Excessive lag on server!!

[mkarr]

Can't anything be done about the excessive lag on the zeroping server. Sometimes it is so bad that it renders the game unplayable. It seems like everyone complains about it, but nothing is ever brought up about it. I would think that a problem like this should be addressed before anything.

[weltall]

lag? you should check with your isp i've a steady 20ms ping

[bilbous]

What is often called lag is poor performance. For example, if I trigger 6-7 critters that have multiple attacks so that I become their target my connection becomes overloaded with armor practice messages such that the client becomes unresponsive until the armor being practiced ranks up. This is not lag it is pipeline saturation. I'm not positive if it is network saturation or CPU saturation, my equipment is getting fairly old. Another problem that is put down to lag is that when the npcclient -- the code running the various critters -- becomes unstable and is in the process of crashing it seems to tie up server resources causing delays in processing results. This also isn't strictly speaking lag which can be measured by ping times. Lag is the delay from when the message is sent from the server until it is received by the client.

I do not know what kind of equipment the game server runs on nor whether its resources are shared between PS and other applications. As far as I know it is all donated.

Bottom line for me is "what do you want for nothing? sometimes you just have to work around your specific problems. I turn off all sounds and reduce most of the graphics and the 'brownouts' are kept to a minimum.

My ping times are in the 130-170 ms range generally. It is usually quite playable and if I am training armor in that manner I just wait for it to start responding again.

[LigH]

If you rush into populated areas (like Hydlaa), a lot of characters enter the viewing range. For all these characters (PC or NPC), the models and textures have to be unpacked from ZIP archives and loaded into RAM and graphic card memory.

This loading of models and textures blocks the whole game. But developers are the only people who don't notice that ... – Well, it may depend on the hardware, on the Operating System, on the IRQ sharing and order ... whatever.

[Aramara Meibi]

not only that, but the new and entirely unnecessary bumpmaps applied to certain areas like Hydlaa, the Stonehead, guildhouses, Amdemnier and Oja (basically anywhere not wilderness) are enough to send most systems into a tantrum spiral which can result in perceived lag, client freezing, system freezing, client crashing, complete system shutdown, or even user spontaneous combustion in worst cases.

Work arounds include lowering your graphics settings, if you don't mind playing in a gloomy, dimly lit world (shaders on low) or an oversaturated cartoon land (shaders on lowest). Either of those combined with the patented 'Look Straight Down' camera angle should result in an almost bearable gameplay.

[novacadian]

Either of those combined with the patented 'Look Straight Down' camera angle should result in an almost bearable gameplay.

Nova cackles gleefully

Did not realize it was patented. Licensing fee is in the mail. 

- Nova

[LigH]

Well, you know – PlaneShift is a 3D game, so use 3D gaming hardware. It supports techniques similar to games like DOOM 3 or Riddick, so don't be surprised if office grade hardware is overcharged...

But even with modern hardware (4 GB RAM, GeForce generation 8+, SATA-II HDD), there are still enough bottlenecks to lock it up for seconds in certain places.