Online games

[:1]I've played a couple of online games (or rather attempted to) and the result in all three cases has been a large amount of lag. In one of the games someone suggested it was me, although I'm not sure what basis that determination was made.



I checked F2 in each case and all of the players listed (including me) were running at 10 sim speed, which is the standard. In one particular game, each player had a ping of between 100 and 200.



These seems to be the only conceivable problems, at that least I can check. Is it possible that I need to forward some ports, or have was the player that suggested it was me wrong?



I'm running a Q6600 processor with 4GB of RAM and an Evga 8800 GTX, so simulation speed ought not to be a problem.



My internet connection is 15 Mbit down and 1 Mbit up. The first game was two player only, and the remaining two had 6 players in total, including me.



Any ideas as to what is going on here? Have I simply been unlucky with the people I've played with? Is this a common problem?|||As you say, the lag you are describing is inexplicable considering your system, unless there were alot of other large processes or nasty antiviruses running.



I have never seen a game where everyone was pegged at 10 sim speed, however. Are you sure it was 10 for everyone and not -10 for one or more of them? There is a huge difference there.



- Servo|||Hi Servo,



I think the issue he describes relates to the one I posted here: http://forums.gaspowered.com/viewtopic.php?t=44393



I just wanted to point out that I am experiencing the same thing described here and that is definitely with no players at minus SIM speeds. To me, it sounds entirely possible that he could be experiencing the lag with all players at +10 since it doesn't seem to relate to SIM at all.



My experience has been that quite often, in large team games, even right after start when no player has more than 20 units, the game appears to run at -3 SIM speed or so. This is in spite of the fact that all players seem to have decent connections (me pinging less than 100 to all of them) and no player is below 8-9 SIM speed while most are of course at 10.



How does this make sense? As long as no player is below SIM 0, the game should run at normal speed, right?



Like I described in the linked thread this occurs in many of my games and apparently for lots (most) other people as well.|||Thanks for pointing that out Apheirox.
We haven't seen the problem locally on a machine where setting the affinity for Steam would make any positive difference, so it is hard to reccommend this fix, but clearly it worked for Banthor, so there has to be some validity, even if it is somehow a side effect of something else (like clearing headway for a hungry antivirus process, for example).
If you are trying this workaround, it is as simple as summoning your Task Manager and right-clicking on one of the options under running applications is to "Set Affinity".
- Servo|||I would like to add a comment to my situation and the workaround I am using.
For me the lag issues occur immediately after game start and do not occur after a set period of time.
As I replied in my original thread I have met someone with the same problem and he has the exact same motherboard (Gigabyte P35-DS3) as I have and also a very similiar gfx card (GF 8800 GTS640BM vs. GF 8800GT).
Here I read that theadder also has a Geforce card with a 8800 GTX chip. Maybe there is a pattern?
It would now be really good to know wether he is also running a similar motherboard. So @theadder: What kind of motherboard are you using and what operating system (32 or 64Bit)?|||Adding to this bug, I get exactly the same behavior. I noticed this first in the demo, where the game would appear to stutter despite getting perfectly fine framerates. I never gave it much thought though. However when playing multiplayer the game almost appears to run in slow motion, and the stuttering I had is 10 times worse. Just like banthor, I can workaround this by setting Steam to use just one core. It then runs perfectly. Including removing the stuttering, allowing me to run a higher resolution. However, just like banthor, it also creates lots of strange issues with units and structures being invisible.
I also have a very similar system to the others.
My specs:
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450 2.66GHz
Nvidia 8800 GT
4 GB RAM
Gigabyte EP35-DS3R Motherboard
Windows 7 64 bit|||Now that is to my knowledge the third report that matches the pattern. This is no coincidence.
Everyone has a Gigabylte EP35-DS3 or in your case a EP35-DS3R which is the same just with Raidsupport.
Also everyone has a gfx card from Nvidias "oldish" 8800 GTS/GTX or the slightly newer 8800GT line.
Everyone has 4GB of RAM
Also it seems that Windows7 64-Bit also appears to be common among the people experiencing this problem.
The number of cores or CPU or CPU vendor on the other side does not seem to matter.
Now I really would like to know what "theadder" has as motherboard, I bet it is from Gigabytes EP35 line...
@GPG:
I think this should be enough for you to reproduce this on a test system.|||This is very revealing, and quite interesting to our engineers. We don't currently have a system in-house that meets this configuration, but it is still possible that some BIOS-level settings are at the root of the problem.
If one of you feels comfortable fiddling with some technical settings, you could help confirm our hypothesis. If you are not a computer guru, please do not attempt this, it could prove hazardous, deadly, or worse.
Our theory is that the problem may be linked to the Intel Dynamic Energy Saver or EIST/C1E support settings in your BIOS. If this is true, disabling one or both of them and then running the game with both cores enabled would produce the same results you are currently seeing with one core affinity.
If this is true, this could justify looking for a system with your settings so we could test fixing the affinity masks on the networking threads.
Anyone experiencing the problem up for trying it?
- Servo|||Being a software developer myself I will investigate this and let you know the results here.|||I checked my BIOS settings and could not find anything relevant. Maybe banthor will have better luck.
The Energy Saver programs are actually something that is installed from a disc that comes with the motherboard. I used to have it installed when I ran XP on this system. I never actually enabled it because at the time my system was a little unstable and I believed the Dynamic Energy Saver program to not help the situation.
When I updated to Windows 7, I completely forgot about it. I have not installed it at all. When I get the chance tonight I'll try and see what happens if I actually install the software.|||Ok here are my results:
I found the EIST and C1E Function in my BIOS. They were both activated.
I ran tests with all 4 possible combinations of (de)activating these 2 options. All tests were made in a 1v1 game with a ping of 100ms and SIM Speed at 10. None of the test made a change in symptoms - the GUI lag continues:
Zooming in and out is a slide show. Animations run smooth for a couple of ms and then "stutter". The bounding box when placing buildings also lags behind the mouse pointer.
It might be a very subjective feeling, but I "felt" that disabling EIST had a very very slight positive effect.

I could post/send of all my BIOS settings if required (Let me know by email where I should send them). If there is any other test/diagnosis I could run for you just let me know.|||Try change some of the display setting with in supcom 2.
Or try to see if all drivers are FULLY upto date.
Run dxdiag in cmd and let it refresh it list settings in there.|||reddev32|||What speed is your ram and cpu?
and try getting win 7 as vista is hardware demanding|||reddev32|||Is there any update on this bug? I took a closer look at my BIOS settings and found the settings described. Like banthor they had no real effect. I would really like to play MP matches without being gimped in one way or another...|||Thank you for the necro, I was remiss in following up on this.
Sounds like the BIOS adjustments were inconclusive, but thank you very much for attempting them for us.
Since the time of this discussion a few more possibly related posts have been discussed on the Steam and Square Enix forums. Both are apparently related to Steam, or possibly proxies. It would be interesting to see if either of these has any impact in your case(s).
Adding -tcp to your launch settings through Steam
Opening ports 55968 and 55969
- Servo|||I tested both solutions individually and together - no improvement at all.
I did not expect the solution with the ports to work anyway, as a friends laptop ran the game smoothly behind the same router I am behind. If it had been these ports, then it would have ran bad on his laptop too.|||If single player is smoth and multilayer is not it must mean that your connection to the internet is not the best 2 support online playing.
Please go to the following link adn test your internet speed and post results http://www.speedtest.bbmax.co.uk/|||reddev32|||Same issues here, and guess what.. Gigabyte GA-P35-S3 + GTX260. Seven 64, 4 gb.
Notice that it's also happend when I open a replay, so it's not a network issue.
It also depend of the map :
Worst on Winter duel and that 3v1 map. Almost unplayable.
Bad on finn's, a little less on markon bridge.
Bad on open palms.
All the others maps play good or better.
Also, the lag disappears on finn's, markon and palms when I'm zoomed in.
I think it's related to the trees. (or the dam in markon). Not really sure, but the lag appears when I'm zoomed in a tree area.
I've tried all kind of graphical settings (AA off, aniso off, very low,...), no improvement at all.
One other game got the same kind of glitch : battlefield compagny 2. The beta was running fine until the last beta patch (the one that was supposed to optimize CPU stuffs). Then I've got bad lag issues not related to connection or graphic settings.
I will try to find some infos for the BC2 problem (I didnt bought the game because of that)|||Ze_PilOt|||Oh, and the problem is increased if I turn Vsync on.
Your workaround do nothing for me.|||Ze_PilOt|||Can't recall of any problem in solo, even with the mission that looks like the 3vs1 map.