I'm on a 4 meg Adsl line so its really slow . Are their any mods that can maybe help lower the games network usage ? Cause I live in South Africa and the pingis high asswell so putting less strain on it by making the network usage less hould help my lag .
I believe there are some mods to lower the network usage *whilst in the lobby* (as that is higher than it needs to be). Whilst actually in game, you need a steady 2mbits download (as the actual simulation is run remotely on the server) so you should be ok with 4mb.
Howzit, I am also in SA. I run a 4mb connection and it is pretty flawless mostly. Just sometimes we run into issues with the servers being too busy. Give it some time and it will get better. Make sure you use EU West servers and not USA though. I lag to hell and back on US but EU is much better. I used to play on a 2mb and it was still ok, now I upgraded and it is much better, played a 6 player game the other day without a hitch. Welcome
Hello fellow South African 4mb adsl users! It's nice to see South Africans have a visible presence here on the forums. I have also been encountering server lag, especially in larger games with many players and planets, but as nofear says, hopefully it will get better soon, as this seems to affect European players as well, at least from the games I've played in. I've noticed with this issue that in some games, other South African players are affected by server lag while I am not, and vice versa, regardless of how well our internet is running. By the way nofear, you wouldn't happen to know a South African supcom player by the name of Science Project would you?
Haha, indeed. Hellshound has got it, as have some other friends. As soon as holidays start, we're going to be playing this a lot.
To install the lobby mod look for Faster Server Browser in the PA Mod Manager (PAMM): https://forums.uberent.com/threads/rel-pa-mod-manager-cross-platform.59992/ Here's some example numbers for you from my system: standard lobby is around 500KB/sec (up to 800KB/sec when really busy) faster server browser mod is around 40KB/sec 500 dox and 500 grenadiers patrolling on a moon in a tight space interacting with structures is around 350KB/sec
As far as I get problem for most players from South Africa isn't slow internet or latency, but packet loss and also it's does looks like some ISP there throttle international bandwidth. So if you only have lag and game usually playable for you then you're really lucky because all players from same region I seen from reported that PA unplayable there.
You should clarify that it's only deal when: Your camera on same planet with those units. PA use very little of bandwidth for non-active planets. Is those units in your camera view. Though on small planets ChronoCam might download state of all units, but usually it's only update visible one.
Yep... I was trying to give a comparative estimate of the maximum bandwidth a 1000 units on screen might require. Very little bandwidth is required if you stop patrolling those units and there is no interaction. The in game network usage is highly optimised and generally requires much lower bandwidth than the current lobby.
This is also true. I should clarify that most of my games do start freezing up, sometimes to the point of being unplayable. sometimes not though. I actually made a post about it on these support forums, but I assumed it was all server side. One of my friends who pledged into the Alpha for PA has always been unable to play this game. We're busy holding thumbs for the LAN and dedicated server support that Uber promised with PA. It's probably worth mentioning though that other online games, such as League of Legends, Starcraft 2, Blacklight Retribution, Diablo 3 and Company of Heroes 2 runs fine on EU servers. It's just this game I have a problem with. Said friend has a problem with Diablo 3 and PA though.
In StarCraft 2 internet connection used for DRM purpose, but it's isn't client-server game and it's not pass data about every unit over network, same for Company of Heroes 2. Diablo 3 in fact client-server game, but you have likely 30-50 actively moving objects on screen, while in PA there is thousands of them. E.g don't forget that each projectile it's separate object in PA. Have no idea how Blacklight Retribution or LoL works though. PS: And yeah I have no doubt that Blizzard spend years on networking optimizations and obviously they had large team of networking professionals who worked on WoW before.
For anyone interested in how the game works with it's client-server communication there is an article about it on forrestthewoods.com http://forrestthewoods.com/the-tech-of-planetary-annihilation-chronocam/ It explains a bit about the chronocam tech and Server software/game engine.
Yaarp. I really have to thank Blizzard for making a singleplayer game multiplayer only. Truly, a waste of money. With regards to PA, I am looking forward to having a good LAN. I think I managed to have half a game this one time, but that's about the extent of it. We can all be thankful of Telkom for our superior internet. The packet loss (I assume) is just a matter of congestion. I know that they upgraded or the lines in my area without actually upgrading the already struggling infrastructure (so I pretty much lose 10% of packets when people get home and start streaming).
Indeed SXX, I am not suggesting any incompetence on PA's part: we might not be having this conversation if South Africa were closer to Europe and had better infrastructure, however, this dilemma has meant that South African's have not been able to enjoy the PA experience as they should, and I am merely hoping that Uber will be able to find a way to accommodate us soon.
