rec.autos.simulators

This is called warping.  It's mostly because of quality connections and also
the unstable Internet ;)      .

Normally, you should try to always achieve 36fps all the time when racing
online in GPL. I will now send you to Alison's GPL webpage (she was a beta
tester for it). There is full of FAQ and there is a great section called
"Online" where I think you will find all the answers you want ;)

The URL is :  http://www.nh.ultranet.com/~alison/gpl/

- Fran?ois Mnard <ymenard> Good race at the Brickyard!
- Official Mentally retarded guy of r.a.s.
- Excuse me for my English (I'm French speaking)
- Sponsored by http://www.awpss.com/ on the NROS
- "People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realise
how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."--

David G Fisher

- Eric

David G Fisher

You're probably right. But I read somewhere (Alison's FAQ?) than GPL exchanges
something like twice as much info as Nascar2, and Nascar2 didn't use TCP/IP, which is
much more sensitive (I believe) than hub-based IPX type networking. And packet size is --
as I understand it -- the biggest problem for Net ***.

Quake (and more recently Unreal) both struggled hugely at the start, and are still only viable
with a central server based on a fast connection. Despite all their efforts it's still impossible
for a modem user to run a server for more than one or two players to connect to. I fly Su27
online and it faces similar problems to GPL. So does Warbirds, even using simple Head to
Head IP connections, and when I tried the multiplayer Dawn of Aces arena it had more warp
than the whole of Starfleet Command put together. (And Warbirds/DoA are coded from the
bottom up as Net games).

So overall, saying one game performs better on the Net than other isn't a very constructive
statement. It can be perfectly true, but totally meaningless. It's more improtant to compare
people's Net connections than the actual software they're using.

Andrew McP... trying to compare apples with apples

David G Fisher

1) Virtually the entire field crashed at the start due to warping - this is
exacerbated by the physics model: if 2 cars warp and end up interpenetrating
the physics model generates a sudden enormous force between them, resulting
in the cars flying off suddenly, sometimes high into the air.

2) The 'Ring is so narrow that you couldn't pass anyone safely as their
"warp radius" was as wide as the track!

This was somebody hosting a race with 10 people over a cable modem. I was
using ISDN with a ping time of 240.

- Michael

Some people have trouble with internet play and the fault lies with
GPL. Never mind the fact that we use the same software and that the
guy's CPU, modem, memory, entire system, are better than mine and the
only thing that differs is his internet connect.

As Eric mentioned, without investigating his connection and who else
was connected to the server you can't understand the problem far less
solve it. Saying "it's GPL" is one way to minimise his chances of
solving the problem by ensuring he stops looking for it.

Cheers!
John

The power of the system has little or nothing to do with warping,
rather it's the internet connection he needs to look at. No matter how
powerful a system is, if it doesn't have the data it can't plot it.

Cheers!
John

I feel I have to give my 2 cents on this matter 2 :)I have spent far too
much time racing GPL over the net, and with my system (ISDN, PII), I'd
say it's pretty darn good. Sure, I have been to races where quite a
number of people have been disconnected, but those concerned have
through some work managed to improve that. I have had very few races
where I have been dropped, unless there has been major mayhem. It might
sound childish, but I find it totally amazing that I can _race_ somebody
in the USA. While sitting in the absoulute middle of nowhere; at a laid
- down farm -in Norway!!
In my first league race, that lasted for one hour + practice, there was
1 disco. And 14 starters!
And the competition was close..in my real life racing experience, there
"disconnect rate" was much higher!!

Not too bad IMO!

Matt_K

 http://www.racesimcentral.net/~HOSHUMUNGUS

    and

 http://www.racesimcentral.net/~godsoe/bolt/home.htm

What's to fix, it works perfectly.

Cheers!
John

Warping is caused by either a bad DUN setup or poor performance by the
warper's ISP's internal network or connection to the Internet.  One
other factor is the lantency rate.  The higher the lantency, the more
warping will occur.  Try Ping'ing a host and see how many "time outs" or
lost packets you receive.  The more time outs, the higher the odds for
warping, or even worse Disconnects.  One other factor involved in high
latencies, is the number of hops to the host machine.  Try traceroute
(or tracert in Win95) to find out the number of hops.  

There is a TON of data being pumped back and forth by GPL.  Just check
your modem status after a session on-line and look at the data pushed
back and forth.  I bet in other sims, the number of bytes for the same
amount of on-line time will be greatly less.

--
**************************** Michael E. Carver *************************
     Upside out, or inside down...False alarm the only game in town.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=<[ /./.  [-  < ]>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Can you give us more info? - what are your special DUN settings and which
ISP do you use?

- Michael