Option request: Disable Printscreen in Multiplayer

[Renato71]

There is so much heat wasted on export/tacview that everybody missed the biggest problem in online MP is - printscreening! Now, THAT is something that I do not need in every flight, unlike tacview with is more useful to me then Kodak moment. For later I use track recording.

 

It would be great to have a server-sided option that will disable prinscreen, like the server enables/disables views, labels, realism etc...

 

I do not understand why is prtscr taking up so much resources?!?

[A.S]

changing it to a seperate KEY and adding it to settings ON/OFF ....should do it next products? !?

[Renato71]

changing it to a seperate KEY and adding it to settings ON/OFF ....should do it next products? !?

 

Sure! If there is something inside the game that dictates the path and quality of screenshot, than you can assign other setting to it :smilewink:

[Boberro]

For loong time ago I didn't see any printscreeners, are they still alive? :P

[A.S]

No they disapeared :megalol: (klick klick ...in BMP )

Edited July 25, 2008 by A.S

[159th_Viper]

For loong time ago I didn't see any printscreeners......

 

Hence their success............Buzzing around Warping like Flies on Crack........Near Invisible they are :D

[Pilotasso]

Its almost impossible to accuse anyone of printscreening. I suggest not to add the the snowball of cheat threads going on recently.

[Guest Syncho]

There is so much heat wasted on export/tacview that everybody missed the biggest problem in online MP is - printscreening! Now, THAT is something that I do not need in every flight, unlike tacview with is more useful to me then Kodak moment. For later I use track recording.

 

It would be great to have a server-sided option that will disable prinscreen, like the server enables/disables views, labels, realism etc...

 

I do not understand why is prtscr taking up so much resources?!?

 

This is impossible to do without installing a driver or keylogger/monitor onto the host machine. Unfortunatley Printscreening is host side not server side so it can't be disabled.

 

ED could program DCS to close any network connection if the host's printscreen button is pressed but this would involve monitoring the keyboard and any Anti Virus program will scream at any program monitoring and recording keys.

 

Even then anyone with a small amount of technical knowledge can emulate the printscreen button or assign it to another key. All you'd need is a virtual keyboard and a macro.

 

Even MS XP/Vista has a built in virtual keyboard and it has a printscreen button on it, virtual keyboards can not be monitored by keyloggers.

[GGTharos]

Um ... or you know ...

if ( (game_mode == multiplayer) & (scan_code_prtscrn))

{ return 0; }

else

{take the damned screenshot}

 

;)

[Boberro]

Or maybe time for screenshot method which won't do this effect like jumpings, ect? Now taking screenshot is very long.

[GGTharos]

This is a hardware issue mostly. There's no 'better method', AFAIK.

[159th_Viper]

Aye - respect to the select few who bother with snapping Kodak moments online. When I'm about to get a missile up the A$$, - as the Berioza likes to inform me ever so often, and sometimes not with the DeathETRays - the very last thing on my mind is the [PrintScreen SysRq] button.

[Guest Syncho]

Boberros there are literally hundreds of way's to create lag on any host system creating warping in online MP servers I'm cretainly not going to post them on here. As much as I'd like to see this problem eradicated I really dont think this problem can be addressed in any effective manner.

[GGTharos]

How about occam's razor? Most people who want to cheat this way, will not go farther than using PrintScreen. That's all. And then all the stupid printscreening accusations can end, too.

[Frostie]

I don't know which is worse , the very few individuals who actually use printscreening for cheating if at all or the whiners who scream 'PS cheater' all day at any lag they happen to get.

Im all for eradicating this cheat/whine/excuse whatever you want to call it.

[Guest Syncho]

OK...I take it as printscreening is a sensitive subject here!.

[X-man]

Just how good SA can one keep while PSing his way through the sky :lol:

[RedTiger]

Can someone explain to me the n00b how print screening affects the server? I can't say I've ever seen such a thing effect other online games. Wouldn't any such lag be on the client machine who's doing the printscreening and therefore not affect anyone else? I can see that it would make it seem to THEM that they just warped forward, but to everyone else it should look normal. I don't see how you can tell printscreening from legitimate latency!

[nemises]

All IMHO:

LOMAC code is not very good at smoothing out large changes in latency, or in this case client update frequency.

When someone printscreens, it takes up a large chunk of their local resources to do it, and as a result, the client fails to send out update traffic to the server for the duration. When the printscreen process is finished taking all the resources, the client suddenly begins sending update packets again, but of course, in the interveining time, the client has updated their aircraft position, and the server must suddenly synch to the new location.

It's no different to someone suddenly jumping for a 50 ping to a 500 ping and then back again...you often see aircraft dancing all over the place when their latency isn't consistant.

 

When someones latency is fairly consistant, even if high, the client and server stay in synch , perhaps less frequently, but smoother. .large changes in latency are what cause the warping, and printscreening causes a large change in latency from the client for a short period.

 

Other game engines interpolate much better, so it is less noticable, but all high frequency update multiplayer games suffer from some sort of warping in similar circumstances. (though as to why writing a screen dump takes up so much local system resource for so long is a mystery)

[RedTiger]

Its just weird. I've played an online game in one form or another for a long time. I've never seen system resource problems, like the ones that cause a bad frame rate, EVER effect latency. I've played FPS with people who have been on crappy machines and are having bad frame rates. They tend to move around weird and run into walls, but it has little to do with latency. They are laggy; they just lack control. :)

 

If LOMAC translates system resource hiccups into latency, I think LOMAC is a strange, strange animal.

[104th_Crunch]

All IMHO:

...printscreens... It's no different to someone suddenly jumping for a 50 ping to a 500 ping and then back again...you often see aircraft dancing all over the place when their latency isn't consistant.

 

Exactly! I wish every one who thinks someone is printscreening would understand this. Just because you see a player lagging when your missile is tracking them, doesn't mean they are printscreening.

[A.S]

Exactly! I wish every one who thinks someone is printscreening would understand this. Just because you see a player lagging when your missile is tracking them, doesn't mean they are printscreening.

 

thats a point, but dont forget a "printscreen-lag" is very significant...compared to usual lags

[Kuky]

Exactly! I wish every one who thinks someone is printscreening would understand this. Just because you see a player lagging when your missile is tracking them, doesn't mean they are printscreening.

 

That's a very fair point, but what I can't justify is when someone warps ONLY when they are being fired on... that simply can't be coincidence...

[GGTharos]

Yes it can be. In fact it is behavior that was examined and identified before I even joined beta testing. Missile fire seems to create JUST enough additional bandwidth issues for some people to cause trouble.

The timing always looks suspicious. Even for people who have a good ping this can happen, though in those cases it's rather rare. Being able to tell, for sure, whether someone's printscreening requires for them to deliver a track, and you to know how to look for that printscreen keycode in there ... or just any unknown keycode being pressed at that time.

 

That's a very fair point, but what I can't justify is when someone warps ONLY when they are being fired on... that simply can't be coincidence...

Edited July 26, 2008 by GGTharos

[Renato71]

Well, prinscreen enable/disable option in MP can be added in next patch? Then everybody will have to install it. Just like in "example" by GGTharos :D

 

And I think it is far more important issue then tacview disabling. Especially when a guy starts jumping around after I fired a missile at him, but not jumping vice versa. If someone is willing to disable tacview on pure suspicion (and no hard evidence), why not disable prinscreening which is equally or even easier to proove and/or to eliminate from list of possible cheap tricks?

I have more tacview recordings when people with perfect connection start to jump around only when fired upon! Not when the same/similiar missile is fired in their vicinity and/or by them :)

At the same time, I was not able to spot or identify someone using any sort of AWACS-like feature, but that discussion I would like to leave for other topic.