[MUD-Dev] Fighting Lag

[Elia Morling]

Greetings,

Thanks for all the input.

Ian Macintosh wrote on Thursday, March 13, 2003 1:46 PM:

> I gather from this that you're trying to run a synchronised
> (synchronized if you live in the US :) game via UDP?

Well... actually Sweden. As it stands we are using tcp. I started
down the udp route but figured I would optimize the game as far as I
could with tcp and later add udp. I have not quite yet given up on
the task of squeezing the most out of tcp.

> There is some nice info re networking (Age of Empires) that should
> be useful at:

>   http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20010322/terrano_pfv.htm

This was a great resource as they bring up the topic of striving for
consistent lag. It was interesting to read that a delay of 250-500
ms was perceived as alright. I was also happy to discover that we
had come up with the same implementation regarding built-in lag.

> What about using predictive and smoothing code al la Quake design?
> Might trash your current design a lot though :(

We are now sending current position, ongoing animation, and a que of
future animations.

You are correct when you say that we do not have to strive for
perfect client<->server sync.I have come to the conclusion that we
can smooth everything out by adding increased tolerance for up to
1000+ ms lag. The tolerance is at 100 ms at the moment.

Daniel Harman wrote on Thursday, March 13, 2003 11:38 AM:

> Something I'm not clear on, is why you are tying the frame rate of
> the gfx engine to the game engine clock of the server? You might
> like to consider decoupling them and skirting the issue

Hm. The frame rate of the gfx engine is not coupled to the game
engine clock on the server. The 10 fps is a rate we use for
communication. The graphic engine interpolates between and runs as
high as 100-200 fps.

Steven J. Owens wrote on Saturday, March 15, 2003 8:19 AM:

> Interesting.  I've thought of trying something like this, mainly
> because I think the classic (non LP and LP-derived, like diku) MUD
> world is still light years ahead of the MMOG world, in terms of
> actual game _design_.

We posted some more screenshots yesterday that more clearly
illustrates how the game can go full text mode:

  http://www2.tildruin.com/screenshots.asp

Elia



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