Hoj wrote: ↑
I guess. I always thought base walking is a valid technique, but I've never had a problem with campers and such either.
It takes away quite a bit from the game and allows for disproportionate amount of map control, which with OpenRA balance is annoying. It's also simply an annoying rush tactic that results in lame matches.
Hoj wrote: ↑
I appreciate that, but even modern games don't lag like this online, and I refuse to believe that openra is THAT powerful. And yeah, I'm glad the Ai doesn't cheat like in the original!
Aside from the much higher level of physics and smoother play, which causes issue with low-end CPU processing, the issue isn't the game itself often - it's the fact that the servers directly interface based on the players. Most other RTS games of the modern era do most of their stuff "server-side" meaning that the different player's merely need to connect to the server and their connection between each-other matters less. Aside from the fact many people using the "Hetzner release" maps aren't even in the same country as the servers, given they're hosted in germany to my knowledge, I do believe individual connection to each-other helps cause lag.
TL, DR; OpenRA relies on the connection between specific players much more than more "professional" games
Hoj wrote: ↑
What network problems and Ai lagging? Do you know if there's anything I can do to help prevent the lagging?
Use a good computer and a stable net connection.
Hoj wrote: ↑
No I was talking about Hedgewars. I never have lag with AOE2HD or any other RTS game, at least not as bad as Openra.
AOE2 HD also has a budget and proper servers for every region.
Hoj wrote: ↑I never have lag with AOE2HD or any other RTS game, at least not as bad as Openra.
There are several techniques which other RTS games use to reduce the effect of network latency - e.g. using UDP connections instead of TCP, using the server to negotiate direct p2p connections between players, variable order lag, etc. These could all be implemented in OpenRA if somebody with the skills and interest wanted to implement them.
People tend to forget that these kind of features take a lot of time and skill to implement, and that commercial games like AOE2HD have paid developers who work on them as their day job. OpenRA is a volunteer project that people contribute towards in their spare time - big complicated features like this do not simply appear out of thin air.
I do not think it's either connection or lack of computer power. We are a group of 4-5 guys who play ra on regular intervals, sometimes all together and sometimes 1 vs 1. We all experiance lag no matter who we play with, or how close to us they are. What's interesting is another rts - warzone - works fine with just as many ai units, and with all of us playing together. I don't think you can explain it aways by saying our computers are shit or that our network is ther problem.
folkilsk wrote: ↑I do not think it's either connection or lack of computer power. We are a group of 4-5 guys who play ra on regular intervals, sometimes all together and sometimes 1 vs 1. We all experiance lag no matter who we play with, or how close to us they are. What's interesting is another rts - warzone - works fine with just as many ai units, and with all of us playing together. I don't think you can explain it aways by saying our computers are shit or that our network is ther problem.
Hoj wrote: ↑I never have lag with AOE2HD or any other RTS game, at least not as bad as Openra.
There are several techniques which other RTS games use to reduce the effect of network latency - e.g. using UDP connections instead of TCP, using the server to negotiate direct p2p connections between players, variable order lag, etc. These could all be implemented in OpenRA if somebody with the skills and interest wanted to implement them.
People tend to forget that these kind of features take a lot of time and skill to implement, and that commercial games like AOE2HD have paid developers who work on them as their day job. OpenRA is a volunteer project that people contribute towards in their spare time - big complicated features like this do not simply appear out of thin air.
keep in mind that Warzone had a distinct difference in money compared to OpenRA - I'm assuming you're speaking of Warzone 2100, correct? - that makes a huge difference in terms of network features.
If you really wanna see Network improvements, a good idea might be going to the OpenRA Bountysource and putting some money of your own towards it - The Devs generally focus on whatever has the most money put towards it in regards to adding features.
Hoj wrote: ↑I never have lag with AOE2HD or any other RTS game, at least not as bad as Openra.
if you would like to file a bug report about this, the devs are very active on github and try to take care of all error posted here: https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA
and further, if you would like to create larger incentive for the problem to be fixed, you can place a cash bounty on it here: https://www.bountysource.com/trackers/36085-openra
folkilsk wrote: ↑I do not think it's either connection or lack of computer power. We are a group of 4-5 guys who play ra on regular intervals, sometimes all together and sometimes 1 vs 1. We all experiance lag no matter who we play with, or how close to us they are. What's interesting is another rts - warzone - works fine with just as many ai units, and with all of us playing together. I don't think you can explain it aways by saying our computers are shit or that our network is ther problem.
My computer runs the game at a consistent 60fps unless I turn off the frame limiter, in which case it sometimes shoots up to 400, even with the maximum amount of hard AIs on a large (10 player) map
please remember OpenRA was created for free and out of the kindness of some Westwood fans
See https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA/pull/4437 for a big performance bugfix on large island maps that was done in the last 48 hours and will be included in the next playtest release.
Cmd. Matt wrote: ↑See https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA/pull/4437 for a big performance bugfix on large island maps that was done in the last 48 hours and will be included in the next playtest release.
I think it is all about the path finding. I just tried to play a game against 3 AIs and the map was very corridor like. As soon as AI had built enough units the game started to lag like crazy. Mouse cursor jumping and the performance graph showed huge spikes. And the ai units clearly had some problems trying to find their way into my base.
I don't understand how such small game can lag so horribly, there seem to be some serious bugs or design issues.
I am long time player of SpringRTS / Zero-K (which is another open source RTS engine and game) which handles games with 20 players, 1000+ units and on much larger maps without any network lag at all and with mostly no cpu lag until lategame. It also open-source project and with no financial support, so if it can handle all that I see no technical reasons why OpenRA couldn't work without lag too. If I understand correctly it is all matter of time and manpower, right? Maybe you could look as SpringRTS source or documentation for clues how to handle your networking model better?
In short, SpringRTS uses synced model where every player runs the same simulation deterministically. The server only forwards commands (for example orders given to units) between players. I think clients queue several frames in advance so don't have to wait for each other, but not sure about specifics. Client which runs too slowly doesn't slow down the game, he falls behind but keeps receiving commands from server and running the simulation until eventually he catches up (or drops completely).
I had already addressed this in my earlier comments. You are correct that there are no technical reasons stopping this from being fixed, and I outlined several ways in which OpenRA could be improved.
The issue is that OpenRA only has a couple of active developers working in their spare time, and none of them are particularly interested in working on the networking code.
