Me and others have consistantly noticed that whenever a unit is targeted, it will 'jerk' along as if it is lagging, yet only the targeted unit does this.
It is espcially noticeable with scavs, and may infact be the cause of many people saying '' 1.3 seems laggy''...because they target an enemy scout, and it jerks in 10m jumps constantly. Even though when objects are untargeted, they seem to be neigh on single player smooth.
I personally think this is a rather serious issue and i have utterly no idea what causes it or what might be done to fix it.
I'm glad someone else noticed it too. I get the same thing in 1.3 so it doesn't seem to be a new issue. 1.3 just makes it worse since ai units are now affected by the smoothening code. The scavs will periodically warp even if not targeted, but they warp more when targeted.
actually not. the smoothing code does not have anything to do with AI units.
when something is targeted for the first time youll see it ZAP to its true location.. like you invoked a mwf flip on jsut that unit.. pretty handy to land a shot.. and in 1.3 its a trouble thats been multipled greatly since the "netsmooth" variables and the like showed up sumwhere in the 1.3 beta
I had not noticed that isuue before yesterday, for the first time i played on a diferent server yesterday and it was warpy as hell. I dont think it is related to my 56k but i used to play on a server that hold 5 meg/down 700k/up and never saw such warp. Im not saying that should be te minimum requirment but but someone should look out to find what is causing that warp.
It looks like units just blink from location to location with a distance of 5 to 10 meters between each movements. And this occured on every units targeted or not, scouts, tanks, drones, warriors.
Does MWF and/or maxMWsmoothpercentage make a difference?
I dont recall any such warp and I usually play MWF 2 and mMWsmoothpc 5.0. Scavs are always somewhat "jumpy" but they do very short and quick jumps only. And not only the targeted ones.
the lower the MWF, the shorter and quicker the jumps are, obviouslly. If you see big jumps every second, chances are the server is on (argh) MWF 10.
yesyesyes, i am aware of all these things....
but im saying actually targeting something makes it jerky and jumpy, and suddenly way harder to hit. infact its easier to shoot things if they are not targeted!!! This sort of defeats the point in targeting them, and should be if at all possiable...changed.
Is mMWsmoothpc 5.0 a client seting?
AI units tend to take little skipping steps when moving, whether they are targeted or not, and it applies to scavs, tanks, turrets, etc.,.
I'm fairly sure this isn't to do with internet lag. Yes, it happens in team strat, but also in other types of game. Yesterday I decided I'd try a DM, put six bots in, and started the game. The bots had this short skipping motion even before other humans joined the game, so I guess it isn't being caused by an internet factor. I think it also happens in Instant Action games (without being connected to the internet).
I use MWF at 2, UseNewTimeskew = true, MaxMWSmoothPercentage = 1.0. MWF is a server setting, the other two are individual PC settings.
Some time ago, before 1.3 I think, I remember reading a post about why AI units have that skipping motion. Unfortunately I can't remember what the explanation was or who posted it (possibly GSH or someone else who knew what they were talking about).
Has anyone seen this behavior on a LAN setup?
Yes, it happens on a lan. It's probably because the AI behaviour is getting worked out locally, then whenever the muultiworld updates it's getting the information from the server, and hence jumping a lot.
[sarcasim]great! if the reguler warp isnt enough the ai skipping even without other players![/sarcasim]
QuoteAI units tend to take little skipping steps when moving, whether they are targeted or not, and it applies to scavs, tanks, turrets, etc.,.
yes aougli, i know!! thats NOt what im refering it. I am talking about seeing a load of units move at the same quality, and i target a scav, and it starts jerking Specifically, not the game as a whole. but the SCAV when i TARGET IT. none of the OTHER units are affected...just the scav.
When i de-target it...it returns to the smoothness the rest of the game is experiencing (yes this is an MP game).
TARGETING things makes THAT PARTICULAR unit 'jerky' for the duration of the target lock! I am
not talking about general lag.
sorry for comming across rudely if thats the case, trying to make a clear consise point.
Quote from: DarkFoxYes, it happens on a lan. It's probably because the AI behaviour is getting worked out locally, then whenever the muultiworld updates it's getting the information from the server, and hence jumping a lot.
[/size]Bummer, I thought high pings/latencies attributable to internet connections were a big factor. I guess not under LAN conditions. This is most likely something that can only be fixed by a dev and at the moment, it may never get repaired.
Tried two quick games yesterday - one MPI and one strat - with a friend over the Internet. Both of us use ADSL (same ISP). Didn't get any lag at all... only one unit warped once.
Used all default network settings, and both us have clean installs of 1.3. My friend's first impression (in 3+ years) was that it played a lot smoother than he remembered. But we didn't do any huge battles, so I can say if that would hold true in a long game. Will have to play, I mean test some more. :wink:
Oh, and I was targeting stuff, including mortar bikes... wasn't a problem.
Maybe old setting from 1.2 are part of the problem?
It would be interesting if we could remove the targeting feature, certainly would make a player develop some skills and knowledge of weapons.
Than we would have to reduce the ammo powerup cost to zero. :-D
I dont think it's settings from 1.2 that are the problem, ive tried every gdamn setting going for sometime now.
more like a combination of problems.
Out of interest perhaps we can nail this down a bit, can players who experiance this post system specs, connection speeds, server specs. and maxsmooth settings etc.
It truly would be nice if we could at least get closer to finding out the problem.
Out of interest ive had this problem for sometime while other players have stated otherwise and i run a high end system with a slow connection, see below.
AMD 3200 xp cpu
rad 9600 256mb gfx
samsung 140gb 7200 hdd 8mb cache
abit an7 nforce 2 mobo
1gb ddr3200 400mhz fsb ram
win xp pro ntfs file system
dx 9b
all updates done
maxsmoothe has been at .25 of late though ive tried everything from 5 to .1 trying 5 again next .
usenewtimeskew set to false. im trying true on this next
minging 44k modem (56k max but never achieved) error control ,flow control and compression off) if i have these settings turned on it lags bz2 to hell though i need them turned on to play games such as ut2004 online.
This section in the config file interests me.
Setting to change the default usage of the NAGLE algorithm. Turning
// this to true will try and push packets thru with less latency (lag)
// at the expense of possibly flooding slow connections. 1.2 defaulted
// this to false.
DisableNAGLE = true
has anyone tried changeing this to false ?
The NAGLE setting is set dynamically depending on if you chose modem or broadband connection in the options in BZ2. If eeryone in a multi game has the broadband selected, then NAGLE turns true, if even one has modem, they all switch to false.
Has anyone with the problem tried a clean install, and not an upgrade from 1.2? Yeah, it's a long shot, but I'd like to eliminate it as a possibility.
i have a fresh install...its not to do with installing over 1.2, I am not the only one who has observed this.
A good way to test is watching two scavs scavenge, and then target one of them...it becomes really obvious then. I dont know if the host experiences it or not ,because i cannot host.
So has anyone *not* seen this problem?
I'll try the scav thing on the weekend hopefully, and see what happens. Maybe it's pack-loss issue... with certain firewalls or something?
I don't really understand why BZ II uses TCP and UDP... most games use UDP only because TCP packet retransmits are time-consuming. But I dunno squat about BZ netcode, so I'll shut up. (I'd be glad to read a technical explanation though.)
Also, I'm using:
Celeron 1.3
512 MB RAM
Geforce2 MX (of some kind)
3com 905B NIC
Linksys firewall/router
Windows XP with Directx9b
Got this from GSH himself during a chat in the irc lobby,
UDP is use for non critical items that if you lose one or two it wont hurt the game.
TCP is use because it keeps track of all the packets and makes sure everone of them arives. This is use for critical items that you must have every signel packet for.
UDP is use for things like the text sent to the chat window, TCP is use for sending the movement commands and game state.
BTW I've seen the targetted AI units thing now, hemp is completely right, it only occurs for me on enemy ai units, and only when I've targetted them.
It's horrible.
Well, I a tried an MPI game last night (2 players)... I couldn't get the warp bug to happen (or at least I didn't notice it). I was targeting pretty much every kind of AI unit.
But if so many people have this problem, it's more likely a problem in BZ than with the computer itself.
Crud!!! I think I've found the problem... I upgraded to the latest Nvidia drivers last night, and the targeted skipping happens now and badly. :evil:
Anyone else can help confirm this?
I have no idea if there are newer video drivers, but I get the skipping when I target ships. I have gotten it for a long time now.
I just checked nvidia's web site and I know my drivers are a lot older than March 15. I think I last updated in February, possibly December. With my current drivers, units warp more when they are targeted. My guess would be that this is a multiworld issue, but it could be a video driver issue.
Are there any people with ATI cards that can confirm that this bug either occurs or doesn't occur with an ATI card?
I have ATI and I have not noticed skipping, I'll test it next time I run in multiworld, But I really do not think video card drivers would effect the moving of an object because those calculations are done on CPU.
...Odd that you mention ATI...
I have an ATI Radeon 7200, a tad old...but it might get upgraded soon.
Ah, mine is the 9700PRO, but I still state that I do not think the video card or any drivers for it would effect that a unit jumps or not...
EDIT: Just tested, happens on my card as well, so now I really do not think it is video card or driver issues, a jerk by about 2 feet (thinking that the scav is about 15 or so feet long) once every 5 to 10 seconds. I can easily see why I missed it, it is nothing, certainly do not miss my shots or anything. But yes it is definitally on a targeted AI vehicle
On a scav? i suppose that would be a minor issue, but its doing the same thing on all of the AI attack units, hell...its even doing it on the bomber :S i saw massive jumps when the bomber was targeted...not good!
This is a major issue, and needs to be fixed. It will drive many many people up the wall.
It *is* a major problem. I missed 4 shots with a blast cannon against a mortar bike in a recent game which hemp and speedy witnessed. I'm sure they can back me up on the fact that I only miss about 1/10 shots against an evading opponent. An AI unit moving in a predictable straight line, however, evades about 2/3 of my blast shots, thanks to this problem.
I watched a scav and a tank, both did indeed jump only when targeted, but by inches it seemed, certainly not enough to have me miss, I wonder why your installs are acting like that, perhaps it is something to do with the hardware... Still doubt the video card.
Dirty_Rooster and I tested this with empty scout matches. It seems that when I targetted him, the jumped side-to-side like a maniac and it was near-impossible for me to hit him. This happened also in a game with Micheal. This only really happens with scouts, at least for me.
I saw Sabres jump 20 m at a time, i was missing the damn thing as it went to dark fox's assault tank...on a simple '' come to me '' command...
It wasnt even evading! just going from point A - B and i was missing half of my blast/laser shots.
This is serious.
Perhaps its severity is a combination of factors...
Sorry guys, it was probably my poor perception. I swore it seemed a lot worse now, but at least now I know what you guys are talking about.
I tried going back to the 53.04 (or 53.03?) Geforce driver, but it didn't like that, so I'm stuck with the new one (56.64). Don't wanna spend my weekend debugging more computer stuff. :P
Using a low MWF doesn't seem to help either. It's like the targetted vehicle gets network updates differently? Guess it's a serious bug for Nathan or Ken to look at.
i dont want even to bring up another player targted warping :shock:
and i have ATI readon dont remmeber what number and ya - it warps BADLY
Ive seen warping before in MPI games. It's kinda annoying when targets jerk around... service bay comes in handy though :)
That warp bug is the only thing i don't like about 1.3 :(
i have had the same problem. Targeted ships warp more than un-targeted ships. This really is a major bug. It is pretty hard to shoot a warping scav. At first i thought it was lag. I have got a new internet connection (cable) and the same thing happens. Very annoying. :evil: