Hey
there, this rant will mostly cover PXO and FS multiplay
in general.
Look
people... PXO has nothing to do with lag in FreeSpace.
PXO is merely a middle-man in your multiplaying
experience. When you first log into PXO... you're
actually on PXO. When you click on the "Games"
button... you're still on PXO. When you join a game,
suddenly, you have left the safe confines of PXO. You are
now in a land known only as... I don't know what its
known as. But you are now under the protective care of
whatever host game you have chosen. He is now your
server, any odd lag should be directly blamed on him...
well, not entirely, but I'll get to that later. If he has
a good connection and you connect to him well, you should
have a fairly lag free game. If its a bad connection or
your are not connected to him well, your game will be
fairly laggy. This is a fact of all online multiplaying
and is not directly related to PXO at all. Here is a huge
and excellent explaination of lag and stuff to that
effect by none other than the web p1mp himself, Nathan
Camarillo:
"Ping and lag: Simply put, ping is
the duration of time it takes for information to leave
your computer, reach the destination computer and then
come back again. The lower your ping, the faster
information is shared between computers and the smoother
your game play should be. Ping is often measured in
milliseconds. A ping of 200, for example, means
information is taking 0.2 seconds to reach the other
computer and come back. Lag occurs when information being
sent between two computers over the Internet is slowed
down by various factors, including the equipment which
routes traffic through the Internet and ISPs. If you have
lag, you get delayed response when trying to fire
weapons, turn your ship, etc. Other ships and players
will often jump making it difficult to aim or lead
targets. As a rule of thumb, the lower your ping, the
less lag you will experience. You can have a generally
lag-free game with a high ping or sometimes a bad,
lagging game even with a low ping. If the exchange of
information between the two computers is consistent, you
should have no problems playing. When your ping changes
unpredictably, or information is sent eratically, you
start having problems with lag. You should always play on
servers with low ping rates. If you continue to have
problems, make sure you are using an ISP with high
quality connections and low saturation. To decrease ping,
upgrade to ISDN, DSL or cable modems if these services
are available in your area."
Now, back
to FS. One minor drawback to FS multiplay is the amount
of information that must be passed to and fro, from host
to client(s). It is a lot, a lot compared to other
games... we'll use Quake as an example. Now, in Quake,
there is plenty of optomizations to be made, like people
behind you, or in another room, get less object update
than people in your direct line of site, which saves some
time and creates less lag. In FS, you are in space... no
matter where anyone is, then are technically in your line
of site, thanks to the radar, and also due to that fact
that at any second they could actually be in your line of
site. This requires that most, or all, objects be updated
at the same rate as the next guy... which in turn causes
a great deal of lag. Now, in FS2... its been greatly
optomized... I don't know how, but I'm sure someone along
the line will gladly explain it.
Ok, onto
the real ranting... DON'T BLAME PXO ANYMORE! I WILL KILL
YOU! TWICE! I think this here is a fairly good
explanation of why there's an unusual amount of problems
with FS multiplay, so spare me some minor grief and don't
put PXO and lag in the same sentence anymore. THANKS
DAMMIT! Also... don't count on lag in FS1 being fixed...
To the best of my knowledge (which, admittedly, is fairly
limited) there are no plans on releasing another patch
for FS1. Of course, I am no Volitionite, nor do they give
me special information, so of course, they could very
well release another patch with some updated multiplay
code from FS2 and then maybe people would stop
complaining and I could go on ranting about other
subjects. IF there is a 7th patch for FS1 released, I
highly doubt it would come out pre-FS2... if it does,
maybe post-FS2 release, but then again, this is my
thoughts, from experience (and most of my predictions
have been relatively right... so there!)
More
ranting: Don't write rude letters to support when PXO is
down. Geez... get some sense children! Nothing gets done
by being rude. PXO is bound to go down occasionally, and
most of the time its not worth posting a news item on
their homepage about, so don't get mad when PXO is down
and there's no news on it... besides, if PXO is down, its
likely that you can't get connected to the Volition
homepage anyway. Their ISP fails occasionally, and its
usually back up within a few hours... See, they have
sofisticated machinery which lets them know whenever PXO
goes down, so they're on it! If they can fix it, so be
it. But if it requires that they sit idley by and wait
for a miracle, so be it again! Writing rude letters won't
help, it will only piss someone off... which amazingly
they manage to still write pretty calm replies. PFFT! Get
real, act like and adult, be kind... rewind...
One more
thing... don't be lame! That is all.
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