Lag

[Ryle [N7R]]

[quote name='Tienbau' timestamp='1329313642' post='53768']
thanks for running those, much appreciated. There's still much work to be done.

gating involves a huge data spike, so that's expected.
[/quote]
Yeah thats what I assumed, I was just amused when I spiked to 12000. I was like okay Tien, 2500 huh, hows 5 times that bro. XD

But yeah, im gonna get in game soon and sit and stress for a while, pull some screens when I actually lagout. See if the numbers are the same or worse. What I noticed last night is my FPS slowly tanks over time. It never went under 39/40 but it was going down slowly over the course of those 10 mins or so.

[kiegern]

checked it with ctrl-i.
as suspected by tien its shoots up to around 2500
when the lag occurs.

only been to VG now at seeding 2.
but as soon as i land in the group it up to 1800.
when the fighting starts it goes to ~2500.

hope u find what to do about it.

thx for the reactions.
i had some names thrown to my head
when i said it in general chat.
atleast my prob is being acknowledged now

gl on solving it.
best regards Siccius

[Ryle [N7R]]

I have a theory based on what I have seen, and also based on the data so far in this thread.

Is it possible Tien, that this isnt server side, but client side. That the client is calling for wayyy too many ammo animations. Like, theres no GPU on earth that could keep up with as much ammo imagery as is being pulled, and its looping back on itself? Its a thought I guess, but Ive noticed when the spiking is baddddd its when full combat has been engaged for a while, and since the data spikes really start only while firing...

This only seems to happen to the toon doing the tanking/killing
This only seems to happen in overwhelm combat with multiple mobs
This only seems to happen to progens or people with uber turbo setups.
This only seems to happen with mobs that take a minute to kill.
Other players watching, arent lagging out, they see whats going on in real time, so its not the server lagging.

See where I am going with this? Maybe tell the client to only call for firing animations once every 5 shots on that high of turbo? With my guns idle I sit at 500-600 with those vindis, maybe 1000 if they are really wailing on me. The moment I fight back BLAM data throughput goes through the roof.
Which makes sense... since thats 6 animations every second, plus all the calculations and whatever. Not to mention the damage counts and everything else. On top of being wailed on by 8+ mobs. Edited February 15, 2012 by Ryle

[Orga1]

I don't know how the ai's of these mobs are setup in this game, but i googled and found a forum discussing this. not to mention it's old enough to match the earth and beyond era when it fist began.

[b][i]"I'm not exactly sure if it works the same in all games, but a recent MMORPG(2002) was talking about its AI for monsters and said it worked by having a certain amount of slots in each monster's intelligence. Smarter humanoid like monsters having more slots than say a big giant thing. In each slot, a parameter would be filled depending on certain things they player did, certain items they used, and certain items/colors they wore and the monster would act upon these. Once all slots were filled, they would start to recycle. Probably not how it works in all games though."[/i][/b]

Is it possible the mobs if using this kind of mechanics has infinite amount of slots to keep from filling up, so much data that it can recall my toons position and argo me automatically after I previously rebooted my client in middle of combat? I assume In order for a mob to recall something it must send a checklist to me, by pinging a lot of data to the client or player that sends up a red flag saying I'm a hostile no?

I wonder how they keep my info when logged off so that whenever i log on again, they can target me automatically?

[url="http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33775574"]http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33775574[/url]

@ Ryle...
did you test that w/o packet optimization option on?

[Ryle [N7R]]

no i always use packet optimization. i never even noticed it tbh.

[Tienbau]

It's nothing to do with scripting, aggro or whatever, it's just as simple as the packet data rate going too high.

It needs a choke.

I've currently got the mob code in bits while I add some improved AI, improved movement and improved skill usage, and together with an improved (smarter) effect choke system it is gradually bringing the data rate down to manageable levels. I feel the rate shouldn't go above 3000 even in the thickest of battles. This is achievable, with hardly any perceptable loss.

The client has an interpolative movement feature where you give the projected mob position and when it'll get there, and the client smooths the movement between the two points (ie the current mob position to the new one). This means mobs can go 'unattended' for certain periods of time, and it still looks good. Currently I'm just giving the mob current position, orientation and speed. This means sometimes the mobs will jump around.

[Toaster]

ok, I finally got my group together and went out to get some numbers from the Tengu around Tada-o Gate. My group consisted of my PW, my TT as healer, and a cloaked JD as looter.

At idle on all three characters the data volume hovered between 500 and 800.

I went over to Ten-Gu Observation Nav 1 to check on Desash and start some combat. I killed Desash and gathered about 6 other Ten-gu and went about my usual debuff and shield sap routine. The data volume started to go up. By the time group sap had gone off and Shield Nova was activated the Data Volume on my PW was fluctuating between 5000 and 6000. The Data load on my TT healer was around 2.5k and the cloaked JD looter about 2k.

I then went to Ten-gu Observation Nav 3 where there is a larger concentration of fish. I went about gathering up 15 or so Ten-gu and watched the data volume increase steadily on my warrior to about 4000. I started Debuffing and Sapping the group and the Data Volume began to spike at 8000. After 3 or 4 fish died, more began to spawn and the lag started increasing. The data Volume fluctuated wildly between about 5500 and 8000. At this point the PW is useless because the lag had taken over the client. The TT was reading at roughly 2500 during this time while healing the PW and the cloaked JD looter was sitting between 2.5 and 3k. Just for fun I grabbed some aggro with the TT and it's data volume started to increase to about 4500 or so.

At this point the TT and JD both warped back to safety, however the PW remained stationary even though warp had been activated and was soon killed. During their warp to safety the Data Volume on the TT and JD began decreasing the further they got from the battle. Once they reached the gate it returned to normal values.

I got a jumpstart for the PW but his engines remained "unavailable, engine recovering" and I had to limp back to the gate on impulse. I assume this was because he died while in warp, even though he wasn't actually moving. When the PW came back from incap the data Volume was sitting around 2500 and the lag was gone, even though the ten-gu nearby started to attack once more.

During all of this the draw on system memory was between 200 and 250MB per client running. It increased slightly during the intense combat situations, but not nearly enough to stress my systems resources.

I hope this helps

EDIT: The idle data volumes were taken near Ten-gu Observation Nav 1, no combat was taking place but I was within view of several fish. When Idle near the gate with no mobs in sight the data volume hovers between 130 and 150.

[Tienbau]

thanks Toaster that is a very detailed and objective report - confirms that when the data vol rises to those levels the client starts to lag badly.

[TooTall]

I have experienced all the above problems at the places posted. The current problems are just as you say they are. As far back as a year ago the only place that I had problems is at the Chavez Depot and Nav Ceres 1-2 with 10 or more mobs hitting on me. There was, and Is, a way out of the mess if you get stuck there.

You need to have a noticably higher combat speed than the current mobs hitting on you, thrust away to an empty spot in space and unequip any scan boosting equipment (Caster/Spitter/Streak, ect.) If you can outrun them you have a chance to regain control and warp to safety.

Use that if you dont want to tow/JS and are not "testing" lol

[Ryle [N7R]]

[quote name='Tienbau' timestamp='1329357833' post='53803']
I feel the rate shouldn't go above 3000 even in the thickest of battles. This is achievable, with hardly any perceptable loss.


[/quote]

That would be beautiful. Ive started paying attention to my data rates since this thread started, and while I havent played much this week in general, I have noticed that if the number is under 3000, I never lag a microsecond (at least nothing I can notice being what I mean).

[Orga1]

[quote name='Toaster' timestamp='1329371402' post='53825']
At idle on all three characters the data volume hovered between 500 and 800.

I went over to Ten-Gu Observation Nav 1 to check on Desash and start some combat. I killed Desash and gathered about 6 other Ten-gu and went about my usual debuff and shield sap routine. The data volume started to go up. By the time group sap had gone off and Shield Nova was activated the Data Volume on my PW was fluctuating between 5000 and 6000. The Data load on my TT healer was around 2.5k and the cloaked JD looter about 2k.

I then went to Ten-gu Observation Nav 3 where there is a larger concentration of fish. I went about gathering up 15 or so Ten-gu and watched the data volume increase steadily on my warrior to about 4000. I started Debuffing and Sapping the group and the Data Volume began to spike at 8000. After 3 or 4 fish died, more began to spawn and the lag started increasing. The data Volume fluctuated wildly between about 5500 and 8000. At this point the PW is useless because the lag had taken over the client. The TT was reading at roughly 2500 during this time while healing the PW and the cloaked JD looter was sitting between 2.5 and 3k. Just for fun I grabbed some aggro with the TT and it's data volume started to increase to about 4500 or so.
[/quote]

No No this is what iam taking about...

I've told everyone by now that my video card 8400gs is a crap card, only 8 pipelines what more can i work with and a dual-core cpu? But YOU!... in order to experience it further in time this lag u have to reach 5-6,000 VD rates before ur client can't handle it and let me guess u have a quad-core processor installed to with stand such numbers? You might have explained your testing in detail but u didn't compare it to other system hardware specs. I think it's a multitude of processor getting flooded with data packets and poor video capabilities that put's my client at a disadvantage. if you lag until 3-5000 VD rate then you don't need a choke for your quad-core! >_<

So what gpu do u have installed? To help straighten this lil difference out. I still lag at or above 1,500 VD rates.

[Toaster]

[quote name='Orga2' timestamp='1329605803' post='53984']
No No this is what iam taking about...

I've told everyone by now that my video card 8400gs is a crap card, only 8 pipelines what more can i work with and a dual-core cpu? But YOU!... in order to experience it further in time this lag u have to reach 5-6,000 VD rates before ur client can't handle it and let me guess u have a quad-core processor installed to with stand such numbers? You might have explained your testing in detail but u didn't compare it to other system hardware specs. I think it's a multitude of processor getting flooded with data packets and poor video capabilities that put's my client at a disadvantage. if you lag until 3-5000 VD rate then you don't need a choke for your quad-core! >_<

So what gpu do u have installed? To help straighten this lil difference out. I still lag at or above 1,500 VD rates.
[/quote]

My system specs were listed on the previous page. Please read the entire thread before responding.

[Orga1]

[quote name='Toaster' timestamp='1329609625' post='53994']
My system specs were listed on the previous page. Please read the entire thread before responding.
[/quote]

Toaster I responded because I stand corrected. You don't need a choke for your quad core.

[Toaster]

I can only speculate as the cause and I don't have a solution. But what I do know is the issue with lag that I have seen doesn't appear to be machine specific. I've gotten similar results testing on my fileserver and laptop as I did on my main PC. My fileserver is running an older AMD Phenom X4 with a 7900 GTX and my Laptop is running a Core 2 Duo with twin 8800GTX gpu's. Since I normally run 2-3 clients on the same machine and only the single client doing the firing is the one that lags (I can switch to my TT or JD with no problems and they are running fine) I can only assume it is a problem with the way the server is transmitting data to that single client or possibly the way that client is processing the data.

I apologize if my previous response sounded short, that was not my intent.

I can just provide data from personal tests, no solutions.