Re: How lag - high(bad) ping rates affect gameplay

**smallfatcat** · 02-13-2006, 12:48 PM

Originally Posted by notalegend

Bhack - interesting points, but I can only tell you what I have observed. And my Ping absolutely does run as low as 25, in fact even lower, but NOT on TG servers, because as we all know, I can't play on them due to unresolved VOIP issues.

He got the impression that you were claiming your ping to be 25 on the TG server. As he said, its impossible to get a ping of 25 from the UK to the Texas.

Its about 9000 miles round trip.

Speed of light 186,000 miles per second.

9000/186000 = 0.048 seconds = 48 milliseconds

**notalegend** · 02-14-2006, 09:04 AM

Yes, I should have made that clear. I suspect that my 'experience' in game is quite poor compared to many due to the relatively low end specification I have. That said, it is always hard to tell whether being essentially just target practice is due to this, or just the fact that I am crap. Although of course actually i do kind of know the answer to that.......and it aint my system.

**Wulfyn** · 02-14-2006, 11:34 AM

Ping definitely does make a difference, but the effects that it causes are limited to just one of about 3 situations I have generally noticed.

1/ Lead distance.

People running directly perpendicular to my line of fire are much harder to hit. This is because I need to aim an un-natural distance ahead of them to account for the ping difference between us. I'm playing 1024x768, so my screen is 1024 pixels wide on a 19" CRT monitor. This means my horizontal width is about 13". If I'm manning a 50 cal, and I have a guy subtending say an inch a second, I would need to lead him by 1/8th (ping 125) of an inch MORE than just the time it takes for the bullet to get to him. This may not sound a lot but is about an extra 10 pixels on what is approximately a 6 pixel-wide target. It can take a little while to 'get my eye in' every time I play as it does not feel natural at all.

2/ Taking cover

I'll be in a firefight with someone else, and be half covered. Say I either have a wall to go prone behind or a wall to duck around. Now the ideal situation is for you to continue the firefight until your last bar of health - giving you as much time as possible to execute a kill. However I cannot do that. When I hit the duck button it takes 67.5ms for the server to know about it (ping 125). This means any shots within this 65ms will register as a hit. I cannot count the number of times I have 'successfully' ducked at the last moment, and then still died. Of course it makes me look like an idiot cos all the person firing at me thinks is "if he was that low on health why didn't he duck". Well I did duck. Now in a firefight I duck with around 50% health left to ensure I don't get killed, which reduces my ability to fight back. Not by a lot - it's not a crippling thing, but it is noticeable.

3/ Drop and shoot

I'm quite lucky in that I have pretty good reactions (typically around 0.175s, human average is 0.2). But I do tend to come out worse in these situations. Say I went up against someone with average human reactions (0.200 say), living in Texas (ping 35 say). We both walk around a corner at the same time and surprise each other. As the server transmits that information to us, the player in Texas would unleash his first bullet in 0.235 seconds (reactions of 0.200s + ping of 0.035s). I would react sufficiently quicker, but due to ping would have a first bullet time of 0.300s (0.175 reaction + ping 0.125). This would lead to my firing 0.65s later that the other guy.

If we were both using weapons that had a firing rate of 900 rounds/minute, we would be firing at 15 rounds a second. or 0.66 seconds per bullet. Again like the other factors it is not a huge difference, and certainly not unplayable, but now and then it certainly is noticeable. Jump up to a ping of 200 and you have a 2 bullet disadvantage over the guys from Texas

------------

Certianly the effect from this is not huge, and does not make the game at all unplayable for pretty much all the guys I see on the servers. But once you push much over 300 then it becomes an issue. However I'd urge those guys with high pings to use this to their advantage. Learn to put yourself in better positions that don't rely on you winning a twitch-race... well the list is long but I think we all get the idea.

Bottom line - yes there is a difference between 50 and 200 pings, and although it is noticeable it shouldn't be detrimental to your enjoyment.

**smallfatcat** · 02-14-2006, 11:48 AM

That's a very good post Wulfyn. I would add that the person with the lower ping (say 25) would also see you 100ms before you saw them. Assuming that you are stationary and they are rounding the corner on you.

There is a benefit to this though, in that from my experience playing with a ping as low as 20 in the UK, that people with higher pings tend to be a little more difficult to hit if they are moving around while you are shooting at them.

It's a shame we can't host a server in the mid atlantic

EDIT: Slightly off topic, the lack of the hit detector in the tacmod can cause problems for us high pingers if our ping is unstable, as it this that enables us to work out our lead distance more quickly.

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