Hows Internet Gaming work so quick

clubb699 said:
i mean someone can be in UK and america along with 62 other players and we all see the same thing instant.
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Not the same, but a good server and good internet connection gets it close enough that with some client side fudging it looks like it's the same thing at the same instant.

Compare quake 1 with quake world - same game but one had client side prediction.
 
Telescopi said:
Not the same, but a good server and good internet connection gets it close enough that with some client side fudging it looks like it's the same thing at the same instant.

Compare quake 1 with quake world - same game but one had client side prediction.
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i remember in CS if you were smart you would ignore what the screen told you and shoot just infront of people
 
I'm not a gamer (aside from occasionally playing the GTA series on my playstation) but it would seem that there is an inherent advantage (perhpas small) based on location. US players playing on a US server would, assuming all other things were equal, have a slight advantage over non US players.
 
Has anybody tried that onlive gaming service? Not perfect yet but still good. When they get it right it means no more expensive graphic cards upgrades as you play their equipment.
 
arknor said:
hes on dialup init, when he connects to the internet he hears the "sound"

just incase you werent with us in the dialup era


might make the dialup sound my ringtone for the lulz , every modem i had sounded slightly different aswell
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Thank god I no longer have to hear that sound. My first modem was 14.4k. Terrible speeds.
 
Reaper 392 said:
the data travels from hub to hub at light speed. the clue is in the name: fibreoptic, as in optical, light.
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But not the full speed of light. The speed of light in a vacuum is different to that of it travelling through a medium (think of light travelling through a prism which slows the light down and showing the different colours). I can't remember off the top of my head how much slower but a quick wiki says it's 35% slower.
 
Well thanks for the replies think ive started 2012 of becoming a Nerd lol so



starfighter said:
It only takes about 85 milliseconds for the data to get across the Atlantic.

However for 64 players you need a decent amount of upload speed, where as most home connections only have good download speed.
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Wow thats some fast technology



Rroff said:
Its not as real time as it looks - there is atleast 70ms latency between someone in the US and UK - probably more like 120-150ms.

The way it works is via whats called client side prediction where your copy of the game running on your PC takes the data thats coming in and tries to "guess" ahead a little - generally using things like dead reckoning its possible to fairly accurately build a real time picture of whats going on but sometimes it gets it wrong which is why you have "registry" issue where things don't quite happen right i.e. bullets fail to hit the player your shooting at.

The time it takes data to get to the US and back is very slight tho around 1/10th of a second so most people won't notice the delay at all.


EDIT: Source/HL and quake/doom based game engines usually have console commands to allow you to turn off prediction - typically something like cl_predict* - disabling those will show you what its really like :D not very playable at all.
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Thanks for all that info it actually has cleared my crazy head and can now understand how it works, there is some clever people in this world ;)

Lashout_UK said:
It's not real.
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Had to laugh at this comment above, me and my gaming work mates call bf3 the real world, and say its our world thats nots not real, we keep saying this to the non gamers just to wind them up a bit lmao ;)

Cheers
 
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RomanNose said:
It's not 85ms to the US, I get 40 ms to US servers.
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I've never heard of a roundtrip time between the UK and US being less than around 65ms, and that is under fairly optimal conditions (between major exchanges in London and NYC). Home users will see upwards of 70ms and that is assuming they live close to London, have a very low latency connection themselves and are connecting to a server hosted near to the destination centre in NYC.

In fact the theoretical minimum roundtrip latency based on the distances between London and NYC is probably around 39ms, assuming you had a 100% efficient connection operating at the speed of light going in a straight line with no processing delays at any point (clearly this isn't feasible).
 
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Reaper 392 said:
since when did the internet work by people shouting down megaphones?

the data travels from hub to hub at light speed. the clue is in the name: fibreoptic, as in optical, light. im not so sure where the electrical cable stops, and the fibre starts, but i would have thought the majority of the distance would be using the fibre

i'm happy to be proven wrong here, but i suspect a large amount of the delay is the routers processing where each packet of information need to go along its journey
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Even if he isn't on dial up but instead on DSL then it still works on sound once it get's to the copper which in most cases is from the exchange. Even on VDSL it still goes over copper and therefore uses sound passed the cabinet. Its only fibre to the cabinet.
 
It's code being sent and received, not the actual graphics themselves, once you get your head around netcode it all seems to make sense :p

Flying a jet in real time?

Say it ain't so! :D

It also helps that in games like BF3 that hit detection is done client side not server side, takes the strain off the server during 64man battles I guess.
 
HangTime said:
I've never heard of a roundtrip time between the UK and US being less than around 65ms, and that is under fairly optimal conditions (between major exchanges in London and NYC). Home users will see upwards of 70ms and that is assuming they live close to London, have a very low latency connection themselves and are connecting to a server hosted near to the destination centre in NYC.

In fact the theoretical minimum roundtrip latency based on the distances between London and NYC is probably around 39ms, assuming you had a 100% efficient connection operating at the speed of light going in a straight line with no processing delays at any point (clearly this isn't feasible).
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When the new LINX connection went live around 2003ish I would get 60-65ms to east coast US game servers from London, quickly went upto 90-100ms when more traffic started using that link tho :( (Was on BT ADSL at the time with sub 4ms ping times to server in telehouse :D)
 
mrk said:
It's code being sent and received, not the actual graphics themselves, once you get your head around netcode it all seems to make sense :p

Flying a jet in real time?

Say it ain't so! :D

It also helps that in games like BF3 that hit detection is done client side not server side, takes the strain off the server during 64man battles I guess.
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Yeah i see what you mean, and i am guessing my soldiers netcode is all thats needed to be sent, not all the details on the map example that theres a rock or building by me.

Cheers ;)
 
The fact that UDP (User datagram protocol, often referred to as, unreliable datagram protocol) is typically used rather than TCP is also a contributing factor. With TCP you need a 3 way handshake, when using UDP, it just sends the packets and couldn't care less whether you receive them or not (hence their being no need for a 3 way handshake). Obviously, the 3 way handshake adds to the amount of time it takes for data to travel between two destinations.
 
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Tingle said:
The fact that UDP (User datagram protocol, often referred to as, unreliable datagram protocol) is typically used rather than TCP is also a contributing factor. With TCP you need a 3 way handshake, when using UDP, it just sends the packets and couldn't care less whether you receive them or not (hence their being no need for a 3 way handshake). Obviously, the 3 way handshake adds to the amount of time it takes for data to travel between two destinations.
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The data travels just as fast, there is just more to send.
 
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