I have noticed that when rewinding and playing the replay with chronocam, the lag is really reduced. While i understand that replay contains data allready simulated, i also guess replay contains the exact same amount of data which is sent accross the network, if we compare to data which is sent in real time. So why is there so much lag when playing in real time ? When checking FPS on server / sim side it does not seem to decrease, so i'm getting a little bit puzzled Any explaination would be welcome
According to my tests game cache simulation data on client, it's one of reasons of increasing memory usage. You can check it yorself if you try to "replay" large battle on really high speed, it's just won't be possible to transfer all data over network so fast.
One of the common causes of lag is network throttling. If more things happen than can be described in the bandwidth allocated to a player, some updates will stagger causing units to jump. When using the chronocam, you are reviewing past events and you may (or may not) already have the description of those events in memory. The bandwidth usage problem is being actively worked on (and depending on how testing goes there might be significant improvements in the next patch).
I can't wait for optimizations in the networking code, and the throttling problems/lag to disappear! I think the new networking model will be really good. One of my biggest beefs with the Supreme Commander series was the lag experienced during larger multiplayer games.
Thanks for your answer. Even if not in next patch, it's good to know you've started to work on this. This networking model is to me the most robust, promising and scalable.
That's interesting because I tried a post game chronocam effort again and it was just as laggy as before this most recent patch that gave fps improvements.
Are you referring to rendering lag (low FPS) or network lag (normal FPS with jumpy unit motion)? The chronocam will not improve FPS, however it *can* help with network lag.
My FPS has skyrocketed with the latest patch but the chronocam is just as laggy as before. It is very unresponsive to pressing buttons and actually doing anything. Something like 5-10 seconds for a button press to do anything and sometimes just jumping straight to the start or end of the game.
As I understand it, lag in large SupCom games was much more likely caused by the slowest computer connected to the game as every game performed all calculations in order to minimize network traffic. I think that SupCom's network code was very heavily optimized, at the trade off of everybody needing a fast PC to maintain the game speed. PA in contrast performs all simulation on the server, meaning client PCs power should never be a bottleneck and are free to concentrate all their resources on rendering, at the downside of requiring a lot more data to be sent over the network. Since PA clients seem to be able to cope with missing data, I would also assume a single slow network connection should also not contributing to game slowing. I'm sure this is a gamble on Uber's part, and I hope it works out. I'm sure this is going to make the game awesome on LAN as long as one person has a ninja PC. One thing you might want to make sure of is that you're playing on the right server. I, like a proper dufus, just discovered that I've been playing on EU West, from Hong Kong. Speedtest.net bench's this at 285ms / 2Mbit down compared to if I was playing on the Australian server, which benchmarks at 120ms / 36Mbit down... *facepalm*
