I feel as though I am getting the value from my $$'s ?? I sure as hell don't do you???? Heck Im paying for a game that when things heat up can't cope.

Running round taking bases lag free with no enemies is no fun so when we do have these battles it would be nice for werner to cope.

I get the feeling that werner is just a little box in a corner of the ubisoft office used as an ash tray by the employees who once in a while when they are bored decide to use it as a skittle when they bring bowling balls into the office.

Sorry for the long dribble, but heck its a forum Im posting my feelings of a game that I truly would like to play properly.

Discuss little munchkins.

Wicoa/Esoteric

 

[Summo]

I'd be interested to see the performance monitors you no doubt have that document the demands placed on the Werner cluster.

Originally posted by Esoteric
I was just having a fantastic battle with NC for our last ever base on that continent, was unplayable due to werner not being able to cope... Running round taking bases lag free with no enemies is no fun so when we do have these battles it would be nice for werner to cope.

If the Werner server was under strain then surely it wouldn't matter where in the PlanetSide world you were, you would always have lag even if big battles were going on in another continent. It's all processed by the same server after all. If the server was straining, people in an empty continent would suffer the same 'lag' issues as the hundreds of people involved in a huge battle in one place.

That fact that the game is lag-free when there's nobody about would suggest that in big battles, net congestion on your own Internet connection is most likely to blame.

Sorry for poking at you, but I get people blaming the wrong thing at work all the time. "Your network's painfully slow! Fix it!" they cried at me, and it turned out to be an incorrectly configured anti-virus server pushing out 11mb updates to 9000+ clients every ten minutes. "Have you changed anything in the last two days?" I ask the server team... "Um... No," they reply.

 

[[PS]Riddler]

Erm.. <gets a little confused> Esoteric = NC, Wicoa = VS... isnt that against the rules?

 

[Deadmanwalking]

Each continent is a different server.
So it can indeed be the harfware at fault but im willing to bet it isn't. Nature of the internet.

 

[Summo]

I don't believe that's accurate. I understand there's a single server cluster which processes each 'world'.

That's why they're split into worlds after all.

 

[Esoteric]

Wish it was that simple :-/ all my progs have to ask permission before they access the net (yes including anti virus, if Im working etc Ill let it run in the background then deny it access), I make sure that my connection is free when playing ps. Also I have 600mb cable which performs very well.

When the lag hits it affects a great many people around me infact I never see someone say "what lag you on about!! my machine is fubar fine". I see in /b, /o and /s "ffs @ this lag I cannot play like this".

I agree it should affect all continents tho I cannot actually provide a reliable test w/o getting access to the game servers and code etc. <oohh Im wrong about this you techies going on about clusters>

If I look at this in a simple logical way Step 1 Paid money for game Step 2 Like the game have great fun Step 3 Some of the best battles are nearly unplayabe <insert question> Is this my fault? No everyone else seems affected too Step 5 can't play anymore why pay for it Step 6 cancel subs save up pennies for new mmo or carry on to Step 7 Renew Daoc sub.

 

[Deadmanwalking]

Yes but in that cluster there are seperate machines. A dif machine for each world. Which while they are all linked, it really just means when you load a new world you are just infact being shunted to a differant machine. IE NC Sanc is on box A and Hossin on Box B is being throttled due to number of people.

That's just my perception of the situation anyway.

 

[Esoteric]

Originally posted by [PS]Riddler
Erm.. <gets a little confused> Esoteric = NC, Wicoa = VS... isnt that against the rules?

Esoteric is my sorc from pryd alb rr6 lvl 50 (on DAOC) , Wicoa (Scout) was my original char, I decided that I would stick with Wicoa since most of my better friends know that name. My BW name as you can see is Esoteric. Esoteric is a fairly popular name nice meaning in the dictionary, great way for finding interesting names is that if all the ones you want are taken up.

I would never go to NC unskilled jh players. Im vanu and Im proud ;-). Think I'd even play terran if we got a new server.

 

[Validus]

the game is playing so crap for me, random 6 secs screen freeze once in a while, but thats my pc RAM i think. got 256 of it.

its running so slow i might end up playing 1.10 diablo 2

 

[Summo]

Originally posted by Deadmanwalking.
Yes but in that cluster there are seperate machines. A dif machine for each world. Which while they are all linked, it really just means when you load a new world you are just infact being shunted to a differant machine. IE NC Sanc is on box A and Hossin on Box B is being throttled due to number of people.

That's just my perception of the situation anyway.

Far be it for me to argue ( ) but a cluster is a group of physical servers acting as one. It allows you to load balance among several boxes, or to use one or more as a 'hot-spare' in case a machine fails.

For PlanetSide they have two or more physical servers clustered to share the load of the 'world' as a whole. When you move to a different continent, you are not being shifted to a different server.

All this is being a bit pedantic, really as yes there are clearly some kind of lag issues in large battles, be they congestion on indivdual's net connections, GPUs or CPUs, or whatever.

Next time I can be arsed I'll run a network analyser and join a big battle.

Its just that blaming 'the server' makes baby Jesus cry.

 

[Deadmanwalking]

Well you know better but either way we both think that baby jesus shouldn't cry.

 

[bone_idle]

We had a couple of outfit mates log for the night because they were complaining of the lag. The funny thing was i was in the same base attacking the cc area with them and it wasnt lagging for me at all.

I use BT Openworld with Omnisieous using the same connection over our network.

I find it wierd that people have unplayable lag and others dont. Must come down to ISP's in the end i suppose.

Hope it gets better soon anyway.

 

[.Cask]

Can't seem to find a straight answer on the server architecture, but did manage to find this from a staff Q&A.

Each 8km-by-8km continent will be divided into dozens of smaller regions, which will be microdesigned into small play levels. We'll be scattering points of interest such as numerous technological facilities and other control points throughout these regions to better disperse the player base across a continent.

Sounds to me like each of those regions have their own piece of hardware, otherwise what would be the point in trying to disperse players? So I suppose it could be lag city in Mont while the next adjoining base is running fine. Not sure how it would handle the seams though. I expect there would also be back-up servers ready to share the load on any regions that are overpopulated but perhaps they aren't always enough.

I'll look for a better answer tomorrow can't read anymore eyes all blurry

 

[chi_]

Originally posted by Esoteric
Which apparently is run by ubisoft!!??

Cancel. Now. If SOE were so lazy as to leave the job to inept cunts like ubisoft they really do need punishing.

I speak from experience, I'm an Ex-SB player

 

[Esoteric]

Re: Re: Unplayable

Originally posted by chi_
Cancel. Now. If SOE were so lazy as to leave the job to inept cunts like ubisoft they really do need punishing.

I speak from experience, I'm an Ex-SB player

I cannot confirm this as I say apparently, I have "heard" this is the case and needs confirming from people in the know.

 

[old.Trine Aquavit]

My feeling is that the 'lag' is a client-side issue caused by lack of memory combined with some memory-leak bugs. I very rarely lag, even when other people are complaining about it. My system specs aren't special: Athlon 2100, GF3 Ti200, but I do have a Gig of DDR400 RAM. When I do get lag it's almost always after a longish session of play.

If there's one thing that's been consistent about Planetside it's that it is the biggest memory hog the gaming world has ever known. I think memory, and memory leaks are the problem and that it's the clients not ther server that are unable to keep up. I think that memory leaks are causing systems which are generally able to cope to struggle after PS has been running a while.

The fact that they've managed to sort out a lot of the problems is indicative. They've sorted out some of the memory leaks/allocation issues, and will probably be looking for other wqays to make the game efficient.

 

[old.Pascalean]

I play on an Athlon XP2600, GF4 and a gig of DDR266, and yesterday evening during an epic base seige there was some serious lag. Weirdly it didn't hamper combat much, but mainly affected the chat channels and also doors...

Then I got frustrated by the lag and respawned somewhere else on the same continent. Hey Presto, silky smooth. I was in an equally epic battle on Sunday however which caused no lag at all.

 

[.Cask]

No way is the lag client side. Well ok a small drop in FPS occasionally but not the weird stuff like seeing a pheonix missile doing an eternal loop the loop. Or me running up the stairs in a tower packed full of NC, seeing them running around and shooting at me but not taking any damage.

What about the blown up harasser corpse driving down the road off into the sunset. Or my darklight taking 10 seconds to kick in after pressing the button. Or people standing still for a good few seconds after taking a metric assload of damage waiting for the death sequence to register.

Also I recommend jumping regularly and frequently during firefights. I took our 3 fully armed NC's with my noob starter gun by bunny hopping around. "Big deal" I hear people say, but those 3 were in the middle of a spawn room crapped full of at least 15 NC's most of which who were trying to kill me. They'd just stand there shooting at the wall everytime I jumped. Did this a couple of times :/

 

[Jupitus]

Pffft! Call that laggy???

Just after this latest patch I got my good old uber lag on my 56k in a base... reckoning that they'd changed the netcode it seemd like my 56k was trying to recover every single lost bit of data sequentially, and actions were taking about 30 seconds minimum. I strolled out into a fight with plenty of VS around, walked up to one of them, and as a test I unloaded a full clip of JH shots at point blank range into his head. Of course, I was already dead somewhere else and didn't know yet

I then logged and went to nose around the boards and saw some guy posting somewhere that he was pissed off with lagged players like me getting kills through being lagged and that we had some kind of evil advantage

15 days til adsl application can be processed, and counting....

 

[old.pala hellraiser]

I have ADSL and to be honest Werner server is crap... I get really poor performance on it for some reason (comes as no surprise we always get the shitty alternative in Europe). I play mostly on the American servers, despite having a ping which is around 120-150 (around 60-80 on Werner) I get much better performance.

 

[Jupitus]

Originally posted by old.pala hellraiser
I have ADSL and to be honest Werner server is crap... I get really poor performance on it for some reason (comes as no surprise we always get the shitty alternative in Europe). I play mostly on the American servers, despite having a ping which is around 120-150 (around 60-80 on Werner) I get much better performance.

I'm gonna pick on you for more details

Ok... when you lag on Werner next time, have ping plotter running to see if there is any packet loss and hopefully isolate that, then let us have your full pc specs

We'll see where the problem is....I hope it isn't server side as I am busting my balls to get adsl installed here (after 5 years trying)....

 

[[PS]Riddler]

600mb cable, is that possable?

 

[old.pala hellraiser]

Heh ok I don't suppose you know Werners IP address do you?

My system specs are:

Processor : Athlon XP2600+ processor
Memory : 1024MB DDR RAM PC2700
Hard Disk : 160GB Hard Disk
Graphics : Geforce 4 mx 440 8x AGP
DVD : 16x DVD-ROM Drive
CD Writer : 52x CD-Rw CD ReWriter Drive
TV-Out : TV-Out and DVI
Sound : 6 channel built in
Ethernet : 10/100 Ethernet Port
Operating System : Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition Verify
USB : 5xUSB Ports
Ports : Standard serial and parallel ports
Modem : ADSL 576 kbps
Case : Full ATX Case
Floppy : 1.44mb floppy drive
Other Features : integrated multi-flash memory card reader



Now obviously the weakest link is my graphics card however it is surprisingly good, I can have ALL settings on max and even in massive large scale battles I don't lag at all (on the American Servers). This isn't due to the American servers being less populated they get just as full as Werner sometimes fuller, just at different times of the day (time zone)

 

[Jupitus]

Ok Pala, seems a good spec

IP addy you need is : 195.33.135.34

run PP against that in the background please. I suspect there may be some packet loss going on through a backbone provider, tbh... what ISP do you use?

I'll not be on tomorrow due to business travel, but I'll try to check later in the evening.

Jup.

 

[SilverHood]

for some reason, I get no lag against the TR horde

but against a NC one, its chug-ablock MS powerpoint slides

Amerish was terrible today (tuesday)

but alas, I killed a BW'er, so it was all right

 

[Uncle Sick(tm)]

Originally posted by SilverHood


but alas, I killed a BW'er, so it was all right

Go right ahead an gloat.
I'll get you back!*shakes fist*

Amerish last night was good fun, though.

By the way - I have a 1mbit line and hardly ever any lag.
ADSL users make sure that your provider supports Fastpath.
My old provider (T-Online) didn't use to support it and my pings were dreadful (150+).

 

[shatter]

Just dug out my trusty old "Ultima Online Trace Utility" to see whats going on... Now from work, the results look like this :

Simple Ping : 50ms
Trace route : 15 Hops

Okay, so far so cool. The interesting event occurs when I Poll the server. Hops 11,12 and 13 show sporadic 100% packet loss, even though the final destination (PS at hop 15) still shows a ping time of between 38 and 84 ms.

defrnk1102cr2--0-1-2-0.fr.de.ip.att.net 165.87.211.53 12 19ms 100% 0 / 29
nlamtr1101cr2--0-1-1-0.am.nl.ip.att.net 165.87.211.26 13 33ms 100% 0 / 29
nlamtr1101er1-0-0.am.nl.ip.att.net 65.87.217.146 14 32ms 100% 0 / 29
* Unknown Host * 195.33.129.76 15 39ms 43ms 0% 29 / 29 32ms / 74ms
amspls-01-02.planetside.com 195.33.135.34 16 42ms 49ms 0% 29 / 29 33ms / 80ms

Interesting dont you think. I will test his at home to see if there is any difference there, or what the trace route variation is. But this 100% packet loss at three hop points seems to be constant. but if that was the case, surely I wouldn't be able to play at all from this point???

Shatter