Is it worth downloading NS2 again?
Fule
Join Date: 2009-06-04 Member: 67683Members
Join Date: 2009-06-04 Member: 67683Members
I haven't played since patch 246 I think, but recently saw a video of Linus (@LinusTech) interviewing Strayan and he said that performance has improved a lot - is this true? By how much? Game ran horrible even on i7 3770k, but now I've got a i5 3330, so I'm wondering if the game won't deliver a headache again.
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Mid-end game my fps would drop to 30 and below - that is unacceptable. Does that still happen?
UNNACEPTIBRU.
And im still taking ten minutes to load!
In some cases, the net code does struggle to keep up with the fast pace of the game (though there are settings altered in the NSL mod that really help here, so it's not beyond the capability of the engine). Some servers are struggling with performance, but that's largely relegated to the high player count derp-fests anyway.
People dying around corners is due to the interpolation (which could be tightened up a little I think). But you have to remember when it happens to you: on your killer's screen, you were still very much in their crosshairs and they earned the kill.
Hit reg is not, however, a problem at all.
Personally, I've found the game smooth for a long time, but that could just be my overclocked i7 2600k.
Everything depends on the combination of hardware so asking has little use.
Compared to the time b4 LuaJit its like a milestone.
We can just hope they keep up that good work
I run on a i7-3770k (3.5Ghz), GeForce, GTX 680, 16 GB of Ram. It runs like a dream, also an SSD helps load times dramatically. Can't understand why you would down grade your CPU.
I guess one way to find out now...
Actually it is.
The IronHorse quote is way out of context. The thread it comes from is about some micro stuttering and not hit reg (http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/131917/shotgun-stuttering-freeze-frame-on-fire-252)
You still owe us some video proof for your hit reg issues.
Maybe not client side. The majority of servers can not keep track of only 20 players. It's a network problem and it causes the packets saying you did damage to be dropped server side. It can't be denied, this shit happens to everyone. I don't know any other modern game where this is a problem this far after release.
Battlefield 3, to name a popular one. Chivalry, medieval warfare, but that's a different kettle of fish, and not as old.
Also, this is a pretty bad excuse in my opinion (I like big games!) but the game is best suited for 6v6/whatever.
10 vs 10 Shouldn't be this bad. Hopefully it will be optimized or a re-write in the next 4-5 months.
I think there is just a slight confusion between you two. There is not hitreg bug. But there is a performance problem affecting some servers that can mess up everything, including hitreg. So to "solve" hitreg you dont actually have to touch hitreg code, but just increase performance.
I was going to make a joke about not having enough space on his 1+TB HDD and then I realized that with SSDs we regressed back a few years in terms of capacity.
Two-sided coin, this one. Sure enough, server performance could be much better. Then again, no matter what the server performance has been, some people have always been pushing the limits with outdated hardware. Just yesterday I encountered a server that went to 4-5 ticks per second during midgame and had to explain the admins how to check for server tickrate, why the tick rate mattered and why number of server CPU cores doesn't matter...
Personally, even despite the lacking server code performance, I put most of the blame on this on the server admins and the server browser. To me it has for the longest time seemed that anyone hosting a server on lacking hardware was doing a disservice to the game and the community. The server browser doesn't effectively filter away those servers and people start games on those servers. Those rounds then gather a significant number of players and mid-round become unplayable. What is even worse, new players do not know how to differentiate between client and server performance and complain about "bad game performance" or even quit.
(And before anyone comes up with the original "you pay for a super server then", I'll pre-emt: I used to pay - with clanmates of course - for 2 servers on a 4,5ghz machine, in beta, when server performance was most likely worse. Right now I'm coming back to NS2 after a 8 month hiatus and I've no doubt I'll participate in paying for a server soon again.)
That doesn't change however, other issues can be mistaken for hitreg issues, like weapon spread or the model hit detection instead of hitboxes.
Yes, blame the server owners that NS2 server and reporting is bad. Their fault NS2 server is coded badly, and doesn't run (noticebly) multithreaded and caps out on op-gen high-end cpu pretty quick. It's more of a symptom of the bad server, as most game servers are not run by professionals (or non-professionals with comparable knowledge).
I see your point that people could be checking their tickrate, but you know what? It's shitty to keep track of it:
Performance is a rollercoaster
- can be anywhere from 60% on a normal map like summit to 100%/MAX (aka tickrate drops) on a shitty map like descent
- highly depends on what is going on in the game, might have 5 fine matches at stable 30 t ick but then another one lags because of too much spam (of everything) in game
- random issues that cause the tickrate to drop/server to lag like start/end rounds
- varying performance with every single build, essentially requireing to revaluate the server peformance on EVERY SINGLE UPDATE
Server is crap
- doesn't run threaded; trend is towards multicore cpus and there are 12 (Xeon) or 16 (Opteron) core server cpus
- as for single core performance, requires ridicously fast cpus to run properly, only a recent gen core i7 4770k (or Xeon equivalent) can run a server somewhat stable at stock speeds
- Overclocking is bad, esp. on a server. Silent data corruption, CPU calcuation mismatches in special and other issues (such as timing, reporting). YOU CAN NOT effienctly proof that a OC is stable; plus OC WILL damage the hardware. It's fine on a normal system
- other annoying issues (server crashes, some bad client/server design - like people unable to play on server when mod is updated, and server being stuck in that state forever unless resolved manually by admins or a script; or people not reconecting after a server crash and timing out completly, even if the server has been long back up)
Now also keep in mind, that as for some of these things you can only keep track if you have access to the physical server box the server is running on. If it's rented it's out of your control and there isn't much you can do against it; can't comment on the quality of rental NS2 servers, but if it's anything like normal games, overselling be common.
As for the server browser, yes, there is an issue that it doesn't show poor performance properly, from jumping from 100% to 7% to 100% to 7%. But still, a server can still run 95% of the time at 100% and drop only after 30 minutes, for like 3 minutes until the game is over. Server browser won't really be keeping track of that.
Dunno about your geographical area, but right now it seems that in Europe at least there is an abundance of working servers with proper hardware. There is no real need to run an iffy server. Sure, if the problems are really borderline and appear only in some rare cases, then catching them is not easy nor critical...
However, if the problems persist and the admins still insist on running the server as is, then yes, I'm blaming the admins for polluting the server pool with a bad server. You can always drop the player count, tweak the map list or make the server run a less demanding mod like combat. Of none of these work for your server, then sadly the hardware is not good enough and you should wait until situation changes (which might take a while).
UWE server code might not be up the industry gold standard, but they don't force admins to run crappy servers either. Crappy servers negatively affecting other player's experience and in fact are - if the server problems are bad enough - a disservice to the community
I think all good server admins try to provide you with the best service we can get. In fact i am one of those European server admins. And i have to agree with Omega_K2. NS2 Server Software is not perfect in any way, so sometimes even with the best hardware, the best optimized mods you can still have lags under some conditions.
Do you really think those memory leaks only happen at Client side atm, also mostly all server have to fight with high memory usage by ns2 atm since 255 and that's something only UWE can fix.
No, I do not really "really think those memory leaks only happen at Client side atm". There are bugs that occur sometimes and that is cool. No contest there. I'm expecting UWE to fix those. I'm also still waiting for UWE to give us a decent server browser. I'm still missing MenuMod that a year ago had better functionality than the crap official browser we have today.
Lets see what would improve everyones subjective experience regarding server performance:
1) better server performance (UWE)
2) better server browser (UWE)
2.a) effective performance filtering by automated tracking or review functionality
2.b) client side blacklisting -> "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice..."
3) only run servers that are decently maintained and perform ok (UWE/admins)
4) mod a better server browser (helps only those few in the know)
The point 3 is what I've mostly been talking about here. Just in case, let me clarify where I'm coming from with my posts: Ever since starting to play NS2, there have always been some servers that keep on having tickrate problems (and significantly underperfoming most servers online).
I'm not blaming every admin or even most admins. Community servers are an awesome thing! I'm just trying to point out that running poorly maintained servers on inferior hardware ends up being a disservice to the community. UWE could fix a lot of this, but meanwhile it seems to be up to the individual admins. And not all admins seem to be in your posts category "all good server admins"