N3 Online Q's from fish....

New fish in the N3 Online pond... 1: How come my best setup off line can't keep up with ANYONE online? I get out there and guys fly past me.... turn sideways hit the wall ahead of me and go on as if nothing happened. OK so I'm using a joystick...is everyone out there using some kind of wheel? Would a wheel make THAT MUCH difference. 2: On the "list of available races" screen I understand the "players column" to indicate how many of the available slots are in use. But what about the other columns? Here is what I think they mean...please tell me if I am correct. D=damage (realistic or arcade)??? Y=yellow flags enabled P=pace lap??? F=fixed setup??? M=haven't got a clue!!! %=no brainer...percent of regular race Ping=no idea The book doesn't give up much info on connections. 3: What about "address book" what's it's function??? 4: What EXACTLY does "clock zapped" mean? I swear I'm not as stupid as it looks but if Pappy would elaborate in the manual I wouldn't have to look like a dope! Thanks..... (Don't use NO***in E-mail) You think in the storm we've found the eye of the calm.....Bill Mallonnee, Vigilantes Of Love

Ping is the most important item. Clik on a race you may be interested in and then click the ping button. On the far right you will get a number. The smaller the better. some very fast drivers use sticks. They probably aren't hitting the wall or just grazing it, but N3's prediction code is moving the car so that you SEE them hitting a wall. The sideways stuff is the same, it's just N3 trying to reason with itself where the other cars "should" be. I believe this is one of the major areas of attention with the beta patch that is being worked on. dave henrie

While this is the generally accepted excuse, I still have to wonder of people have found a way to cheat sometimes. The other cars can be so fast, that the only way I usually win or finish on the podium is if they crash. Warping can be very bad though. I have been leading the field and all of a sudden I am magically in 4th place. This kind of thing makes me wonder if we are really racing each other or just fooling ourselves. -- Header address intentionally scrambled to ward off the spamming hordes. cisko [AT] ix [DOT] netcom [DOT] com > Ping is the most important item. Clik on a race you may be interested > in and then click the ping button. On the far right you will get a > number. The smaller the better. > some very fast drivers use sticks. > They probably aren't hitting the wall or just grazing it, but N3's > prediction code is moving the car so that you SEE them hitting a wall. > The sideways stuff is the same, it's just N3 trying to reason with > itself where the other cars "should" be. I believe this is one of the > major areas of attention with the beta patch that is being worked on. > dave henrie > > New fish in the N3 Online pond... > > 1: How come my best setup off line can't keep up with ANYONE online? I get > > out there and guys fly past me.... turn sideways hit the wall ahead of me and > > go on as if nothing happened. > > OK so I'm using a joystick...is everyone out there using some kind of wheel? > > Would a wheel make THAT MUCH difference. > > 2: On the "list of available races" screen I understand the "players column" to > > indicate how many of the available slots are in use. But what about the other > > columns? Here is what I think they mean...please tell me if I am correct. > > D=damage (realistic or arcade)??? > > Y=yellow flags enabled > > P=pace lap??? > > F=fixed setup??? > > M=haven't got a clue!!! > > %=no brainer...percent of regular race > > Ping=no idea > > The book doesn't give up much info on connections. > > 3: What about "address book" what's it's function??? > > 4: What EXACTLY does "clock zapped" mean? > > I swear I'm not as stupid as it looks but if Pappy would elaborate in the > > manual I wouldn't have to look like a dope! > > Thanks..... > > (Don't use NO***in E-mail) > > You think in the storm we've found the eye of the calm.....Bill Mallonnee, > > Vigilantes Of Love

Mechanical Breakdowns enabled Connection Latency (time it takes for info to travel from you to the server (race host) back in milliseconds For connecting directly via TCP/IP addresses Means you have a poor connection and are losing packets which means you are likely to have cars seem to disappear for stretches

I've found that, 1. Braking help must be off, and 2. Set-ups are important. After much tweaking I've found cars that are somewhat competitive. Also, the fact that I've done much better in the fixed set-up races leads me to conclude that set-up are at least as much to blame as my driving inexperience. > Ping is the most important item. Clik on a race you may be interested >in and then click the ping button. On the far right you will get a >number. The smaller the better. I've been able to get numbers at home (56k modem) of 140 at best and typically 200. Is this ok? Should I be seeing better times? -- Jim

>New fish in the N3 Online pond... >1: How come my best setup off line can't keep up with ANYONE online? I get >out there and guys fly past me.... turn sideways hit the wall ahead of me and >go on as if nothing happened. It's a warping problem, their really not hitting the wall. Internet lag is to blame. There are alot of fast drivers using joysticks, but most opt to use a wheel D=realistic A=arcade correct correct correct driving mode A=arcade You can use IP address' to connect directly to a race host (ie:204.32.456)

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> > Ping is the most important item. Clik on a race you may be interested > >in and then click the ping button. On the far right you will get a > >number. The smaller the better. > I've been able to get numbers at home (56k modem) of 140 at best and > typically 200. Is this ok? Should I be seeing better times? > -- > Jim

Hey with my cable modem I've gotten worse pings than that sometimes. Any thing under 300 should be raceable but you will see some warping, but really try and choose a race with pings under 200. I've had one or two magical connections under 100 and those were really great. dave henrie

Doug Bishop wrote ... yes yes yes yes I think this is the simulation mode, "A" for Arcard and blank for Realistic right on A measurement of the speed of your connection. I think it's actually the number of miliseconds it takes for a signal to go from your PC to the server and back. High numbers mean high warp, basically your PC is spending most of the time guessing where the other cars are until they send a signal to the server and then the server sends it to you. Your PC instantly corrects their position and they appear to be jumping all over the place. Anything over 300 is too hard for me to have fun with, under 200 will give you a fairly good race, under 100 will be almost like you're at the track. I just checked the Alpha arena here, and had 9 races with pings from 72-190, one with 345, and one that just said "bad!" I'll pick one of the under-100 races if I'm racing. The internet races are hosted on servers set aside just for that purpose. But anyone with sufficient connection speed can host a race of their own on their own PC using a TCP/IP connection. Those have specific internet-type addresses in the format 255.255.255.255:17710 or something like that. If you know someone hosting races, you can put their address in N3's "address book" and connect to their races directly instead of in an internet arena. Much more stable connection, from what I've seen. The actual race is being run on the server's copy of N3, while you're seeing the race on your own copy. As often as possible with the connection, the server is synchronizing everyone's copy, both in terms of where everyone is on the track and in time. I believe that when the timing of your copy and the server's copy get far enough apart, the server throws up it's hands and says "clock zapped". Someone may post a correction to this non-technical partial guess ;-)

This leads me to another question...... Since everyone is seeing their own hard drive copy of the race, if I have selected a car to use which is an "add in" paint job (not one of those shipped with the game....do others see me driving this car or one of the standard cars from the original CD? I have noticed when connecting to some races that my car shows up in the pits as one of the 3 digit numbered cars (say 103) when I am driving #1. After a few seconds it changes to the one I have programmed in (such as c00_1.car). Am I the only one who sees it this way? I also had one race where my car didn't display at all when driving from the "chase view" When I switched to "cockpit view" it was fine. OK so that was more than 1 question...... (Don't use NO***in E-mail) You think in the storm we've found the eye of the calm.....Bill Mallonnee, Vigilantes Of Love

As far as I understand it...if the other drivers don't have your special car, then the game replaces it with one of the default premade cars. If...you are in a league setting you can upload your car to that group and a common carset made, then everyone will see your car because they will have it also...but in pickup races, I don't think they can. dave henrie

> As far as I understand it...if the other drivers don't have your > special car, then the game replaces it with one of the default premade > cars. If...you are in a league setting you can upload your car to that > group and a common carset made, then everyone will see your car because > they will have it also...but in pickup races, I don't think they can. > dave henrie Very good explanation and if I may inject the following: IF you choose a car that came with the game, say c99_20.car (1999 Tony Stewart car) then providing the folks you are racing with haven't deleted the stock set, then you will appear as the Home Depot car on their end as well. edb