Descriptive Problem Summary:
There are frequent high latency spikes in BYOND that do not appear in direct pings to the server (or other on-line games).
For example:
Round trip ping-pong took 0.69 seconds.
Round trip ping-pong took 1 seconds.
Round trip ping-pong took 0.078 seconds.
Round trip ping-pong took 0.64 seconds.
Pinging 67.23.31.142 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 67.23.31.142: bytes=32 time=90ms TTL=50
Reply from 67.23.31.142: bytes=32 time=80ms TTL=50
Reply from 67.23.31.142: bytes=32 time=79ms TTL=50
Reply from 67.23.31.142: bytes=32 time=78ms TTL=50
The problem is persistent through all games, including ones without an active map element.
Clearing the cache and cfg did not resolve the problem.
A detailed discussion on the problem can be found in the Help forum.
(Reported by Schnitzelnagler for Murrawhip)
Numbered Steps to Reproduce Problem:
Join a game and wait.
Expected Results:
No lag spikes on a stable connection.
Actual Results:
Random, frequent latency increase.
Does the problem occur:
Every time? Or how often? Every time
In other games? All games
In other user accounts? N/A
On other computers? N/A
When does the problem NOT occur?
The problem always occurs
Did the problem NOT occur in any earlier versions? If so, what was the last version that worked? (Visit http://www.byond.com/download/build to download old versions for testing.)
N/A
Workarounds:
Non known
ID:85979
 Nov 20 2009, 5:56 am
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Resolved
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There is insufficient information to reproduce the issue, so a bug report in this case was probably premature. Because only the one user has this problem and it seems to have changed after moving, his wireless network is a likely culprit. It may not be relevant that he can download from other sites during this time, since this particular issue may be from a dropped outgoing packet that TCP/IP is taking too long to correct. Downloading is also a lot more one-sided than the communication done by BYOND. It does at least prove his connection has not dropped entirely during these times.
Normally this sort of report I would refer back to BYOND Help. I really think the issue should continue to be discussed there, but for now I'll mark this unverified and hope we can get a test case to work with. | |
Lummox JR wrote:
--his wireless network is a likely culprit. Through the testing I was connected directly to my modem. No router. There was no change in performance while doing this as compared to when I was using a wireless router. In terms of dropped packets, I've done a bunch of tests on the beta http://pingtest.net, and never have I seen a dropped packet with any of the servers I've selected. Not sure if that's relevant to what you mean, though. | |
Ah, I did miss that info in your thread. Still, the problem is there is nothing to test. Without a way to reproduce the issue we can't investigate the report.
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The thing is though, after clearing my cache and config files, I was convinced that the latency was better and less spike-y.
To test that just now, I replaced the cfg folder with the old cfg folder and joined a server. I'm quite sure that just by doing that, I'm getting more bad latencies: Round trip ping-pong took 0.52 seconds. Round trip ping-pong took 0.25 seconds. Round trip ping-pong took 0.14 seconds. Round trip ping-pong took 0.11 seconds. Round trip ping-pong took 0.41 seconds. Round trip ping-pong took 1.1 seconds. | |
Clearing your cache will mean you'll have to re-download resources for the games you play, which by definition will have an impact on your connection. But either way we lack a test case.
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I don't think I'll ever have a chance of explainin how this is possible...
So I was logged into a game, and one of the said lag spikes occured. I could see what everyone else was saying, without lag. I could however, not make any action myself. The icons were not frozen; they were still animated. I then logged into the same game on an alternate key, and move to my first key's mob. I was having no trouble moving on the alt key, but my first key was still unable to act. When speaking on my alternate key, my first key could hear it, immediately, but could not /see/ the alt-mob move. I'm aware that this is may be quite confusing to understand, I'll do my best to reiterate if required. I'm aware that this is difficult to replicate, but it is really depressing for me, having played BYOND since 2002 and then all of a sudden, not being able to. Any ideas in how I could fix this would be muchly appreciated. | |
The animation continuing is actually expected behavior in the event of a network problem. Animation is driven by the client-side timer and not by anything on the server end. Having issues on one character and not another is also consistent with something in the TCP/IP stack getting messed up, since one connection could be waiting for a lost packet to go through while the other would have no issues.
All things considered this could well be an issue with your ISP, since you say the problem comes up even if you're connected directly to the modem. | |
What makes me think that this isn't a random TCP/IP screw-up though, is that I could see chat without lag, but no movements on the map.
In regard to maybe one connection waiting for a lost packet to go through, I've done many tracerts to different servers, and have never had a lost packet. I can't see how this can be a problem with my ISP, when I play a few FPS games regularly and don't have a problem with them. It's only ever happening on BYOND for me. I've rang my ISP and got to 2nd level tech support, and they assure me that everything is fine on their end. | |
The way the server sends out map information, it is possible to end up in a kind of permanently "backlogged" state where it waits to send future map updates. However I'm not sure yet of the circumstances under which this can happen. Based on what you said about still being able to see chat messages, that sounds identical to the issue you're having.
This is an old known issue and one I haven't been able to fix because of the lack of a solid test case. I can tell you based on the fact that this only started after you moved that your ISP is almost certainly the culprit, even if everything on their end looks kosher. After all this didn't happen until you moved, so the change to your network is definitely the ultimate cause. It stands to reason though that if the bug triggered by transient network issues can be fixed, then they will cause you a lot fewer problems. | |
I've now formatted and installed Windows 7 and the problem still persists.
I maintain that BYOND is the only piece of software that I see these crazy pings for. I have tried different computers, routers and modems which all yield the same result. If it were my ISP that is almost certainly the culprit as you suggest, would this error not make itself known in other software? Is there /anything/ I can do that may fix this problem; I'm hesitant to renew my BYOND membership when I can barely manage to play a decent game anymore. I can't even stay logged into Chatters for more than ten minutes. | |
Murrawhip wrote:
If it were my ISP that is almost certainly the culprit as you suggest, would this error not make itself known in other software? It wouldn't necessarily, no. Other programs may not be keeping a persistent connection; most people run very few that do. There also may be something particular in our code that doesn't respond well to whatever oddities are happening with your connection, so it's possible--perhaps even likely--you're seeing some kind of bad interaction between them. But because this is happening pretty much just to you, it points to something on your end, and the ISP is the only remaining variable; it's also one of the few variables that changed when this started for you. It wouldn't take much to make your ISP a little flaky either, and they might not be aware of it. It could be something as simple as signal strength needing a boost or something like that. My sister lives upstairs from my parents, and the Internet connection in the whole house is disrupted when her phone rings. (That's been going on for a little while now.) So they might be seeing good behavior, while in reality something is going very wrong. My own connection has been flakier lately too, I've been finding. Is there /anything/ I can do that may fix this problem; I'm hesitant to renew my BYOND membership when I can barely manage to play a decent game anymore. I can't even stay logged into Chatters for more than ten minutes. I think your issue is caused by BYOND having a hard time recovering from an unexpected network condition. Without being able to reproduce that ourselves, there's nothing we can do to fix it, so the solution probably lies with shoring up your network. You've ruled out everything but the connection itself. So from here, it might be good to set up a service call to have someone look at your signal strength and determine if it's adequate, or even if there's possible interference. | |
This issue fixed itself upon the installation of 462. No idea what's up with that.
Ahh well, I'm happy. | |
I have tested with the exact same game, compiled with two different versions of BYOND.
Task manager reported the older version using between 1-3% CPU.
The newer version was using between 8-10%.
(These numbers might not seem that bad. But I am using a quad core processor, so if you have only a single processor that is 2.4GHz, multiply those numbers by 4 to get a rough idea of CPU usage).
Also, one time a game for no apparent reason using a good 25% of my CPU according to task manager, but the CPU var ingame was reporting 0.
These random lag spikes could possibly be due to BYOND/Dream Seeker using more CPU.