Devs fix the lag.

[ac9999]

From: @Longbow Warden 1, @Supercharged Titan (Torchbearer)

To: Devs.

 

Fix the lag.

 

Love,

@Longbow Warden 1, @Supercharged Titan (Torchbearer)

[kiramon]

I hate when I see you guys.

[ac9999]

I hate the* game lags.

Edited July 7, 2020 by ac9999
lag-tardation, sry

[Rathulfr]

What lag?

 

[EmmySky]

Lag is usually user side (slow hardware like me) or network side (a hiccup somewhere in your connection or that connection to the game).

 

If you describe the lag you are seeing, maybe show a couple netgraphs during laggy activities, someone might can help you resolve the issue.  Also check your ping, that might be useful info.

 

Good luck!

[Troo]

Lag has been pretty bad since the crash.

 

Definitely not just user side.

 

Been through this before:

 

Edited July 8, 2020 by Troo

[ImpousVileTerror]

For clarity, net graphs can be called up with the following command:

/netgraph 1

[fitzsimmons]

You can try flushing your dns resolver cache then relaunching the game.

 

ipconfig /flushdns

ipconfig /registerdns

 

Start game

 

Check netgraph before and after.

[Chance Jackson]

2 hours ago, ac9999 said:

From: @Longbow Warden 1, @Supercharged Titan (Torchbearer)

To: Devs.

 

Fix the lag.

 

Love,

@Longbow Warden 1, @Supercharged Titan (Torchbearer)

How Sway??? How? 

[ac9999]

53 minutes ago, fitzsimmons said:

You can try flushing your dns resolver cache then relaunching the game.

 

ipconfig /flushdns

ipconfig /registerdns

 

Start game

 

Check netgraph before and after.

I have 2 isps they had the same result in-game, rubberbanding every 5-7 seconds.

 

*blinks w/ anxiety*

[fitzsimmons]

14 minutes ago, ac9999 said:

I have 2 isps they had the same result in-game, rubberbanding every 5-7 seconds.

 

*blinks w/ anxiety*

Sooooo you try it or nah?

[ac9999]

12 minutes ago, fitzsimmons said:

Sooooo you try it or nah?

Let me check (try) RQ.

 - <this is the part when I entered the stuff in CMD>

huh. I can load the game faster.

<insert more time here>

 

<loading>

<stares at civilians>

 

<map server>

<more mapserver>

Nothing.

 

[Ukase]

The thing about lag from a player perspective is that most players won't really know what's causing the lag. 

Suppose ac9999 had never had any lag previously playing on HC until Derek the Mender goofed up. While it's not proof positive, odds are something in that code doesn't agree with ac9999's system. 

If that is the case, what is to be done? Sure, all the suggestions made might help. 

If not, what then?

I'm not sure we can ask volunteers to fix stuff the same way we would if were paying for the game. (and actually expect them to do so)

 

[GM Tock]

There are three bottlenecks when it comes to network speed/performance.  Both Homecoming and You have control over exactly ONE.

• Your home ISP - Your control.
• Backbone provider between your ISP and OVH
• OVH to our servers - Up to us.

We strive to use the full extent of our connection at the data center.  And if there is connection difficulties within our realm to fix, we will.  However, if other players aren't joining you in reporting lag on multiple servers, there's not much we can do about the other two possibilities.  The path from your house to here, as well as your house itself are out of our control. 

 

That might seem like a cop-out, but it is true of any online game, volunteer-ran or not.

Additional advice concerning Home Networking

 

I'm sorry I'm left to guess what your situation is, but I could use more information about your network setup for better advice.  I'll try anyways.
 

The network ports on the client have not changed since Live.  Making sure these aren't being blocked by Windows Firewall (make sure either /hc-bin32/cityofheroes.exe or /hc-bin64/cityofheroes.exe is not blocked)  or on your router should be sufficient, you shouldn't need to explicitly open ports on your router to get to the server except as a last resort.

Game Ports

The game client is somewhat Firewall and NAT friendly. However any issues can be resolved by ensuring the following ports are open:

    TCP 2104
    TCP 2106
    TCP 443
    UDP 7000-7200

Instructions on how to set this on your router are available from either your ISP or the manufacturer.  (There's 1,000's of models, so a step-by-step isn't possible.) 

Also, if you're using a laptop, be aware there are different settings for Public Networks as well as Private ones, and you need to be aware what your connection is using.  Desktops using Ethernet should most often be set to a Private network since they usually don't leave your house.  But if the firewall has the game allowed on a Private network and your Wi-Fi connection is set to Public, it could be causing difficulty reaching us.

Finally, if you're using Wi-Fi, see if you can plug your system in with Ethernet and the lag goes away.  This might be a sign your Wi-Fi network needs some further adjustment (Router Placement, switching Radio Channels to one less crowded, etc.)

[MTeague]

I had no lag all across the entire 4th of July weekend or tonight.  And my graphics settings are maxed (though I AM on a relatively new computer, and medium-to-high end)

I accept and believe that other players are experiencing lag.  But if it's not hitting me, I doubt there's any new issues with CoH code, and I have trouble thinking it's an issue on the HC side.

 

Also consider if your computer took any automatic updates, and whether or not that might have impacted any drivers you may have.  It's terribly easy to let your drivers get out of date, and with good reason... sometimes updating a driver fixes issues.... and sometimes updating a driver can cause an old game to that used to be stable to suddenly not be. 

[ImpousVileTerror]

Bearing in mind, sometimes when players use the term "lag," they're referring to slow downs unrelated to network latency or packet loss.  This is why the net graph is so important during troubleshooting.  If the graph shows no spikes, then whatever is causing the slow down is very likely a hardware issue of some sort.

[Six-Six]

May I chime in that I, too, have had no significant lag before or after Derek's doings (and the server crash). I'm on a decade old computer running on third world internet. The only trouble I had within the past week can and is attributed to a scheduled and documented ISP maintenance in my district.

[GastlyGibus]

Can also confirm that, neither before nor after the Great Server Crash of 2020 (tm), have I been experiencing any kind of connectivity or lag issues.

 

I'm no IT expert, so unfortunately I can't offer any advice. All I can say is while you and others are reporting an increase in connectivity issues, other players like myself have not had any issues whatsoever. It seems more likely that this is an issue on your end.

[Hyperstrike]

7 hours ago, GM Tahquitz said:

There are three bottlenecks when it comes to network speed/performance.  Both Homecoming and You have control over exactly ONE.

• Your home ISP - Your control.
• Backbone provider between your ISP and OVH
• OVH to our servers - Up to us.

There's technically one more source of lag, and it's under the end-user's control.

Disk subsystem induced latency.
You can get screwy variances on game performance depending on the drive you've got it installed to.

System/Swap drive vs secondary drive
IDE/SATA/SAS/M.2/PCIE/etc
Rotational speed and buffer capacity
If you're running RAID, array type can make a difference
HDD vs SSD

 

[Marine X]

Also an easy Experiment that might help isolate what is causing the lag is to create a Character on Reunion. It is a totally separate server, rather than a shard, and the connection to it follows a totally different Internet Pathway through ISPs than reaching the other shards in Montreal. If this works properly you may be able to set up a VPN to avoid the default route to Montreal. Strange as it sounds, a lot of people have had issues if their Web Path goes through the Detroit Area ISPs.

 

The Following article covers this subject:

 

[Herotu]

13 hours ago, Rathulfr said:

What lag?

 

My next supervillain! Eeeeeexxceeelleeeeennnntttt....

[Oubliette_Red]

There's also a matter of VPN. Whenever I experience an lag/hiccups/rubberbanding/buffering etc. I head over to Speedof.me and check my connection, then reconnect to another of my VPN's servers if it's slow. Sometimes the one it auto-connects to is not always the best choice.

[GM Tock]

14 minutes ago, Oubliette_Red said:

There's also a matter of VPN. Whenever I experience an lag/hiccups/rubberbanding/buffering etc. I head over to Speedof.me and check my connection, then reconnect to another of my VPN's servers if it's slow. Sometimes the one it auto-connects to is not always the best choice.

I don't advise spending money on a short-term fix, personally.

Not condoning or condemning VPN use, but people who aren't familiar working with it, or folks who rely on SaaS apps with "VPN-like" features should know that it's not something you can throw at the problem and never think about again either.  If you don't have a choice, that's one thing, but VPN is a modern version of the word "proxy" and has the same considerations, notably, a reduction of bandwidth and reliance on a third party for your access.

Edited July 8, 2020 by GM Tahquitz

[Coyotedancer]

I haven't run into a lag issue so far, but I did get a trio of game crashes yesterday afternoon.  I haven't had that problem before.

 

'Sent the automated report in on the first two (They happened close together time-wise while I was in the character creator, on Torch-), but wasn't given that option on the third, which happened a bit later when I was exiting an AE mission with Sarhadi on Everlasting. 

 

 

Edited July 8, 2020 by Coyotedancer

[Oubliette_Red]

3 hours ago, GM Tahquitz said:

I don't advise spending money on a short-term fix, personally.

Not condoning or condemning VPN use, but people who aren't familiar working with it, or folks who rely on SaaS apps with "VPN-like" features should know that it's not something you can throw at the problem and never think about again either.  If you don't have a choice, that's one thing, but VPN is a modern version of the word "proxy" and has the same considerations, notably, a reduction of bandwidth and reliance on a third party for your access.

I'm not sure where the "spending money" came from.  I wasn't advocating that people try using a VPN to solve their connectivity issues, just that those of us that already use VPNs should look at their points of connection as a possible slow down. VPNs have gotten better over the years, where in the past they almost always used to slow down your connections, now a days I rarely see an impact.

🙂

 

Edited July 8, 2020 by Oubliette_Red