Lag is not the same as a low FPS count!

[Rulzern]

When people say that a omnline game is lagging, it used to be easy to know what they meant, they meant that there was a lot of latency between server and client, these days a lot of people outside the loop has adapted the term as a genral term of anything that affects game performance, i would like to advice everybody to use \"choppy\" or \"low FPS\" or something along those lines when describing low FPS, and using lag when describing server-client latency.

Thanks you.

The Jargon Dictionary:

lag     n.     [MUD, IRC; very common] When used without qualification this is synomous with netlag. Curiously, people will often complain \"I\'m really lagged\" when in fact it is their server or network connection that is lagging.

netlag     n.     [IRC, MUD] A condition that occurs when the delays in the IRC network or on a MUD become severe enough that servers briefly lose and then reestablish contact, causing messages to be delivered in bursts, often with delays of up to a minute. (Note that this term has nothing to do with mainstream \"jet lag\", a condition which hackers tend not to be much bothered by.) Often shortened to just `lag\'.

[Kuiper7986]

I think its were all to lazy, so we refer to lag as anything that is choppy on graphics or internet wise.

[explorer]

I dont think lagg applies to internet as much any more, more of things slowing down. Friends will say \"That guy is laggin us\" if he\'s walking slow, or \"Dang computer is laggin me\".  I usually ask \"Whats laggin you?\" and they\'ll say fps, or server. Otherwise I dont think people really care which is which. I vote for the lazy thing...

[kyp14]

well i don\'t care about it that much again i\'m with explorer on this i\'ll use it for more than just referring to latency i mean words change there meanings all the time like \"You are gay\" you\'sd to mean you are joyful now it means you are a homosexual so shrugs

[Rulzern]

Yeah, but it\'s VERY annoying when talking about any online game, since the traditional meaning is network-related, a lot of dev\'s (like me) get confused since there\'s a 50-50 chance that it is lagging or has a low FPS count.

It\'s really annoying when you spend 1 hour troubleshooting a person line when she/he actually has a problem with a low FPS count.

EDIT: It got it\'s computer related meaning from expressions like \"You\'re lagging behind\". You can\'t really have a delay in actual gameplay due to choppy graphics, but you can when experiencing lag (i.e. monsters that stand still for half a min, then you are dead due to all the data that is sendt to you at the same time (monster has attacked several times while you waited for it to come out of it\'s \"freeze\"), while when experiencing a nasty FPS count, the monster will still be updated every frame, and gameplay proceeds)

[Kiern]

I say lag when talking to anything that slows me down, what do you expect us to do?  Research everything then come out saying \"my computer is slowing me down due to ----\" Also a lot of people know very little about computers (including me, but im just stupid) and don\'t know how to tell the difference

...as explorer and kyp said, languages change and the meanings of words change (usually due to laziness ), there\'s no helping it

[PartyBoy]

ok when i loose sychronization with the server thats lag right?

[Kundalf]

nope, then you\'re out of sync....

I don\'t think you can get back into game after that, imho your client will crash then.
Lag is something, that slows you down, but lost sync...thats really bad...

[Rulzern]

lag is if the amount of time for packets sendt between yours computer and the server becomes too large, chappy graphics are quite simply choppy graphics, in most games you notice lag by your character skipping back to places he was before, but you can look around as smoothly as normal, and low FPS is when the video becomes choppy. When extreme lag occurs it restrains movements, but extremely low FPS doesn\'t, it just makes it very hard to control your character.

[elminster]

Rulzern, I think you should read your OWN footnote

Newbies don\'t care AT ALL. Neither I, I say lag for low FPS, and *both* for slow network, and I consider myself home at 3D programming :]
I think it actually doesn\'t even matter. If you have very low FPS (5-10), then you won\'t be able to distinguish between lag and low FPS anyway...

I think it doesn\'t worth to argue about this - newbies are NOT programmers, even experienced rpgers don\'t always know much about the technical backgrounds of 3D (they don\'t even need to).

--
Greetings,
E.

[Rulzern]

but that\'s the thing you see, if you go a few years back in online gaming, most people who played knew that lag != choppyness, which resulted in 1000x (well, 2x actually) easier debugging.

You don\'t need to be a programmer to see the difference between lag and low FPS.

PS: you still notice the difference at 5-10 FPS.

[chrischoo]

I think this is probably due to the widespread use of computers today. A few years ago I was on a MUD, and most people on any kind of MMORPG or MUD were probably more computer-inclined than their counterparts. These days every Tom Dick and Harry knows how to use a computer - Whether they know how to use a computer well is a completely different thing. But this also means that these are less technically-inclined players compared to those of the past.

[Rulzern]

But you DON\'T have to be technically inclined to spot the difference between lag and low FPS, if new players learned that those are two different things, they would have no problem knowing the difference.

[Kundalf]

years ago most of the problems were lag (caused by slow connections or bad lines).
Nowadays (with fast and stable connections and high performance hardware) its pretty often hard to tell what the problem is.

In the case of PS, I can\'t make a difference between low fps and lag, since both appear at the same time usually.

(Well except you run it on a Athlon 600MHZ, 128MB, tnt2 -- then its more probably low fps, but you won\'t be able do determine the difference to lag anyways...)

[Rulzern]

If your FPS is very low, you won\'t be able to tell the difference, but the game won\'t be playable either.

And telling them apart is very easy, unless you experience both at the same time, which is pretty rare.