If you read the previous posts that lead up to any particular
statement you are more likely to get the gest of what has been
discussed. See other reply.
I had no idea that ping times etc was such a religious topic here. (
btw "etc" in this case stands for, quality, bandwidth, DUN setups,
type of connection, and surrounding relevant issues - before I'm
accused of referring to only 1 variable )
If it were a discussion on ***, Irish religion, the Vietnam war,
etc, I would have expected that some would have very firm viewpoints
as articles of faith.
But I though a discussion about online experiences as they relate to
connection qualities and ping times would be open for anyone to
express what their experiences have been. Seems that if you dare to
mention that, even with all the usual DUN fine tuning etc, your
experience differs form another's, you stand to be condemned as a
heretic - because your experiences don't line up with what another's
definition of connection "absolute and unquestionable truth" happens
to be.
I'm not sure that one can extrapolate the North America to Europe
situation to the Australia to North America one with perfect
comparative baselines.
Eg. From things I have read and heard I take it that there are
physical fibre optic cables across the Atlantic. In our case I believe
its all satellites. Who knows what obscure fine differences this
distinction may introduce.
I mention this because from analysis that I have done in the past the
biggest and most unreliable hop is from Sydney to San Fransico across
the pacific.
If you set up a connection testing software across the Pacific, and
set it for say 40 mins ( the time that should allow for pro-long races
) at the time of day the Ozzies might be online, and log the results
over that period some of the problems show up.
The thing is this ...
Even when the quality is high initially or usually, regardless of the
ping, over a period of time of say 40 mins, there are almost always
several periods of high packet loss and extended ping times. They
might only last for 30 or 60 seconds at a time, or even less, but
that's enough to ruin a race with clock smashes, warps, and
disconnects. This can be against a background of otherwise good
figures in all other respects. And this usually happens over the
Sydney to San-Fransico hop - for whattever reasons.
And, like it or not or accept it or not, when the ping is high it is
more often than not an indication that the other variables are less
than optimal too - from here to North America at least. Your
experience across the Atlantic may be entirely different on the
different hardware in place there.
I tried some high ping races last night just to see if things have
changed - but the old problems were still there it seems to me.
Although I must say not to the same extent I believe.
They were The other cars dance around so that passing is a real hit
and miss affair. Instead of wheel to wheel battles you have to wait
until the ahead driver has made a major error to chance a pass. On a
background of what appears to be a solid stable connection of
excellent quality you suddenly and for no apparent reason get very bad
quality, for a short period at least, with clock smashes, warps, and
disappearing other cars. This has been the problem for a long time and
still appears to be the case.
There is hope on the horizon though. Our 2nd largest Internet carrier
is going to establish its own backbone across the pacific I
understand, and may have already done so by this time, instead of
buying time from the owner of the only current link. This should then
free up the current link more as well as provide an entirely new 2nd
link which may turn out to be better quality than the existing one.
Also high bandwidth ISP services at affordable prices are about to hit
Australia. So perhaps in the next few months we will see trans pacific
races more useful to Australians.
You may then see me on the track with you and you can always crash
into me to "underline the emotional strength of your opinions" if you
like :-)
Cheers
PM
