VROC GPL online help

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

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

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> 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.

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

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

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>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

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

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>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