Ix Projectors: Cause of lag in Emperor Battle for Dune?

[IxianMace]

A game I played recently was on the map "Draconis: Plain". I had two Ix projectors and I was sending swarms of fake NAIB tanks. Then my ally came with lots of Laser Tanks and camped outside the remaining enemy base (the other guy got engineer dropped and quit). I had no projections because I was busy watching the enemy base and my ally's force, but then all of a sudden, the game slowed to a CRAWL... Later on after the game in another channel, the same players and I met. I got called a 'lame ass' for using the projectors and got blamed for the lag as well, due to the projections that I was making (but I had no projections when the lag started). Do Ix projectors cause lag in an online game of Emperor Battle for Dune?

[SurlyPIG]

The more sprites in the game, the more laggy it becomes. Ix projectors are great at producing mass units, thus mass sprites, but if it truly was you causing the lag then it would have slowed as soon as you began to move your projections. Also, the lag would have stopped as soon as you stopped using the projectors. Plus, based on experience, 2 projectors can't make THAT many NIABs. I think this guy was just mad for losing and was chose you to whine about. Your projections can sometimes cause other players to lag (if their computers can't handle the enormous numbers of units), but, again, it's their fault for either having a sub-par comp or for setting their graphics too high.

[Timenn]

Yeah, like sending a mass force with shadows high.

I hate also those people who say 'laaaaaaag' in the first 10 seconds of the game. The game isn't stable then sometimes, but it will be after 10 seconds

[SurlyPIG]

Yeah, if a game is brutally slow I usually give it about a minute to get out of it's rut before I'll abort.

[Timenn]

Yes, mostly I do it too. But I wait some more minutes. Because that doesn't bother in custom match

[GhostHunter]

No, the people I always loved were the people who said " FUCKING LAG THIS GAME FUCKING SUCKS TO DAM LAGGY! " and it was better then fine. So unless they were all withen 200 yards of each other and all had Pent 4 with 4 ghz and T3 connections I doubt they should be the ones to talk.....

[path_xiii]

IxianMace, the lag wasn't your fault. as Ace mentioned, it could have been their fault for having too high graphics settings for their PCs to handle. But i think it was unlikely to be that case. You said the game came to a CRAWL.. now, if the game was running smoothly i don't think a bunch of extra units could bring the game to such a slow speed. It could have been anything else that caused the lag - my guess would be your (or their) ISP suddenly being very congested.

Actually, similar things have happened to me... There have been times when my game lags so bad the game almost comes to a halt. This only happens after 1 or 2 players quit the game. Its weird - the game slows down to about 1 or 2 frames per second where its unplayable. When I ALT+TAB out of the game Windows tells me its *downloading* about 6kb/sec AS WELL AS *uploading* 6kb/sec. Hmm... im on a 56k connection so it shouldn't be possible anyway.

I used to think it was an IP hack but was told otherwise - and it only happens after a player quits out of a custom match.

Ive checked my computer with a scanning tool and don't have any other programs downloading or uploading.

very odd.

[ethan]

actually, i played Edric O on Emp online and he is in Europe and we both have 56k....i am in US and the game was lag free for the most part.

[IxianMace]

Well I'm on 56k, but I have a computer that can handle the graphics easily. Plenty of DDR RAM as well. I can't understand why the game would slow down so terribly, but it DID happen after one of the other players quit. If it wasn't my connection, then I guess it was one of the other player's computers being too crap to handle the graphics. But as I said earlier, the lag that rendered the game unplayable continued long after I had stopped projecting and had no more projections. Perhaps the high number of Laser Tanks that my ally had moved from his base to the front door of the enemy base had something to do with it?

[path_xiii]

hmm.. i have another theory here. This major lag only happened when 1 player leaves... well what if the player that quit was the original host of the game? So if he quits, the game must find another computer to host the game.... so WOL picks another player in the game to be host. And if the new host has a slow PC and connection, then the game will obviously come to a halt - as this (slow) PC cannot handle mulitple players, on a big map with loads of units.

....or maybe not.

[Timenn]

Hmm, they will probably pick out the player with the fastest connection

[DjCiD]

i dont kno wwhere i read it but WW said the game speed is determend by the slowest persons connection dont know about the other thing tho

[Timenn]

The manual :)

[DjCiD]

has it been that long since i looked in ther eI forgot whee I read it ;D only tim i pick it uup is to make sure i spell Atr... *grabs manual* ...eides right and stuff ;D

[SurlyPIG]

When the host aborts, the game is defaulted to the player who first joined the game, but the speed is still determined by the slowest player.

[Timenn]

I see, that is a very bad point of WW. Before I start flaming on it.

You would really think that that point is well taken care of, but no... :(