pb1.5 on slow connections

[ScarleTomato]

Anyone know of some tweaks to help 5.1 run on slower connections?

I've been having trouble getting an old friend to join up on some of my games. He just got himself DSL but neither one of our connections are good enough to show up on the gamespy lists. I can usually have people connect through my external IP and it works fine. For him though, the game starts up and he can play for about a minute or so and gets lagged out. If he joins mid-game there's no hope. We used to be able to play together back when he had dialup though so my guess is that the new beta has a little less tolerance for slow connections? I've been perusing through the nettips.rtf and the gameprefs.ini to see if there are some tweaks i can play with and was wondering if anyone else might have some advice.

Were both running 5.1, and can both join up on games listed on the gamespy list without a problem. We live in the same city so the ping is usually down under 100 but it does get sporadic occasionally. I tried leaving the MWF at 10 and bumping the allowed ping to 3000 to no avail. His FPS is usually over 90 when he gets the boot. We've tried having him host as well with the same effect.

[Clavin12]

Idk, simpler graphics?

[ScarleTomato]

We can try but I would say not. As i said the FPS seems well above average. If his computer was struggling with video graphics wouldn't that be affected?

[AHadley]

Lower your goddamned view distances!

[Nielk1]

I have had some issues with recent Addon Pack test games, but never on the first game, always the second. Even after a BZ2 restart. Might be my router though.

[ScarleTomato]

@Ahadley we were actually trying it on CTF: Canyons just to see if it would work. No Dice.

remembering warzone hills though. You know how it has like 24 pools? well i modified greenhearts thug recy to support thug extractors as well and added Gnat Incerceptors (a fast little aircraft) with carpet bombs and those scimitars from FE, oh and Hammers. Me and 3 Thugs, each had their own base pumping out units. We're bombing the hell outta the AI base in these Interceptors. Ive got these little one square service platforms, about 2 dozen of em in a line about 1000 meters south of their base so we can all get in about 3-4 bombing runs and then do a touch-and-go on the service strip and go again. Along with FE Hammers and Scimitars pouring in their base splashing against the enemy tanks and walkers. And one of my thugs was walking Intimidators up around the outside to kill off the Megas. Between the carpet bombs, hornet rockets, plasma, howitzer mortar and mega towers it was insane fun. I'll have to record a video the next time we get a game up.

just found out about the percentage (and what it means) next to the ping. I'll check that out and see what the quality of the connection is later on. If thats the problem, are there any recommendations? New router? new ISP?

[AHadley]

@Ahadley we were actually trying it on CTF: Canyons just to see if it would work. No Dice.

remembering warzone hills though. You know how it has like 24 pools? well i modified greenhearts thug recy to support thug extractors as well and added Gnat Incerceptors (a fast little aircraft) with carpet bombs and those scimitars from FE, oh and Hammers. Me and 3 Thugs, each had their own base pumping out units. We're bombing the hell outta the AI base in these Interceptors. Ive got these little one square service platforms, about 2 dozen of em in a line about 1000 meters south of their base so we can all get in about 3-4 bombing runs and then do a touch-and-go on the service strip and go again. Along with FE Hammers and Scimitars pouring in their base splashing against the enemy tanks and walkers. And one of my thugs was walking Intimidators up around the outside to kill off the Megas. Between the carpet bombs, hornet rockets, plasma, howitzer mortar and mega towers it was insane fun. I'll have to record a video the next time we get a game up.

just found out about the percentage (and what it means) next to the ping. I'll check that out and see what the quality of the connection is later on. If thats the problem, are there any recommendations? New router? new ISP?

1) I was joking, but its still a good point after seeing your maps. They kill my FPS!

2) Sounds like a hell of a game.

[Wraith]

Have you tried lowering the MTU setting on router and put in the right ports and firewall settings?

[ScarleTomato]

MTU setting?

okay read up on MTUs. its set to 1454 right now. which according to wikipedia 1500 bytes is the max an ethernet connection can do. So it seems fairly high. Any suggestions as to what i should set this down to?

alrighty it seems i can ping google with packets as high as 1464 bytes, even with my router set to 1454? Ill get the other guy to test his connection tomorrow and see what he can do. Again though, any ideas as to what a good starting size is for a slow DSL connection?

[Red Devil]

Use these tools:

http://www.dslreports.com/tools

[mrtwosheds]

I think it should be said at this point that pb5.1 does appear to still have some network stability issues(not always) lagout's still occur frequently with 4+ players, 8 players strats generally don't work very well at all.  
People with poor performing pc's seem to make this even worse.

If your game cannot be seen on gamespy I think it is unlikely to be the quality of the connection, firewalls(ports) and/or w@nk&r ISP's are more likely culprits.