Ping in Quake

[lethlwipn]

I was wondering if ping is still a big issue in Quake? Back in the day, I played on dialup with a ping in the 300ms range....usually ran slow but against other dialup users, it was tolerable.

Now that we all have dsl/cable/fios connections, with my pc being the server with a ping at 0ms and other players connecting with a 40-80ms ping, will there be a "lag"?

I play many other games online and have no problems playing when the server is far enough away for my latency to be over 100....but of course, those are other games.

[Mindf!3ldzX]

I already suggested you an your unc meet at a pre-established server.

[lethlwipn]

Yes you did.

I don't disagree that is an option. The closest servers to me, as far as I can tell are in Texas. My ping is quite high, around 100ms. Not having players in the servers at that time, I can't say what the game play would be like.

I am only wondering with the improvements over the years with online, multiplayer gaming, if some of those improvements have incorporated into Quake. Playing CSS and Insurgency at that rate(100ms+) doesn't seem to be a problem.

Playing Quake over the internet some time ago at 100ms+ wasn't so great.

[Mindf!3ldzX]

In your Quake client's console,type this

for ProQuake : ping +80
for Qrack : ping +80
for DirectQ : pq_lag 80

I don't know the commands for other client's,as I haven't extensively used them.

Inside the CMD server.exe window (black screen) , you can adjust sys_ticrate and tinker with this setting to adjust pings and how responsive the server is. The idea is to make it as smooth as possible for your opponent,or, rather just simulate the same lag he is experiencing.

When using artificial lag, remember to use a respectable amount of frames per second, another option that can greatly effect server smoothness...

There is a shit ton of things that can effect the latency or game experience.

[R00k]

you can also use pq_lag in both proquake and qrack, this allows one to add it to their config files.

[Phenom]

I was wondering if ping is still a big issue in Quake?

Issue as in player experience?

Because some people believe that 1 person having a 20 ping and another which has a 60 ping a huge advantage these days, before it was if you had 50 ping and were on a server where everyone had 150+ you were the lpb.

Quake with 70 ping is playable, anything over 70 for multiplayer and I start to notice the lag.

[lethlwipn]

Exactly what i mean, as player exp.

So far the highest the ping had been is around 80ms......it would raise and lower in a range from 40s - 70s normally.

The maps themselves seem to be more of a problem than the latency. When moving from map to map, say maybe one was inside/outside daytime and the next inside/outside at night, the night map was jerky....even for me as the host.

I imagine I could look for commands and play around with shading setting and such to see if that helps.

[foq]

It takes a lot to host a server, in some ways.

Speakeasy - Speed Test

Check your connection speed here. Upload bandwidth is one of the biggest players in the quality of a server. I've read many times that Quake requires ~5KB/s per player at the default settings, but in my own hosting experience, I think 15KB/s is more like it in some situations (big battles in big rooms, lots of projectiles).

Another big player *can* be your router, in some situations. I found out long ago (before I hosted servers) that running utorrent lagged my online gameplay, despite the bandwidth being capped more than well enough to allow sufficient bandwidth for gaming. It turned out that the excessive number of connections utorrent imposed were lagging down my router, which was a Netgear WGR614v9 at the time. I suspect I was overloading the RAM (it only had 8MB). I have since upgraded to a Linksys E1000, which has 32MB RAM, and a slightly faster processor (300MHz vs the 240MHz model in the Netgear router). I've also tweaked utorrent to go easy on the max number of connections.

Thirdly, your physical location plays a huge role in the ping others get on your server. If you live in an area where others have to make a lot of "hops" to connect to you, ping will jump. If you're serious about hosting, it's best to rent a server from a professional company, who will have their servers hosted on a major internet hub, cutting down those hops. Bandwidth issues will also disappear, since professional hosting services typically have huge connections.

If the game is jerky for you as the host, I would imagine you have more of a hardware problem than a hosting problem. Maybe your hardware isn't up to snuff and lags on certain maps?

[lennox]

It takes a lot to host a server, in some ways.

Speakeasy - Speed Test

Check your connection speed here. Upload bandwidth is one of the biggest players in the quality of a server. I've read many times that Quake requires ~5KB/s per player at the default settings, but in my own hosting experience, I think 15KB/s is more like it in some situations (big battles in big rooms, lots of projectiles).

Another big player *can* be your router, in some situations. I found out long ago (before I hosted servers) that running utorrent lagged my online gameplay, despite the bandwidth being capped more than well enough to allow sufficient bandwidth for gaming. It turned out that the excessive number of connections utorrent imposed were lagging down my router, which was a Netgear WGR614v9 at the time. I suspect I was overloading the RAM (it only had 8MB). I have since upgraded to a Linksys E1000, which has 32MB RAM, and a slightly faster processor (300MHz vs the 240MHz model in the Netgear router). I've also tweaked utorrent to go easy on the max number of connections.

Thirdly, your physical location plays a huge role in the ping others get on your server. If you live in an area where others have to make a lot of "hops" to connect to you, ping will jump. If you're serious about hosting, it's best to rent a server from a professional company, who will have their servers hosted on a major internet hub, cutting down those hops. Bandwidth issues will also disappear, since professional hosting services typically have huge connections.

If the game is jerky for you as the host, I would imagine you have more of a hardware problem than a hosting problem. Maybe your hardware isn't up to snuff and lags on certain maps?

physical location has nothing to do with the amount of hops you have, it depends on your isps routing.

[MH]

Connection speed is almost irrelevant these days (if it ever was relevant for something with such low bandwidth usage as Quake). Latency is the killer and networked programs that do lots of very small transmissions are particularly latency-sensitive. Just like Quake. A 128k fixed connection with very low latency will wallop a 10mb wireless or sattelite connection any day for Quake.

Interesting things regarding ping times and latency. Even SP games have latency; there's always going to be a small delay in real time between when entities act on the server (even SP games use a server) and when that action is read on the client. You can do an enlightening experiment with a dedicated server on the same machine as your client too. Make a new Quake directory and run a dedicated server from there, fire up your client, connect to it, try a ping. Think you're going to get 0ms? Think again. You'll typically get between 0 and 6 ms ping time - to the same machine.

[foq]

physical location has nothing to do with the amount of hops you have, it depends on your isps routing.

For one, physical distance introduces latency, no matter what your routing looks like. For two, physical location influences routing. I thought I explained this when I said:

If you live in an area where others have to make a lot of "hops" to connect to you, ping will jump. If you're serious about hosting, it's best to rent a server from a professional company, who will have their servers hosted on a major internet hub, cutting down those hops. Bandwidth issues will also disappear, since professional hosting services typically have huge connections.

Successful trolling, or successful derping? The world may never know...

Connection speed is almost irrelevant these days (if it ever was relevant for something with such low bandwidth usage as Quake). Latency is the killer and networked programs that do lots of very small transmissions are particularly latency-sensitive. Just like Quake. A 128k fixed connection with very low latency will wallop a 10mb wireless or sattelite connection any day for Quake.

At my estimation of 15KB/s a player, for a full 16 player server, you would need 240KB/s upload speed. If you decide to lower the ticrate for smoother gameplay, that figure goes through the roof. I've tested over 50KB/s per player using Darkplaces' net graph feature, with just 2 people firing excessive projectiles in E1M7 with a low ticrate.

[lennox]

For one, physical distance introduces latency, no matter what your routing looks like. For two, physical location influences routing. I thought I explained this when I said:

If you live in an area where others have to make a lot of "hops" to connect to you, ping will jump. If you're serious about hosting, it's best to rent a server from a professional company, who will have their servers hosted on a major internet hub, cutting down those hops. Bandwidth issues will also disappear, since professional hosting services typically have huge connections.

Successful trolling, or successful derping? The world may never know...



At my estimation of 15KB/s a player, for a full 16 player server, you would need 240KB/s upload speed. If you decide to lower the ticrate for smoother gameplay, that figure goes through the roof. I've tested over 50KB/s per player using Darkplaces' net graph feature, with just 2 people firing excessive projectiles in E1M7 with a low ticrate.

dont talk to me about hosting, and act like you know what your talking about when you dont, as i said, location means jack shit, its all routing.

[Baker]

Make a new Quake directory and run a dedicated server from there, fire up your client, connect to it, try a ping. Think you're going to get 0ms? Think again. You'll typically get between 0 and 6 ms ping time - to the same machine.

One time I got 19 ping on my wireless router to a machine in a different room. I get 25 ping at Speaknow in Chicago, which is like 400 miles away.

[lennox]

One time I got 19 ping on my wireless router to a machine in a different room. I get 25 ping at Speaknow in Chicago, which is like 400 miles away.

it depends on physical location foq already pointed this out.

[foq]

dont talk to me about hosting, and act like you know what your talking about when you dont, as i said, location means jack shit, its all routing.

lol u troled so fukin hard u wan sum ice for the ASSBURN? u cry tears of blud and cum ur mom's penis out your angry butthole

Seriously, I get the feeling you're not reading my posts and just trying to knock my points down by ignorantly assuming you know better than I do. I already explained that physical location influences routing. The longer the distance between you and the server, 2 things happen:

1. The number of hops (this means routing derp) increases
2. The signal itself will take longer to get there, no matter the hops (herp routing). Signals don't move at infinite speed.

One time I got 19 ping on my wireless router to a machine in a different room. I get 25 ping at Speaknow in Chicago, which is like 400 miles away.

>wireless

Wireless is great for random latency spikes. Never use wireless for gaming. Don't you live in Columbus? Columbus is a huge city (and so is Chicago), so it's bound to have less hops then being somewhere out in the middle of nowhere. There's a reason professional hosting companies always host in big cities, and not out in the sticks. Maybe your routing to Chicago is better than the routing to your own network server?