Shouldn't this game be playable with modem connection?

jaolhe · Post by **jaolhe** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 10:38 pm

I have an Internet connection using GPRS modem (57600 bps, GPRS class 10). When I try Internet gaming the ping with servers on the master server varies between 600 and 2000. As you can guess the net racing is totally unplayable due to the lag.

What I've read about this game on the net it says modem gaming should well be possible. Was this possibility removed in 1.00 version? Should I tweak some internal game settings or Windows modem settings?

Otherwise my game is working fine and net play is also working well with broadband play (I'm able to use bb but only very occasionally when visiting a friend).

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

JimMiE22o2 · Post by **JimMiE22o2** » Thu Mar 17, 2005 12:39 am

Talk to Ande man, he made the game.

Finster · Post by **Finster** » Thu Mar 17, 2005 3:51 am

I play from the US on a 56k modem. The server ping times usually range from 160 to 340 (and sometimes higher) for me. So it is playable, although I do get disconnected alot which really sucks when you are having a good lap. I end up in the trees or the water or doing donuts.

If broadband is available and afforable for you I'd get it, or visit your friend a lot more.

Finster

Ande · Post by **Ande** » Thu Mar 17, 2005 11:06 am

jaolhe wrote:I have an Internet connection using GPRS modem (57600 bps, GPRS class 10). When I try Internet gaming the ping with servers on the master server varies between 600 and 2000. As you can guess the net racing is totally unplayable due to the lag.

Nothing changed in 1.0 that would have made the game less playable with modem. If your ping is 600-2000, that easily explains why the game isn't playable, though. In a game like TS, you can't really predict how collisions are going to happen if you get information from server two seconds late. But have you managed to play the old versions with that connection? The way to fix the problem would be to make ping to be tolerable (constantly less than 300 or 200 ms) but I am not sure if this is possible with GPRS.

You can use command-line tool traceroute or tracert to see what part of your connection is lagging. Open Start->run->cmd and then type "tracert <server ip>".

jaolhe · Post by **jaolhe** » Thu Mar 17, 2005 4:16 pm

Ok, I tried cmd -> tracert with the lowest ping (=517) server available. I don't know how this should be interpreted:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tracing route to www.nekkid.co.uk [193.38.113.47]

over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 * 2582 ms 964 ms ge2-0-0-1051.cr1.alto.esp.fi.eunetip.net [213.192.181.1]

2 700 ms 718 ms 740 ms ae2-10.br1.hel1.fi.eunetip.net [213.192.191.57]

3 898 ms 733 ms 717 ms so3-0-0-0.r1.sto1.se.eunetip.net [213.192.191.130]

4 936 ms 777 ms 767 ms so0-3-0-0.r1.ams1.nl.eunetip.net [213.192.191.134]

5 740 ms 741 ms 773 ms so1-1-0-0.r1.ldn1.uk.eunetip.net [213.192.191.178]

6 757 ms 757 ms 761 ms e31-gw1-uk.cableinet.net [195.66.224.34]

7 799 ms 800 ms 804 ms cro-tele1-pos.telewest.net [194.117.136.33]

8 * * * Request timed out.

9 * * * Request timed out.

10 1783 ms 999 ms 782 ms wok-bigiron-mgt.cableinet.net [194.117.150.10]

11 755 ms 763 ms 747 ms www.nekkid.co.uk [193.38.113.47]

Trace complete.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Can anybody see where the problem might lie here? I'd also like to point out that my GPRS modem connection is otherwise working fine, I'm attaining approximately 6 kB/sec transfer rates etc.

Version 1.00 is the first one I tried, didn't try it with earlier versions.

xzeal · Post by **xzeal** » Thu Mar 17, 2005 6:26 pm

you propably get this a lot, but anyway : get broadband, a xDSL or cable connection.

dial-up is not ment for internet gaming, it would be like trying to play Turbo sliders with 2mb of RAM.

alright anyway try this site and measure the actual internet speed you are getting. http://www.dslreports.com/stest?more=1

for example i get 50-90%, of the 2mb/s, im supposed to have

jaolhe · Post by **jaolhe** » Thu Mar 17, 2005 7:22 pm

Well, I'm not using this GPRS connection without reason you know. I'm a mobile computer user with a notebook computer (powerful enough to be suitable for gaming).
I might get a bb connection to use when at home (not very often I fear), but this is the only possible Internet connection available when I'm on the go and it would be so very nice to be able to enjoy this wondeful game while not able to connect to a bb device. Other 56700 bps modem users have been succesful but I'm having these problems, sigh...

Ande · Post by **Ande** » Thu Mar 17, 2005 8:11 pm

jaolhe wrote: Can anybody see where the problem might lie here? I'd also like to point out that my GPRS modem connection is otherwise working fine, I'm attaining approximately 6 kB/sec transfer rates etc.

6 kB/sec is enough for most games (maybe not if there happens to be 20 players) but I'm afraid that the main problem is high ping that is caused by GPRS. In the traceroute log you sent it is seen that most of the ping time goes to the first hop. Unfortunately, it just takes quite a lot of time to transform an IP packet to a GPRS packet and send it in the air and receive it. Another problem with GPRS is that ping times can vary a lot, from 500 ms to 2000 ms as you have noted. With a normal 56k modem, playing would be easier as ping is more stabile and tolerable (normally about 100-150 ms).

So I'm afraid Turbo Sliders does not support playing via GPRS yet

. It would in theory be possible to allow playing ghost games even with very high pings but it would require quite big changes in the architecture. I don't know if it would be even in theory possible to make non-ghost games (where cars can collide) work smoothly with very high and varying pings of 500-2000 ms.

jaolhe · Post by **jaolhe** » Thu Mar 17, 2005 8:32 pm

Oh, that's a pity then. Thank you for your help anyway. Perhaps I should start looking for a GPRS tweaking guide on the net somewhere...

JimMiE22o2 · Post by **JimMiE22o2** » Fri Mar 18, 2005 1:30 am

xzeal wrote:you propably get this a lot, but anyway : get broadband, a xDSL or cable connection.

dial-up is not ment for internet gaming, it would be like trying to play Turbo sliders with 2mb of RAM.

alright anyway try this site and measure the actual internet speed you are getting. http://www.dslreports.com/stest?more=1

for example i get 50-90%, of the 2mb/s, im supposed to have

I tried this site. I don't know how to interperit it. MY upload speed is 1221 kbps and my upload is 365 kbps. I have been getting some lag online lately. Please help me xzeal.

Ande · Post by **Ande** » Fri Mar 18, 2005 7:06 am

JimMiE22o2 wrote: for example i get 50-90%, of the 2mb/s, im supposed to have

I tried this site. I don't know how to interperit it. MY upload speed is 1221 kbps and my upload is 365 kbps. I have been getting some lag online lately. Please help me xzeal.[/quote]

Upload and download speeds are not the main reasons for lag. You do get lag if your bandwidth is not enough for a certain number of players but most often, that is not the problem. The real problem is the time it takes from a packet to travel from your machine to the server and pack. That is the so called ping time. It doesn't help if your own machine is connected to an ultra-fast network if the server is on the other side of the world and using a 2400bps modem for its connection

.

General help to avoid lag is to choose a server with as low a ping as possible. If you can't find low-ping servers, you may have to add prediction using pageUp but you should see help text suggesting this in the lower-right corner if this is the case.

JimMiE22o2 · Post by **JimMiE22o2** » Fri Mar 18, 2005 11:49 pm

Ok, I have to change the page up and page down a lot. I'll try different server's.

TurboSliders.com

Shouldn't this game be playable with modem connection?

Shouldn't this game be playable with modem connection?

Re: Shouldn't this game be playable with modem connection?