Multiplayer - Technical Details

[Tango]

Hi,

 

I'm very seriously considering paying the money for satellite internet. It is not cheap, but I have been assured that I will get in terms of performance what I pay for (guaranteed service).

 

Due to the laws of physics, there is a delay of approximately 500 ms round trip time. Despite this initial lag, once data transfer is under way, it is as fast as any other service.

 

Would this large delay pose any issues for MP in DCS:W? Between DCS:W and DCS:BS I don't do anything requiring low latencies.

 

If DCS:W/:BS will not be adversely affected by this, then I shall have another serious look at this. It seems the path has been opened for ADSL providers at least to start throttling bandwidth more than they already do and favor services and customers who pay a premium for faster access. As satellite is already very expensive, and doesn't use traffic management expect where explicitly requested on a per-customer basis, it seems it is the last bastion of hope for a decent internet service of any description.

 

My ADSL service is already pretty rocky, and I have tried several over the last few years to find they are all the same - CRAP! (Yes, I can get the headline speed of 8 Mbps but only in the early hours of the morning; I know the service is capable of this all the time despite the rubbish they spew about distance from the exchange, etc.. - if you live in the UK you'll know what I mean).

 

To de-rail my own thread in the first post :D , if anyone has satellite internet in the UK, what do you think to the service?

 

Rant (kinda) over! :D

 

Best regards,

Tango.

Edited November 21, 2010 by Tango

[kylania]

Satellite has never been good for gaming. Great for downloading porn, but that's about it.

[aceflier]

Sounds to me you may have phone wiring issue stick with dsl if you cant get broadband cable. Satelite internet is not good 500ms pings are not good. You would be kicked at those pings for sure.

[Tango]

Damn it.

 

Best regards,

Tango.

[Lange_666]

Due to the laws of physics, there is a delay of approximately 500 ms round trip time.

And more because you have to add the round trip time from your provider satelite's server to the other clients.

Around 8 years ago, the actual round trip time from Australia to Europe was about 2 seconds where the guy in Aussie country had a satelite connection. You can't game under these circumstances.

[MrYenko]

ANY game thrives on low latency for a good multi-player experience. The data transfer rates for games are relatively low, (5-25kb/s for say, an FPS) but the ping times are critical to a smooth experience.

 

Good multi-player coding can make the software able to conceal slightly higher ping times, but once you start to exceed ~200ms, even the best netcode is going to start to show the effects.

[Druid_]

Theres a lot of bandwidth traffic shaping that goes on in the UK. Try and find a provider that doesnt hammer you with shaping at peak times. I think plusnet were quite good here as they have their own gaming servers if I remember rightly.

 

However, like MrYenko says,its the ping that matters most for DCS MP. Try a broadbandspeed test to check it out.

[boredtechie]

As others have said I would stick with ADSL as the latency of sattellite and the effects of weather are not fun.

 

Could you describe your problem more specifically for example:-

* I have high speeds but intermittent service

* I have disconnects and an unstable profile

* I have low speeds at all times

* I have low speeds at peak times

 

I've been through similar issues as yourself with broadband and know how frustrating it can be. Personally I was having random disconnects where by I would have weeks of solid connectivity and then days of terrible connectivity which resulted in my profile plummeting towards dial up speeds. I was able to resolve my issue in the end with the following steps in order of perceived effect:-

 

1) Disconnecting all internal cabling and connecting straight to the master socket. Often the properties internal cabling can cause problems due to bad terminations other and faulty equipment.

2) Replaced the freebie microfilters with a decent one in my case an ADSL Nation xf-1e.

3) Replaced the freebie RJ11 cable with a high quality shielded one (REIN interference was also suspected in my case).

4) Replaced my modem with a high end model Draytek 2820 originally and more recently 120 (using a linux server for routing/firewall etc).

 

I've also heard people stating that different chipsets in different modems have more luck than others in certain areas depending on the equipment used at your exchange. This seems to be a trial and error thing so Argos and their 14 day return policy might help here (check for the exclusion key to make sure the modem you're looking at isn't excluded). If you do go down this route take care of the device and only unpack what you need to also be kind and perform a factory reset before returning it so the next person to receive it has an experience in line with the manual e.g. IP as documented and quick setup wizard to greet them.

 

This link also has some very useful information http://adsl24.co.uk/faq/. ADSL24 give no nonsense when it comes to throttling and they've also been very helpful with issues that were nothing to do with them.

 

Another tool you might be interested in is pathping(windows) or mtr(linux) these will show you how long it takes for a packet to reach each hop in it's journey to the remote host. Often you'll find it's a particular spot along the route that's causing a problem. For example I had a belkin router that was dropping between 25-50% of all traffic when bridging between it's switch and it's ADSL modem this caused havoc in multiplayer games.

 

bt

Edited November 21, 2010 by boredtechie

[Machinegun]

I have flown with someone with satellite internet. We used this program.

https://secure.logmein.com/products/hamachi2/ . The only bad thing is EVERYONE has to use it. It setups a VPN network. This will not help hooking up to servers online. This will help hooking up to someone.

[boredtechie]

I have flown with someone with satellite internet. We used this program.

https://secure.logmein.com/products/hamachi2/ . The only bad thing is EVERYONE has to use it. It setups a VPN network. This will not help hooking up to servers online. This will help hooking up to someone.

 

Hi Machinegun this would help with restrictive firewalls and possibly throttling depending on the ISP's policies. However I would expect it to make the latency worse rather than better due to the extra hops and encryption involved.

 

bt