ET is still power hungry

[S3ti]

I get yellow too in jay3, I even used a positive nudge to make it all blue, and I thought I was hitting better (but with a higher ping) dunno if it's placebo, though...

 

I guess with antilag timenudge is not beneficial at all, and jaymod antilag works really well. Seems more like cpu weakness of the server, though pings start fluctuating a bit too...

[Death_Reincarnated]

Have you tried setting your core affinity to one CPU? (right-click on ET.exe in task bar and go to core affinity)

[SunLight]

Have you tried setting your core affinity to one CPU? (right-click on ET.exe in task bar and go to core affinity)

I use Windows only when I play in etpro servers with tzac (that is, rarely)

 

But I have tried to move ET to one core on Linux too, I have a script that reserves that core for ET only and nothing else runs on that core (maybe interrupts, since I don't move those). When I do it, mouse movements feel a bit more responsive sometimes, but I don't trust what I feel because it could be placebo

 

Anyway I get the same amount of fps, and the same amount I get on Windows. (On Linux I could get more fps than Windows if I enabled Catalyst A.I., but as I wrote already it uses all cores to 100% and lags my mouse)

[Death_Reincarnated]

@SunLight did you say you play ET on linux? If so, good luck getting it to work properly. Older linux OS were still fairly compatable with ET and their mods, however, support for ET on Linux was never too good. I'm afraid you may have OS compatibility issue with ET mods.

Edited May 14, 2013 by Death_Reincarnated

[SunLight]

@SunLight did you say you play ET on linux? If so, good luck getting it to work properly. Older linux OS were still fairly compatable with ET and their mods, however, support for ET on Linux was never too good. I'm afraid you may have OS compatibility issue with ET mods.

 

Hmm I'm running Arch Linux 64 bit (kernel version is 3.9.2 atm, it gets updated quite often on that distro) and I have no problems with any mods, ET works fine, and I get the same fps as Windows.

 

Actually in servers with punkbuster (yes there still are some) it runs smoother if compared to Win. The only downside is that there is no tzac for Linux, so if I want to play on etpro servers using that anticheat I am forced to play from Windows, but I play etpro only every now and then.

 

My cpu is just too slow that's all

[daredevil]

Same on jay3, seems more like server performance issue. The upper bar of the lagometer starts showing yellow spikes as soon as there are more than 20 players online (and everyone has them). With 30 players it's basically unplayable.

 

That's an assumption. Server is more then powerful to run 20+ ET servers and can handle 300+ players easily. Current CPU usage:

 

 

It has plenty of RAM and CPU. 

 

Try to increase u rate to 45000.

[daredevil]

yes, 'fps drops' or 'low fps' would probably be the right term, maybe with fps lag people mean periodic big drops in fps, which temporarily freeze the game

 

I get yellow too in jay3, I even used a positive nudge to make it all blue, and I thought I was hitting better (but with a higher ping) dunno if it's placebo, though...

 

On etpro timenudge (positive or negative) makes you miss, on jaymod I don't know... anyway when I spray bullets randomly, even something that moves enemy hitboxes could be hard to notice

 

 

Jaybird said once not to use timenudge in 2.1.7 and on wards as far i know.

 

Try to increase your rate to 45000 and see how it works out. How many snapshots u get in jaymod? It should show in lagometer.

[S3ti]

That's an assumption. Server is more then powerful to run 20+ ET servers and can handle 300+ players easily. Current CPU usage:

 

screenshot.jpg

 

It has plenty of RAM and CPU. 

 

Try to increase u rate to 45000.

 

Sure it was an assumption. Could have been if there are more games running on it they somehow interfere...rate is 50000 here.

Every 15 seconds or so bigger spikes appear and snapshots drop to anything between 16 and 20.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[daredevil]

Your green line is descent ... so i am assuming you are receiving most of the snapshots. In jaymod i have noticed above 20 players i normally receive 19 snapshots 90% of time. 

 

With that large map with being in spec, server can't send all data in one packet so yellow bar in blue line. Sometimes that also happens when packets are fragmented from your modem and router. It's been a while actually.. I will do some testing tonight or this week on this one. 

 

Server runs at 45000 so setting it at 50000 will take no effect. I will crank up rate to 60000 and see how it goes when i change maps on jay3.

[SunLight]

Jaybird said once not to use timenudge in 2.1.7 and on wards as far i know.

 

Try to increase your rate to 45000 and see how it works out. How many snapshots u get in jaymod? It should show in lagometer.

Ok. normally I don't use any timenudge.

 

I think I get 20 most of the time, rate 50000. I just get some yellow spikes above, every now and then. My main problem is low fps not lag.

 

edit: in jay3 I get 29-30 now, mostly 30

Edited May 14, 2013 by SunLight

[S3ti]

Seems better now with 30 snaps and 60000 rate (maxrate was 50000 before). Still little spikes but not as big and long as before...maybe it's just the engine coming to its limits.

[daredevil]

Ok. normally I don't use any timenudge.

 

I think I get 20 most of the time, rate 50000. I just get some yellow spikes above, every now and then. My main problem is low fps not lag.

 

edit: in jay3 I get 29-30 now, mostly 30

 

 

Seems better now with 30 snaps and 60000 rate (maxrate was 50000 before). Still little spikes but not as big and long as before...maybe it's just the engine coming to its limits.

 

Try again with 20 and 90K. 90K is max limit in engine  I cranked up server max rate to 90K

[Heretic121]

Server is more then powerful to run 20+ ET servers and can handle 300+ players easily. Current CPU usage:

 

screenshot.jpg

 

 

Dem stats 

[Death_Reincarnated]

Just few things to clarify:

 

1) Lagometer CAN show lag spikes (i.e. yellow/red spikes) from hardware and game/OS settings.

 

2) OpenGL is crucial for the game to run smoothly, while it is necessary to have DirectX 8.1 or above. Apple (linux) computers always had incompatibility issues due to this.

 

3) Game requires minimum of 32MB GPU and 128MB RAM. Lag does not come from insufficient GPU or RAM these days.

 

4) Mods tend to change the way the game behaves and how it will run on your OS. Therefore, this can cause issues such as lag.

 

5) With high speed internet available (to most) these days, the rate can be crancked up to 40000-50000 (if server mod permits, which it does now).

 

6) cl_maxpackets is set to 30 by default, however it can be set to as high as 100 as per 5). The bigger this value is, the more information gets sent.

 

7) The cvar 'snaps' determines how often the player receives information from the server per second. This is, perhaps, the crucial parameter that can cause lag. The server is more limited in the upstream bandwidth, than downstream. If majority of the players have fairly high settings (i.e. rate-40000, cl_maxpacket-100, snaps-40), then at some point in terms of player numbers, some players will begin to lag more than others. Why these particular players? I'm not sure. It can be random, but, it may perhaps be to do with where you are situated from the server (i.e. tracert/ping).

 

8) One thing I have noticed over time was that the FPS and information settings can cause lag spikes. Your PC displays at certain frames per second, meaning it displays this information at certain rate. If the information that you get from the server is offest to FPS number then you can get hardware lag. Higher FPS is beneficial, but, just because you set your FPS higher does not necesseray mean that you will never get hardware lag. Also those magic FPS numbers are a glitch in the quake engine, thus it can also be part of the lag issue.

 

9) Server upstream bandwidth has caused issues in the past. Not sure how high this value is now.

 

10) Basically, both server and client settings can cause lag. There are too many variables to play a part in this and unfortunatelly some players will still have issues with this game.

[SunLight]

1) Lagometer CAN show lag spikes (i.e. yellow/red spikes) from hardware and game/OS settings.

Yellow means the game time is past the time of the last received server snapshot.

Red is another thing, becuse the bottom part shows snapshots and ping, the upper part is updated every frame (so it changes according to your fps)

 

The server sends 20 snaps per seconds (1 every 50ms).

 

The client (without timenudge) shows everything with 50ms delay, because it shows snap#1 when snap#2 is already arrived.

This is done becuse the client runs faster than 20fps, if you just displayed server frames as they arrive, you would see everything going at 20fps. So a smooth transition is done between the second-to-last and the last snapshot.

Starting from snap#1, when it gets to display the scene at snap#2, snap#3 should be already arrived, and the interpolation can continue.

 

Of course this is based on the assumption that server snapshots arrive 'exactly' every 50ms, which in reality can never happen, due to network and timing both in the client and server. But I would say mostly network.

 

Big yellow spikes like those in S3ti screenshots mean he didn't have snap#2 but only snap#1, and his client has to predict whet happens next. I'm not sure if this can happen as a 'chain effect', with the client being too much ahead for some frames in a row or not. I should check it in more detail.

 

2) OpenGL is crucial for the game to run smoothly, while it is necessary to have DirectX 8.1 or above. Apple (linux) computers always had incompatibility issues due to this.

Quake3 engine doesn't use DirectX at all, imho. There is some directinnput stuff in the source code but it's not implemented. On Linux there is a sort of 'direct input' instead. (I use quotes because it's not direct input from DirectX of course, which is Microsoft)

 

6) cl_maxpackets is set to 30 by default, however it can be set to as high as 100 as per 5). The bigger this value is, the more information gets sent.

not necessarily.

 

cl_maxpackets tells the game to wait at least 1000/cl_maxpackets milliseconds before sending a packet

 

example: 125fps, 100 maxpackets

 

125fps means a frame every 1000/125=8 ms

100 maxpackets means 1000/100 = 10ms are needed at least between commands.

 

So the 1st command gets sent, the second command is after 8ms, which is lower than 10ms and has to wait. Next frame, 16ms will have passed so it's greater than 10 and both get sent. And the whole thing resets.

In this example, you will send 1 packet every other frame, i.e. around 62/sec.

This means that with 125fps you can't send more than 62 packets/second even if your maxpackets are higher than that.

 

Of course you can have fps lags, and your fps might not be 125 steady all the time, so setting 100 maxpackets is still useful. In order to send as many commands as possible and as quickly as possible, you have to play with 100 fps.

 

7) The cvar 'snaps' determines how often the player receives information from the server per second. [cut]

yes, but you can't get more snaps than the ones the server creates per second (20). You can't tell the server to send you 40 if the server itself creates only 20 frames. At most you could get an useless duplicate.