Can we have an increase of client update rate?

male_fatalitiesmale_fatalities ausns2.org Join Date: 2004-03-06 Member: 27185Members, Constellation
edited June 2013 in NS2 General Discussion
In Australia, we are running DAK mod which increases MR and sets interp to 0.06 from 0.1. However when pushing lower then this, people are teleporting because the game is hardcoded to 20 update rate. With these small changes, marines feels much more crisp and responsive in terms of damage feedback.

Can we please unlock the following:
Client update rate - currently max is 20
Server tick rate - currently max is 30

Comments

  • ScatterScatter Join Date: 2012-09-02 Member: 157341Members, Squad Five Blue
  • male_fatalitiesmale_fatalities ausns2.org Join Date: 2004-03-06 Member: 27185Members, Constellation
    Scatter wrote: »
    increased MR

    Fixed.
  • LocklearLocklear [nexzil]kerrigan Join Date: 2012-05-01 Member: 151403Members, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester, WC 2013 - Shadow
    can we have nice things
  • MendaspMendasp I touch maps in inappropriate places Valencia, Spain Join Date: 2002-07-05 Member: 884Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow, Retired Community Developer
    edited June 2013
    Now that we have LuaJIT and servers can handle it this should be at least configurable by server ops (along with the other options and without the need of mods to do it).

    Please.
  • ScardyBobScardyBob ScardyBob Join Date: 2009-11-25 Member: 69528Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
    NS2 32 player, 100 tick server here we go!
  • Ghosthree3Ghosthree3 Join Date: 2010-02-13 Member: 70557Members, Reinforced - Supporter
    I'm not too sure why these values are locked in the first place, so what if increasing them can cause the server to fall on it's face. People will get the message and turn it back to 30 ticks/20 updates after realising their server can't handle it, and it it can, well that's awesome.
  • ScardyBobScardyBob ScardyBob Join Date: 2009-11-25 Member: 69528Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
    Ghosthree3 wrote: »
    I'm not too sure why these values are locked in the first place, so what if increasing them can cause the server to fall on it's face. People will get the message and turn it back to 30 ticks/20 updates after realising their server can't handle it, and it it can, well that's awesome.
    For the same reason the playercount is (in theory) limited to 24. Otherwise, people will put up the 1000 tick server that never lags.
  • RabidWeaselRabidWeasel Join Date: 2002-11-02 Member: 5337Members
    Literally no reason not to do this, cap it at something reasonable if you're worried about people being stupid but even 20=>30 is a huge boost.
  • LocklearLocklear [nexzil]kerrigan Join Date: 2012-05-01 Member: 151403Members, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester, WC 2013 - Shadow
    Mendasp wrote: »
    ScardyBob wrote: »
    Ghosthree3 wrote: »
    I'm not too sure why these values are locked in the first place, so what if increasing them can cause the server to fall on it's face. People will get the message and turn it back to 30 ticks/20 updates after realising their server can't handle it, and it it can, well that's awesome.
    For the same reason the playercount is (in theory) limited to 24. Otherwise, people will put up the 1000 tick server that never lags.

    This is like Microsoft when they didnt let people set custom wallpapers for the tiles screen in Windows 8 because "it might look bad".

    It doesn't make any sense. A fast fps with 20 updates/sec and 30 moves/sec. In 2013. L O L.

    LOL

  • IronHorseIronHorse Developer, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributor Join Date: 2010-05-08 Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
    Mendasp wrote: »
    ScardyBob wrote: »
    Ghosthree3 wrote: »
    I'm not too sure why these values are locked in the first place, so what if increasing them can cause the server to fall on it's face. People will get the message and turn it back to 30 ticks/20 updates after realising their server can't handle it, and it it can, well that's awesome.
    For the same reason the playercount is (in theory) limited to 24. Otherwise, people will put up the 1000 tick server that never lags.

    This is like Microsoft when they didnt let people set custom wallpapers for the tiles screen in Windows 8 because "it might look bad".

    It doesn't make any sense. A fast fps with 20 updates/sec and 30 moves/sec. In 2013. L O L.
    While i obviously want a higher moverate and tickrate and faster interp.. and i agree with giving control to the user...

    Doing so HAS made for bad experiences / first impressions before.
    Remember the user made servers on launch week? *shudders* Tickrates were insanely low because someone was hosting 24 player servers on a core 2 duo, so users were reporting in the forums thinking it was the game.

    SO.. as long as there's some sort of feedback to the end user, like a warning, i think it can be done. Otherwise, i wouldn't want to experience scenarios like that again.
  • ScatterScatter Join Date: 2012-09-02 Member: 157341Members, Squad Five Blue
    At the very least, it should be an option that is moddable in the way a 32 player pit-of-hell server is, but not easily done in the options. This would prevent low tick servers from rental companies and unknowledgable server hosts.

    In fact, this should have been the case for 20+ player servers as this has probably done a lot of damage to the game's reputation in terms of performance due to the prevalence of 24 player servers with low ticks. But that boat has sailed.

  • thelawenforcerthelawenforcer Join Date: 2013-02-18 Member: 183176Members
    while you are ofcourse right that having a higher tick rate is better if the server can handle it, its also very possible that its not simply a case of unlocking the variable - its actually quite likely that other things are coupled to a fixed and steady tick rate. while it will ofcourse be possible to decouple them if that is indeed the case, its probably not a priority because >20 tick rate servers are beyond the reach of most for the time being and there are other more important things to do first.
  • wirywiry Join Date: 2009-05-25 Member: 67479Members
    IronHorse wrote: »
    Mendasp wrote: »
    ScardyBob wrote: »
    Ghosthree3 wrote: »
    I'm not too sure why these values are locked in the first place, so what if increasing them can cause the server to fall on it's face. People will get the message and turn it back to 30 ticks/20 updates after realising their server can't handle it, and it it can, well that's awesome.
    For the same reason the playercount is (in theory) limited to 24. Otherwise, people will put up the 1000 tick server that never lags.

    This is like Microsoft when they didnt let people set custom wallpapers for the tiles screen in Windows 8 because "it might look bad".

    It doesn't make any sense. A fast fps with 20 updates/sec and 30 moves/sec. In 2013. L O L.
    While i obviously want a higher moverate and tickrate and faster interp.. and i agree with giving control to the user...

    Doing so HAS made for bad experiences / first impressions before.
    Remember the user made servers on launch week? *shudders* Tickrates were insanely low because someone was hosting 24 player servers on a core 2 duo, so users were reporting in the forums thinking it was the game.

    SO.. as long as there's some sort of feedback to the end user, like a warning, i think it can be done. Otherwise, i wouldn't want to experience scenarios like that again.


    Or, just a message describing that playing on non-official servers is not necessarily the optimal NS2 experience or something. Let the modders mod! :>
  • male_fatalitiesmale_fatalities ausns2.org Join Date: 2004-03-06 Member: 27185Members, Constellation
    edited June 2013
    IronHorse wrote: »
    Doing so HAS made for bad experiences / first impressions before.
    Remember the user made servers on launch week? *shudders* Tickrates were insanely low because someone was hosting 24 player servers on a core 2 duo, so users were reporting in the forums thinking it was the game.

    SO.. as long as there's some sort of feedback to the end user, like a warning, i think it can be done. Otherwise, i wouldn't want to experience scenarios like that again.

    The implementation depends on UWE; however the answer is easy... Since the performance patch, servers can easily support an increased tick rate & higher client update rate. I had better damage feedback in beta when client update rate were a 1:1 ratio with fps instead of locked at 20. Being shot by a marine when his back is facing you only started occuring when the locked client update rate to 20.
  • Ghosthree3Ghosthree3 Join Date: 2010-02-13 Member: 70557Members, Reinforced - Supporter
    I'm sure the rate could be unlocked by hacking the exe, the same way that server got 32 players.
  • male_fatalitiesmale_fatalities ausns2.org Join Date: 2004-03-06 Member: 27185Members, Constellation
    I think matso has posted on this topic before regarding tick rate, I believe alot of things are linked to it (ie movement & backend systems) so hacking the exe would most likely create alot of unwanted effects.
  • male_fatalitiesmale_fatalities ausns2.org Join Date: 2004-03-06 Member: 27185Members, Constellation
    Thanks Matso, most of that went over my head but thanks for the response!
  • ScatterScatter Join Date: 2012-09-02 Member: 157341Members, Squad Five Blue
    I run 50 move rate on a non-overclocked server matso and there seems to be no problem with it. Also 60 ms interp.

    They should give you access to the engine so that you can fix it if max is occupied with other tasks.
  • FrozenFrozen New York, NY Join Date: 2010-07-02 Member: 72228Members, Constellation
    Locklear wrote: »
    Mendasp wrote: »
    ScardyBob wrote: »
    Ghosthree3 wrote: »
    I'm not too sure why these values are locked in the first place, so what if increasing them can cause the server to fall on it's face. People will get the message and turn it back to 30 ticks/20 updates after realising their server can't handle it, and it it can, well that's awesome.
    For the same reason the playercount is (in theory) limited to 24. Otherwise, people will put up the 1000 tick server that never lags.

    This is like Microsoft when they didnt let people set custom wallpapers for the tiles screen in Windows 8 because "it might look bad".

    It doesn't make any sense. A fast fps with 20 updates/sec and 30 moves/sec. In 2013. L O L.

    LOL

    LOL
  • ezekelezekel Join Date: 2012-11-29 Member: 173589Members, NS2 Map Tester
    matso wrote: »
    In Australia, we are running DAK mod which increases MR and sets interp to 0.06 from 0.1. However when pushing lower then this, people are teleporting because the game is hardcoded to 20 update rate. With these small changes, marines feels much more crisp and responsive in terms of damage feedback.

    Can we please unlock the following:
    Client update rate - currently max is 20
    Server tick rate - currently max is 30

    A major issue here is that client update rate and server tick rate interfers with each other. Clients are only updated after each server tick, which means that actual client update intervals are actually 33,66,33,66,33,66 ms - so if you lower interp to 60ms, you WILL get some extrapolation of client state (which is the cause of teleporting). To avoid teleporting you need the interp to cover longest client update interval + expected network variation, so 60ms interp would actually be pretty much optimal IF the server actually updated clients every 50ms. I'd say 75ms would be minimum with the current setup.

    Reported a couple of months ago.

    This of course means that you need client update rate to be a multiple of server tick rate. Server tick rate turns out not to matter much in NS2 (smoothness of player movement is controlled by move rate and client update rate, server tick rate basically controls interaction with non-player units such as medpacks, armories etc), so a reasonable way to run it would be 25 server tick rate and 25 client update rate, which should allow an interp at 50 (40 from the update rate + 10ms net variation).

    Increasing move rate to 40 would also be good (and possible now that LuaJit has increased server performance)

    Higher update rate means higher bandwidth at a factor of about 0.6 or so (so doubling update rate means using 60% more bandwidth) - a 25% higher update rate would increase bandwidth usage with about 15%.

    A request to move server tick rate and update rate from hardcoded to server configurable was made a couple of months ago.

    Unfortunately, Max is kinda busy with the new render pipeline stuff, and there does not seem to be anyone else that feels comfortable playing around with this stuff.

    (and no, I don't have engine access any longer, so I can't fix it).

    @xDragon

    tell him what you did to your server
  • xDragonxDragon Join Date: 2012-04-04 Member: 149948Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow
    The changes on my server are the same that MF was referring to - I suggested 60ms as a floor for interp based on 20u/r and some leeway - I did not realize the update rate was dependent on the server tick rate, which means that I would also agree on using about 75ms. Increasing the moverate some does help with responsiveness, I had been testing 50 and did not see much impact with regards to performance, this was on a 20 player max server however, but my server hardware is not overclocked.

    Increasing the client update rate would be ideal, however I do know that there are some major bandwidth constraints within Spark currently. I dont know if the maximum data per second could also be unlocked at the same time, but I think on default servers any increase in bandwidth usage could prove problematic - I still see choke in larger pubs.
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