contents
In
UT you can basically see two pings. The ping in the scoreboard
(f1 ping) and the ping in the stat net display (press f6 in default
keyboard layout to see it - f6 ping). Both are usually pretty
different from each other. The reason is simple - they are calculated
in different ways.
F1
ping is the ping the server gets to you while f6 ping is what
you get to the server. While icmp ping wouldnt show a difference
for that, UT does because the server and the client need different
times until they send an answer back. More on the exact difference
later.
The
second basic (because very important) thing in the stat net display
is packet loss (pl). This is shown twice in IN and OUT columns
- IN means the traffic you get from the server, OUT is the traffic
you send to the server.
As
you probably know, pl is a very bad thing. If you get constant
pl on a server, all kind of crappy things can happen. Packet loss
means that for whatever reason, some internet packets dont reach
their target - either from you to the server, from server to you
or (most frequently) both. That in turn means that you as a client
might miss important information (like rockets being shot at you,
other players moving around) and/or the server may do so (like
knowing where you aim or that you didnt shoot that rockets right
at your feet).
Usually
packet loss is caused by some problem in the internet route from
you to the server. To find out where exactly, see chapter 2. ;)
About the only thing you can configure for onlineplay clientside
in UT is netspeed. First thing - forget Epics recommended settings.
Second thing - yes, clientside fps is somewhat capped by netspeed.
However, that doesnt really play an important role because it
only places a maximum on your fps. That obviously results in less
avg fps in display, but during the important situations your fps
wont drop because they are below the cap anyway.
Keeping
that in mind, you should always set your netspeed according to
your real line capacity. Take into account if your connection
is capable of handling that traffic in both directions simultanously
(full duplex) or not (half duplex or some mixture). For euro isdn
64k, 6500 seems like a reasonable netspeed (it isn't really full
duplex, but can handle like 6.5 kb/sec up and down simulatnously).
For DSL and similar fast lines 20000 as default seems reasonable
(you will never get more traffic in either direction anyway),
but if you have trouble on some servers, try lowering your netspeed
- there might be a bottleneck somewhere between you and the server.
This is especially true if playing over long distances from country
to country or even intercontinental.
While
setting your netspeed to extremely high values might get you seemingly
better fps, it could get you into problems when your machine is
really fast; you could create more traffic to the server than
your connection could handle, resulting in all kind of negative
side effects. Even a maxclientrate appropriate to your connections
capabilities won't help there because maxclientrate on server
just afflicts downstream (traffic from server to you), not your
upstream.
So now you're playing, your ping seems ok, no pl, and you still
find playing laggy? That could be caused by various reasons. If
that happens on all servers, the first thing to check is your
local configuration. Firewalls, virus scanners, ICQ and other
IM clients can all interfere with UT online play, so it's a good
idea to try switching them off for playing and see if it helps.
The next thing to check is drivers (especially if on ISDN) for
your connection device, but also for graphic cards and other stuff.
If you're connected to an external (DSL or cable) modem via ethernet,
your network card might need other/newer drivers, or it could
have some irq conflicts that cause trouble.
Once
you checked your local machine, stopped all background tasks that
aren't neccessary for survival, upgraded drivers and generally
made your system run smoothly, the next thing to do is to check
the connection to the server with one of the trace tools mentioned
in chapter 2. Run such traces for some time (several minutes when
pinging like once a second) and see if some ping spikes or pl
occur. If you see problems there, try changing isps if you can
to see if it helps.
If
both of the above fail, it's time to have a closer look at the
server - see the next chapter for this.
<<
2. Internet basics 4.
Advanced stats >>
