ISP prices/speeds

[Joker]

well I guess I have to put you all to shame, I have google fiber which is a $70/month for 1GB up/down line.

[ZERO]

While I agree with most of what Starsmine said about latency not being a factor of Internet speed I also disagree. While almost no one will be affected by latency due to Internet speed, BACK IN MY DAY it's definitely something we had to deal with. I feel there's a need to clarify and simplify his lengthy explanation and define some terms.

All information sent and received by computers is done so utilizing packets. Ping is the time it takes for a single packet of information to go from your computer to a server and back to your computer.

Latency is associated with ping but not the same thing and the numbers can vary widely. Latency in online games is the total amount of time it takes for a single 'tick' of a server to go from your computer to a server and back to your computer. In this case, in CS:S, you're sending multiple packets of data to the server and it's sending them back to you with each 'tick' to update your game client on what's happening in the game. The tick rate of a server determines just how much data is sent between the client and the server and higher tick rates mean more accurate onscreen action across clients on the Internet. All of this happens lightning fast, speeds incomprehensible to us really.

Because of this, it is TOTALLY possible that with low speed connections, i.e. 56k dial-up and DSL <3Mbps, you'll have a low ping but a high latency. Because your connection is stressing attempting to keep up with the server's information flowing back and forth, your latency is increased because you simply aren't getting the updates fast enough to keep up with what's actually happening on the server.

Bandwidth, which is that 'xxMbps' number all broadband connections have associated with them, is the total amount of data your connection is capable of handling at any given moment. Generally, because the data transfer required by online games is quite small, broadband connections will be unaffected by latency because the connection has no issues sending and receiving data to the server in a timely fashion. The numbers ISP marketing teams put forth are misleading however, because generally the number advertised is the downstream only - while the upstream is significantly less. Because you must also send data while gaming online, if your upstream is suffering, your latency will skyrocket because you can't send the server the data required to continue updating your client.

In short Decimate, if you aren't below that 3Mbps downstream threshold, which virtually no one is anymore, increasing your bandwidth will have ZERO impact on your ping/latency to any given server on the Internet. So there's no reason to pay more money with the expectation of increasing CSS client accuracy. The only way to do this would be to switch ISPs and it's a total crapshoot as to whether or not that will help or hurt in the goal of better latency to a particular server. In my area, one ISP is significantly better than the other when connecting to the IBIS GunGame server, for what it's worth.

I think the issue we're all dealing with on the GunGame server lately is it just that it needs some tuning up. The last couple of weeks have affected me the same as you, I've been knifed from incredible distances and shot dead around corners regularly. The explanation for this is simple - my client and your client aren't seeing the same point in time from the server. If it's happening to just one person, this is usually a client side issue, but with as many folks as have been complaining lately it's no doubt on the server side.

And I think the server is located somewhere in Virginia or D.C. An IP address look up would help you pinpoint if you're really curious, just plug the IP into Google and it should pop up easy-to-read results.

Hope this helps!

Somewhat, the server send and receives data to clients at a set rate which is often higher than the server tick rate. The tick rate is when the server preforms its most important move and hit calculations and send the game state packet. Your latency will effect how long it takes this packet to get to you and how long it takes for your client to send a packet of a command action to be placed in the servers pool for the next game state calculation. As this does not occur in real time interp values control the tolerance level that the client and server is willing to accept for past and future calculations. This is why in some games a laggy player can kill you but you find out after you already did something else and you warp back to a hall way and die. Rates also had a large effect on client latency because a server is able to send more data than a client can handle. For example normal game state data may not be an issue but voice communication could overload a players bandwidth. Thus a user who did not have proper rate limits could have their connection overloaded by the server. When a rate is improperly set by a client they would effectively have the game server launching a constant DOS attack on their internet connection. This results in dropped packets (loss) and increases in connection latency.

You might be wondering how the server can send less data to some players and more to others and how this effects the game. Well the latency effects the time it takes for game state data to actually travel between the client and the server but the rate limits control how much of this data is transmitted between the two. This data provides the client with more precise information of the actions of other players and objects within the game. A client with rates low enough will not get data that other clients have and as a result will see more lagged player movement for other players and will experience more hit reg problems due to the target on their screen not matching up with where the target actually is because they did not have precise enough perdition data to estimate the other clients position based on the last update packet received from the server. A outbound communication limit from the client can also result in a similar loss of hit reg for example if a client does not have enough upstream bandwidth to transmit their update state quickly enough the server must work harder to predict that clients location and the other clients also get a less accurate estimate of the players state on each update. This is often seen when a client is warping yet has a low latency.

Hit reg is also tied to FPS as the clients computer is preforming local game state updates at a rate equal to the clients FPS. If a clients FPS is less than the server they will not be able to have the same hit reg as other players. For example on a 66 tick server if a client has 33fps and another client has 66fps the 66fps client can send twice as many kill commands per second to the server as the other client. So you could also interpret this as saying that the 66fps players experiences each instance in time at the same rate as the server. However the 33 fps cleint only experiences every other moment in time. Therefore if both clients attempt to shoot each other at the same moment in time there is a 50% chance that for the 33fps cleint this is the moment in time they skipped. As a result the server recessives the packet from the 66fps client and then the 33fps client but the 33fps client registers their packet as having occurred on the next moment because they had to skip one due to fps limitations. Likewise low fps can also result in warping. The benefits of high FPS for hitreg only matter up to the level of the server tick rate, FPS higher than server tick will not improve your hit reg but will improve your visual response and possibly your localized reaction time. However, it is important to note once again that FPS levels beyond the server tick rate do not effect what is going in in the actual game anymore. It only effects the actual player sitting at the computer and how smooth the motion is and how fast their system will register their own inputs; however, the inputs will still transmit to the server no faster than the servers tick rate allows.

Lastly the server is in WDC