rec.autos.simulators

  This is because you're racing with a 600ms ping - that's going to
cause loads of warping and disconnects.  (Think about it - how difficult
would real racing be if you could only see a prediction of where the
other guy "might be in 1/2 a seconds time").  I imagine it's pretty
hard to find a good low ping race to connect to down there
in oz - especially with a lot of cars entered.  It's worth it
when you do...  A very different expereince to racing the AI - you
_know_ the AI will brake in the same place 9 laps in 10 and you _know_
that the AI will avoid you 9 times in 10 if you cut inside forcefully
enough.

--
Richard G. Clegg       Only the mind is waving
    Networks and Non-Linear Dynamics Group
      Dept. of Mathematics, Uni. of York
    www:  http://www.racesimcentral.net/

The .600 ping would be hopeless. You're lucky to even get connected at
that ping as many servers would be set up to reject you at once.

See the ASRG at http://www.powerup.com.au/~philmak/ASRG.htm for sim
racing online in Australia.

We have a GPL comp coming up in Mid-March.

Unfortunaly you've caught us between servers. Our previous high
bandwidth servers are offline and the new ones dont come online til
March. But even so, you'll find a few ofthe members hosting on good
servers from time to time in the intrim.

Phillip McNelley

I just wanted to tell you that what Phillip is saying here, regarding a
600 ping would be hopeless, is total, total rubbbish.
(no offence meant Phillip)
I am a proud member of the GMSS GPL league, which is based in the USA
and has been in operation ever since GPL was released.
Our host's locations vary across America, even as far up as Canada, and
my connections and quality of racing on-line from Australia has always
been excellent with pings from .400 up to and including .650 or so...

There is so much false information being blasted around on RAS and
other places, about what ping will work with GPL and 99.9% of it is
totally wrong..
Let me first say, that a lower ping is better, that is obvious, but a
ping of up to .600 can be absolutely PERFECT in GPL for the F2 or F3
cars, IF you have a good quality connection..
In actuality, pings of up to .750 can produce good racing in F3, but it
is not generally desirable to have pings over .600
In F1, i have found that pings of up to .550 will work reasonably well
as long as quality is good.
Regarding quality, my quality to the hosts in the GMSS league, is
usually around the .990 to .999 mark and i DO connect and race with the
GMSS league every week, with pings around the .450 to .600 area, with
hardly ever a warp of a problem, as i have been doing for the last 2
years.
The biggest problem is discoes, not warping...
That is not brought about by a latency of .600, but is usually the
result of packets being lost through bad routers, or having your
packets re-routed through different servers and GPL doesn't like the
delay or the lost packets that are introduced as the routers change or
go bad.

If any members of the GMSS league read this post Bruce, i am sure they
will confirm what i am saying here.
I would say that 99.9% of the time when i connect to one of our hosts
in the GMSS, that i DO NOT warp at all, in fact i will go as far to say
that my connection, as far as not warping and being solid on the track,
 is usually as good as the guys in our league that have sub 100 pings.
In F1, i used to have occasional warping problems with pings of up to
.600, but these days i don't run F1 anyway, so the ping times (latency)
from Australia to USA are absolutely perfect for F2 & F3 racing, which
is where my love with GPL lies anyway.

One thought Bruce, what speed are you connecting at, and do you have
error correction and data compression turned off. ?
I am with BigPond, i have restricted my 56k modem speed to 26400 and i
have error correction and data compression turned off, so give that a
try before you give up in disgust. :)

Finally, don't EVER believe any ***you hear about how pings of up to
600 will not work with GPL, because it is simply not true.
Quality is far more important than latency in GPL on-line.
The GPL team at Papy have done an excellent job with the on-line code
and how well GPL handles latencys of up to .600.
If you need a hand or want more info, get in touch with me Bruce.

Regards,
Ron Ayton
Melbourne, Australia

I just wanted to tell you that what Phillip is saying here, regarding a
600 ping would be hopeless, is total, total rubbbish.
(no offence meant Phillip)
I am a proud member of the GMSS GPL league, which is based in the USA
and has been in operation ever since GPL was released.
Our host's locations vary across America, even as far up as Canada, and
my connections and quality of racing on-line from Australia has always
been excellent with pings from .400 up to and including .650 or so...

There is so much false information being blasted around on RAS and
other places, about what ping will work with GPL and 99.9% of it is
totally wrong..
Let me first say, that a lower ping is better, that is obvious, but a
ping of up to .600 can be absolutely PERFECT in GPL for the F2 or F3
cars, IF you have a good quality connection..
In actuality, pings of up to .750 can produce good racing in F3, but it
is not generally desirable to have pings over .600
In F1, i have found that pings of up to .550 will work reasonably well
as long as quality is good.
Regarding quality, my quality to the hosts in the GMSS league, is
usually around the .990 to .999 mark and i DO connect and race with the
GMSS league every week, with pings around the .450 to .600 area, with
hardly ever a warp of a problem, as i have been doing for the last 2
years.
The biggest problem is discoes, not warping...
That is not brought about by a latency of .600, but is usually the
result of packets being lost through bad routers, or having your
packets re-routed through different servers and GPL doesn't like the
delay or the lost packets that are introduced as the routers change or
go bad.

If any members of the GMSS league read this post Bruce, i am sure they
will confirm what i am saying here.
I would say that 99.9% of the time when i connect to one of our hosts
in the GMSS, that i DO NOT warp at all, in fact i will go as far to say
that my connection, as far as not warping and being solid on the track,
 is usually as good as the guys in our league that have sub 100 pings.
In F1, i used to have occasional warping problems with pings of up to
..600, but these days i don't run F1 anyway, so the ping times
(latency) from Australia to USA are absolutely perfect for F2 & F3
racing, which is where my love with GPL lies anyway.

One thought Bruce, what speed are you connecting at, and do you have
error correction and data compression turned off. ?
I am with BigPond, i have restricted my 56k modem speed to 26400 and i
have error correction and data compression turned off, so give that a
try before you give up in disgust. :)

Finally, don't EVER believe any ***you hear about how pings of up to
600 will not work with GPL, because it is simply not true.
Quality is far more important than latency in GPL on-line.
The GPL team at Papy have done an excellent job with the on-line code
and how well GPL handles latencys of up to .600.
If you need a hand or want more info, get in touch with me Bruce.

Regards,
Ron Ayton
Melbourne, Australia

ping isn't the only thing what makes a decent connection.

Jens

<snip>
---------------------------------------------

Remove "NOSPAM" before using my email-address

Visit my webpage at http://members.xoom.com/JensSchu/ for some serious stuff concerning:
Radio controlled airplanes
Racing simulation, esp. GPL
Classic cars, esp. Morris Minor

I must admit to not touching the DUN settings so perhaps I should look at
tweaking that area.  Modem is 56k.

Thanks for the advice, Ron.  Much appreciated.

--
Regards,
Bruce Kennewell,
Canberra, Australia.
---------------------------

I started online racing not so long ago and for the first few weeks I
never managed to have a decent race due to a number of different
problems. But slowly but surely I found which times of the day I can
get a better connection, and I can tell you that with less latency,
and no packet loss, is  a completely different experience.
The one problem that I can't seem to be able to even minimize  is
being disconnected, in my view that is the most frustrating aspect of
online racing. I have been disconnect countless times and most of them
right at the beginning of the race or on the last lap, seems there is
a pattern here.
But apart from that I have had the best races ever online, and some of
them I was lucky enough not to be disconnect as soon as I cross the
finish line, enabling me to record it for later viewing.
I have a 56k modem and will be getting an ISDN in the next few months,
and wonder if i would still experience such disconnections problems,
which seem to me are a GPL bug.

Mauricio.

: I just wanted to tell you that what Phillip is saying here, regarding a
: 600 ping would be hopeless, is total, total rubbbish.
: (no offence meant Phillip)

  Well, the fact is that Bruce complained about warping...  Your mileage
may vary but my experience, having spent an age tweaking everything I
can about my modem, is that racing with pings over 300 is a less
enjoyable experience.  

  Certainly you are correct that quality of connection is as or more
important than ping time but I fully stand by the statement that,
generally speaking, if I see a ping time above 400 I experience
considerable warping and occasional disconnects.

  Bruce complained that his racing was spoiled by continual warping
and occasional disconnects.  Draw your own conclusions.

--
Richard G. Clegg       Only the mind is waving
    Networks and Non-Linear Dynamics Group
      Dept. of Mathematics, Uni. of York
    www:  http://manor.york.ac.uk/top.html

Since modems, pings, latency and so forth have come up again ...

Quite a while ago, I saved the mail pasted below (contributions from Messrs.
Pickett and Ayton).  Since, like Bruce, I am starting to make more serious
forays into on-line racing, I hauled it out.

Can I assume that going through the process below is still relevant and
helpful with GPL 1.2?  (Sorry if that's an incredibly obvious questions, but
je ne parle pas "dun.")

Regards,

Kurt

All of the following snipped from earlier post ..........

Are you sick of those LPB (Low Ping Bastards :-) who keep braggin about
getting less than 100 ping???

Well.. don't dispair... :-)

I have been racing ONline since GPL came out.. and have found it pretty good
up until now.. BUT.. I have just found a way to make it better.. for me

I'm no ISP Trouble Shooter.. and don't know THAT much about networking and
Dial connections.. but his is what i have learned and discovered from GPL
online racing...

(for all those who have found this.. plz excuse.. I have just discovered
it.. and other need to know it too)

PING / Latency DOESN'T necessarily make for warp free racing.. My
understanding and experience is that you require a STABLE connection.. not
a "FAST" connection..

Most connection seem to be "suped-up" for bandwidth.. and not stable
throughput.. which is what GPL ( and probably other online games)
require.... This seems to make them more prone to Errors and fluctuations
in Flow...

Sooooo.. by decreasing the connection speed.. you lessen the chance of
such things.. and therefore make the connection more stable... A
connection that is more stable. .can take full advantage of the "prediction"
that is built into GPL

Take note of the QUALITY in the ALT + L function.. PING is NOT THAT
important... lower is better.. but QUALITY is the most important...

With my 56k V90 US Robotics modem.. I was getting about 177 Lat /Ping (same
thing) @ 967 Quality to the best server here in Australia (THANK YOU
TROY!!!! :-). Connection seemed quite good...

Then I took the advice of friends and tried different connection speeds..
It took a lot of mucking around with differnt strings.. but I eventually
got the following

26,400 bps conecction and got 23j0-240 Lat @ 1.000 - 995 Quality

The latency has gone up by about 50ping.. but the cars are now VERY
smooth.. (not far off LAN speed) The main differnce is the Quality....

The following is a post that Ron Ayton put here a few weeks ago (Hope you
don't mind Ron .. BTw.. thanx for your help..... it cover basically all
this..

==========================================================

Firstly, the DUN you use for the Internet is NOT suitable for on-line
gaming. It most likely would be using Data Compression, Error
Correction, Maximum FIFO Buffers and probably going as hard as your
poor little modem can peddle, or harder if i believe half of the tales
i hear about....
All of the above is VERY bad news for on-line gaming.

You should make up another DUN for on-line gaming, with Data
Compression and Error Correction turned OFF. Also, turn down the
maximum connect speed of your modem to 24000, 26400 or 28800 at a
maximum.
The quality of the lines in your area, will dictate the best speed for
you.
This can be done in the Modem Properties tab of your DUN for the
designated Modem. Read the booklet that comes with your modem for the
initialization strings you need.

NOTE:
Some people are under the mistaken belief that a slower connect speed
will take longer to get to the host, resulting in higher latencys
(pings) etc. This is totally false.!!!
The connection speed of your modem, is a false analogy, as the
connection speed only refers to how much bandwidth the modem is capable
of sending at any given time, NOT how fast it can send it.
Hence, the ammount of data that a GPL host requires from a client will
get to the host at exactly the same time, whether the client is using
26400 baud or 56000 baud, and 99.9% of the time, the 26400 baud rate
from the client will have a lot less errors and be more stable than
the 56000 baud's best effort, unless you are lucky enough to live in a
area where optical fibre abounds, all the way from you to the host,
which is very unlikely. :)
I only ever use a maximum of 26400 on-line with GPL, as the lines in my
area, leave a bit to be desired, but with my normal internet dun, i use
33 to 56k baud, and let the error correction fix any problems i
encounter, which is fine for surfing and general internet use etc.
(error correction is a definite no-no for gPL)

To make more than one DUN with different modem initialization strings,
you will need to go to the MODEMS in the control panel and ADD another
modem. This will not overwrite your present modem settings, but will
add another modem to the modems you have listed in the modem list. As
you add more modems to the list, Windows will simply add a #2 #3 #4
etc etc to the end of the modem name. That way you can set up as many
DUN's as you have modem names, each one with different initialization
strings.
Once you have your on-line DUNS and modem set up correctly, you will
actually find that disco's, error filled connections and high latency's
will simply become a bad memory...

NOTE:
The FIFO buffers should be set no higher than the 2nd mark from
the left, unfortunately these are global settings, so if you set them
at the 2nd setting from the left, that is where they will remain
regardless of which DUN you are using. I have not noticed any lesser
performance in surfing or downloading with the buffers set there
anyway, so i just leave them there all the time.

Make sure you turn Error Correction off, also turn off the Data
Compression and select Hardware Flow Control in you modem's properties
tab for the On-Line gaming DUN. If you are a paranoid type, as i am,
you could also add those commands to the extra settings in the modem
initialization string, just in case you don't trust windows to carry
out your wishes and let's face it, who trusts windows to do anything
right when it comes to gaming anyway..

I have included the following line for my US Robotics modem in my
On-Line Gaming DUN..

&F1&K0&M0&U10&N13

&F1 Resets modem to standard, in case windows messed it up.
&K0 Disables Data Compression, in case windows forgot.
&M0 Disables Error Correction, as per above scenario..
&U10 Sets the floor connect speed to 19200.
&N13 Sets the ceiling connect speed to 26400.

The above is an example for the US Robotics modem, different modems
will vary slightly in the initialization strings, so read your manual
for further details to achieve similiar results.

Secondly.. Windows in it's infinite wisdom sets up the Port settings
on the extra conservative side by default.
This needs to be changed manually.
To do this:
Go to the Control Panel, go to System, go to Device Manager, go to
Ports (com & lpt).
Select Com1 , go to Port Settings, and adjust the following to read as
follows:
Bits per second 115200
Data 8
Parity none
Stop Bits 1
Flow Control Hardware
Go to Advanced and adjust the FIFO Buffers so they are 1 mark from
the left side.
Do the same for Com Port 2.

The following topics, are relevant to the new CORE.INI file, that ships
with GPL 1.1

NOTE:
This file is called: COREINI.SAMPLE and must be re-named to: CORE.INI
before GPL 1.1 can make use of it.
It is located in the: SIERRA\GPL\ folder, after the GPL 1.1 patch has
been installed...

A couple of slight adjustments are needed to get the best out of the
new CORE.INI file.
Following, is a brief example of a couple of changes i made to my
CORE.INI file, to suit on-line play on VROC.

The parts you need to alter from the CORE.INI that ships with GPL1.1
are the two lines concerned with band width:
net_mdm_client_send =2 & net_mdm_server_send_every =2

Change both of those to 3, like below in the pasted example.

net_mdm_client_send_every = 3 ; Client packet freq on dialup
net_mdm_client_send_size = 84 ; Client packet size on dialup
net_mdm_server_send_every = 3 ; Server packet freq on dialup
net_mdm_server_send_size = 84 ; Server packet size on dialup

That is the standardized band settings that VROC uses, for clients
and hosts, and everyone running on VROC, should alter the relevant
lines to match the above criteria.
Also, for me, the new Synch method does not work well...
The best way to tell if the new synch method is working for you, is to
race on-line, and if you are noticing a lot of slow motion & speed-up
effects, then the new synch method is not working well for you.
The new synch method does not use the: clock_adj_delay = 4
line either, as that is disabled when the synch_method is set to 1.

I have changed the line:
synch_method =1 to synch_method = 0
(which re-enables the old version of synchronization)

By altering that line back to 0, GPL 1.1, uses the following line:

clock_adj_delay = 4 ; How often may client adjust clock?

The ...

read more »

Andre

Yes what I said was a simplistic explanationn - but it is a general
rule of thumb as far as connecting to a high ping server from here in
Australia to the other side ofthe world.

Ususaly, from here, the reason you have a high ping is that you are
going through a lot of hops to the server. Every hop is a potential
weak point. True its not just the ping but a combination of things.
But from here, the same reason you are getting a high ping is also
likely to be the reason that the other parts of the equation are less
than optimal also.

You can have OK races with pings of up to 500 as long as the quality
is good and as long as you allow a bit for the lag. But having a 500
ping race with 7 hops and good quality is altobeather another thing
than a 500 ping race with 20 hops and occasional drops. The problem
with us is that nearly all connects to outside of Oz have more hops
than is usualy helpful.

My expierance with 500+ OS ping races is that they may be ok for a
period or short races but sooner or later you get the clock smashes
and/or warps and/or disconnects. There are just one or two ( or three
) exceptions to this with certian OS servers that must have
exceptionaly stable setups.

Not only this, but just connecting to a server at those pings can
lower the quality for everyone else on the server - which is exact;y
why many servers are ping # set to reject anyone over a more aceptable
figure. That's what the facility is there for.

Total rubbish ? This implies there is no truth in the concept at all.
I still stand by what I said. An OS 600 ping, for a varity or reasons,
will most likey be completely uesless unless you are happy to have
reatively short periods of OK racing dispursed with a lot of
irratating and frustration interuptions.

( If what you said is anything less than 100% perfect truth in every
respect can I call it total rubbish ? )

Cheers

Phillip McNelley

Bruce, you might want to check into websites and stuff that cover
ways of tweaking your modem online connection for *** play, there's
a lot of stuff you can do and combined altogether it will help your
latency and connection reliability.

Grant.

"But in a way, fear is a big part of racing, because if there was
nothing to be frightened of, and no limit, any fool could get into
a motor car and racing would not exist as a sport." -- Jim Clark