rec.autos.simulators

by **Nexxus** » Tue, 13 Apr 1999 04:00:00

Last night I joined my first vroc gpl race. When we lined up to race,
the revs came up,
the adrenaline began to flow, the green flag fell, I popped the clutch
and every body
disappeared!!!!(off the screen I mean) No one was running but me, what
happened??? Maybe one of you online pros can help me out, thanks

by **Nexxus** » Tue, 13 Apr 1999 04:00:00

No!!! I mean when the flag fell they literally disappeared off the screen.
Noo cars running but me.

> German drivers also :)

> McKafre De La Rosa

> >>Last night I joined my first vroc gpl race. When we lined up to race,
> >>the revs came up,
> >>the adrenaline began to flow, the green flag fell, I popped the clutch
> >>and every body
> >>disappeared!!!!(off the screen I mean) No one was running but me, what
> >>happened??? Maybe one of you online pros can help me out, thanks

> >Forgot to put the gear in did we?-) Never mind, it happens to scottish
> >Formula One drivers as well.

by **Toni Lassi** » Wed, 14 Apr 1999 04:00:00

Forgot to put the gear in did we?-) Never mind, it happens to scottish
Formula One drivers as well.

by **McKafr** » Wed, 14 Apr 1999 04:00:00

German drivers also :)

McKafre De La Rosa

by **Michael E. Carve** » Wed, 14 Apr 1999 04:00:00

% Last night I joined my first vroc gpl race. When we lined up to race,
% the revs came up,
% the adrenaline began to flow, the green flag fell, I popped the clutch
% and every body
% disappeared!!!!(off the screen I mean) No one was running but me, what
% happened??? Maybe one of you online pros can help me out, thanks

Whoops, when you said in your other post that they disappeared, I
thought they left you sitting on the grid. ;-)

This is a case of major clock smashing and you warped into another time
zone. I would hazard to guess that your latency count was in the 1.000+
range. When you join a race, always check the latency (close chat
window, press Alt-L and then reopen chat to see the latency). Try to
only run on hosts where you get a latency counts below .400. Also make
sure that you have configured your graphics so that you basically get at
least 33-36fps (you want to shoot for 36fps most of the time, but
occasionaly dips in the 30's is okay).

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

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

by **Martine Wedlak** » Wed, 14 Apr 1999 04:00:00

>This is a case of major clock smashing and you warped into another time
>zone. I would hazard to guess that your latency count was in the 1.000+
>range. When you join a race, always check the latency (close chat
>window, press Alt-L and then reopen chat to see the latency). Try to
>only run on hosts where you get a latency counts below .400. Also make
>sure that you have configured your graphics so that you basically get at
>least 33-36fps (you want to shoot for 36fps most of the time, but
>occasionaly dips in the 30's is okay).

For me, the clock smashes are not highly correlated to latency. For
example, I get huge clock smashes when I connect to Chaz' server, even
though he lives about 23 Km away (as the crow flies, in reality it's about
1.5 hours on the ferry...ugh) and my pings are usually about 200 ms or less.
Whereas, sometimes I'm able to connect to a high ping server (500ms say) and
not get warped or disconnected at all.

As I understand it, the clock smashes happen when my clock drifts apart from
the server's clock, thereby requiring a clock reset. In my case, with the
low pings, I wonder if it's a hardware issue (one of our clocks is running
fast/slow)...

Later,
Martine

by **Ron Ayto** » Wed, 14 Apr 1999 04:00:00

Hi Martine, i agree with your findings here. I live in Australia and
consequently it is very rare for me to have a ping under .450 to any
overseas host.
I have had great warp free, clock smash free races with latency numbers
up to .600 and shocking warpy races with latency figures in the low
200's.
Although the above examples are extremes, i also feel that a latency of
500 is no bug bear to good on-line racing.
Over the last 4 weeks or so, i had been suffering massive clock
smashing whenever i connected to an American host, even though my ping
times were normal from Australia, in the .400 to .550 area.
The problem was finally traced to a bad router in Bloomington USA and
since that has been fixed, i have had no further problems with clock
smashing at a 450 to 550 latency.
Having said all that, i agree with Michael Carver's comments regarding
ping time to a certain degree as well. Obviously the lower the ping,
the better and more warp free racing on-line will be, but it is not the
end of the world if a client's pings arn't under .500 ms. Another
common cause of clock smashing and excessive warping is simply an
overloaded CPU. Try knocking back some detail off to achieve 36 fps,
that will help as well.
There is an adjustment in the core.ini file that can be made to
increase the frequency that a client's computer checks the host's
computer for syncronisation, and that is by including the following
line in the core.ini under the heading, Communications. There should
already be 4 lines under the Communication heading in the core.ini such
as: (The 5th line is the one to add to it)
net_mdm_client_send_every = 3
net_mdm_client_send_size = 84
net_mdm_server_send_every = 3
net_mdm_server_send_size = 84
clock_adj_delay = 10

The 5th line makes the client's computer re-syncronise with the host's
computer every 10 tics, rather than the default of 12.
Randy Cassidy said that too low of a number will cause frame stutter,
so experiment with the setting. I find that a value of 10 works great
for me from Australia, and helps cut down the clock smashes i used to
get.
The 5th line does not effect the host's computer in any way, but is
client based only.
Hope that helps a bit..
Cheers,
Ron

by **Martine Wedlak** » Wed, 14 Apr 1999 04:00:00

>Hi Martine, i agree with your findings here. I live in Australia and
>consequently it is very rare for me to have a ping under .450 to any
>overseas host.
>I have had great warp free, clock smash free races with latency numbers
>up to .600 and shocking warpy races with latency figures in the low
>200's.
>Although the above examples are extremes, i also feel that a latency of
>500 is no bug bear to good on-line racing.
>Over the last 4 weeks or so, i had been suffering massive clock
>smashing whenever i connected to an American host, even though my ping
>times were normal from Australia, in the .400 to .550 area.
>The problem was finally traced to a bad router in Bloomington USA and
>since that has been fixed, i have had no further problems with clock
>smashing at a 450 to 550 latency.

I always seemed to get more clock smashes with certain hosts; it's nice to
get some confirmation. The real question is, why are we getting so much
drift with the clock times? I would normally expect the clock circuits to
be very accurate (within a few seconds a month), however obviously something
is going on here.

After further reflection...

Perhaps it is actually more closely related to the problem of synchronising
clocks over a communication channel that has lots of jitter (varience in
latency)... Many synchronisation algorithms use some kind of symmetry
argument (e.g., the delay from one host to another is approximately half the
round-trip time). If the latency is shifting around a lot, it's hard to get
a good idea of the actual communication delay when updating the clocks.

Hmm, maybe; but the clock smashes seem correlated to the server I connect
to, not the CPU load on my machine. Maybe the server's machine is being
overloaded?

I had mine set at 10 for a while, and lowered it to 8. I didn't get any
frame stutter, but I still get clock smashes...

Thanks!

Later,
Martine

rec.autos.simulators

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