Rubber Bullets

[wrag]

Hmmmmmmmmmmm........

Well,

Since the last patch I was getting this hit em allot and little or even no viewable damage thing.

Example dove in on a c205 and fired right into his 6.  Saw hit sprites galore!  Put enough into that c205 it should have blown off the tail section.  result? and oil leak

Got frustrated.  This had been going on for several days.

In an attempt to fix this removed AHII from computer C: drive location using add/remove programs.

Tried a reinstall to H: drive location and then added the patch's again.

Start AHII and CTD?!?!?!

Tried 3 times with same result CTD.

HMMMMMM............

OK suffered through a 6 + hour download of latest full version.  Dialup here at 37,333.

Installed to H: drive location and then copied skins, sound, and setting folders from C: drive location over to latest install on H: drive location.

Fired it up!  Went online and started hitting again.  Result........ now when I hit em they come apart like they used to!!!!!!!!!!

Hmmmmmmm............

maybe I had a bad download on that last patch?

Not sure what caused the.. fire 50% of your ammo to get 1 kill thing... but downloading and install of full version SEEMS to have fixed it.  Or packet lose stopped at the same time I did this????

System:

AMD 2500+ Barton

Asus A7V8X-X

W98se

1 mg memory

ATI 9800 pro

SB PCI512

 

Hmmmm.......  could the part of AHII on my machine that communicates with the HT server have somehow become kaka?

Resulting in the possible packet loss?  My system, for some reason, simply was NOT sending all the info to HTC server?

Had this problem back with AHI.  Would start getting occurances of no or little damage when firing.  Used to uninstall and reinstall AHI and the problem seemed to go away?!?!

Maybe it's just my system.  But hmmm got a brand new HD since then.

W98se thing?

Ya I know this shouldn't happen.  But a remove and reinstall with a full version rather then older with patchs always seems to fix things...........

[bustr]

At any point did you try defraging your C:\ drive 2-3 times in a row? Uninstalling and reinstalling files pushes things around almost like a defrag.

On the other hand I noticed when I had to completely rebuild my system recently, my FPS increased, and I had rubber bullits in every 9th position on the ammo belt, instead of 1 real bullit to every 9 rubber.

Systems get toasty over time. Defragging, uninstalling/reinstalling, and rebuilding come with the territory when you play with PC's.

Oh and when I see other guy(s) warping I've taken to looking at my net status ASAP and find my connection has just experienced a spike, ramped sawtooth patterns, or a large square wave. It's only when all the guys around me say they see a single con or freindly warping that it's not my connection.

On the rare occasion I get alot of spiking and wave forms in my net status display, I turn off my PC and reboot my DSL modem and router. If it doesn't clear it up I do a pig plot to the server, and usually I see packetts dropping through SAVIS along with my round trip time doubled.

If I start having consistant bad gunnery from 200d, I stop blaming the other guy and the game and begin trouble shooting my system and connection.

[Magoo]

You know, I use a cable modem via Charter communications here in Atlanta and I almost never get a bad connect to AH. I know Savvis is getting hammered in the boards and on channel 200 but I don't see it. I wonder if my ISP is dropping my packets into a "bigger pipe" with savvis than some smaller ISPs? Maybe I'm just missing the routers that cause all the problems - don't know how if Savvis is the last mile at HTC...

Magoo

[BTW]

I agree the idea that talking about rubber bullets without a film is pretty much useless. I just don't see how defragging the drive would make a shot hit if it wouldn't hit on a fragmented drive. The program doesn't access the hard drive all that much after its loaded, and when it does,  you'll notice it as there is still that micro freeze. Just because the drive is fragmented doesn't mean the program loads fragmented into system memory. And I am 99.999999999% sure the algorithm that determines a hit is stored in memory and does not require drive access. So how could defragging the drive possibly help?

What would be a lot more useful is the written account and a film.
I've just found films often look different than what is remembered and even "weird" films are not at all weird when things are explained (like a ki84 has 5 gas tanks).

[Shane]

Originally posted by Magoo
OK...if both connects are identical, say 100 ms and rock steady on both PCs, is the distance shown on both FEs the same at any particular instant?

in an ideal world, it would be within 10 yds - an immaterial distance.

but... no two connects are ever identical, simply due to external factors such as pc overhead on the individual's end that do impact things as well.

htc does employ some sort of smoothing code, but even that has it's tolerances.

in general we're mostly close enough for gubmint work.

so when ya'll see me toss out the occasional "nice lag" you can bet your donut i know wherefore what of i speak.

[Fariz]

With fiber in Azerbaijan, and good 2mb ADSL now, my connect is under 300 (usually around 250), so I can compare.

Take it as seriously as you can: ideas that slow connect is a massive advantage is simply idiotic. I can't even stress enough how far from reallities they are. I agree that slow connect can be advantage in very conservative b&z tactics, but it turns into disadvantage in any furball/duel situation. I became much more efficient as a dueler when I got faster connect. I started getting fun from furballs only when I got faster connect. Period.

If you do not believe me, just think about the following. It is very simple to write program, which will "catch" and delay packages on the network interface from the clien side, and thus would make your lag adjustable. This "cheating" will be absolutely "transparent" for a server. If slow connect could be an advantage, you would see lot of people "cheating" by the big lag. The only reason why it is not this way is because big lag is not an advantage. In the network playing the faster your connect is, the more fun and "natural" game is. It is the absolute truth, at least I have not seen a single exception yet.

I understand, that big lag create some problems for little lag crowd, but what you shall know, is that guy on the other side has much more problems generally, and would happily change his connect to the faster one.

[Shane]

in a furball, no.  

bnz, yes.

dueling, yes, until the discrepancy is accounted for properly. remeber how you got me the first time til you told me what your latency was? i had to make a serious adjustment and trust in allowing you to get much closer than was truly comfortable.  then i had to work you until i could pull for a clean kill shot and wait for the damage to make the transit.

[Grits]

Originally posted by Shane
The worst i've encountered was Fariz (connecting from Russia at 700ms is a similar setting.

Worst I've run into is Oleg (I call him O-lag), who is also from Russia. Really laggy guys are easy to tell when they hit you, because as Shane says you take hits when you should have been easily clear. Many times the guy will be 200-400 past the merge and you are still taking hits. I dont think that kind of latency should be allowed.

[Fariz]

Originally posted by Grits
Worst I've run into is Oleg (I call him O-lag), who is also from Russia. Really laggy guys are easy to tell when they hit you, because as Shane says you take hits when you should have been easily clear. Many times the guy will be 200-400 past the merge and you are still taking hits. I dont think that kind of latency should be allowed.

AH hit system is made the way when hits visible to others= lag*3. It is because packets travel 3 times betwen client and server in case of hits registered (no idea why it is this way, but probably as a security measure against hacks). With lag 400ms it makes 1.2 seconds before you feel the hits. With 700m=2.1s. Do not judge actual lag on the hit delay, you will just fool yourself.

[weasel4]

THIS EXPLAINS A LOT!  I CAN'T HIT %?!#.


I AM GENERALLY DOA!

[hitech]

Hmm travels 3 times to client and server, wonder where that rumor started.

Fariz you are incorect in both your description and deduction.


HiTech

[DamnedRen]

Originally posted by Howitzer
I had a run in a tempest last month where I lit up about 3 planes only to see minimal damage.   On the first pass on the jug I encountered, I counted 15+ sprites all over the plane as I passed him.  When he pulled up all he has was a gas leak.  The whole run was that way.  Just seemed odd.  I checked my hit % as that is something I'm trying to work on, and I felt I landed quite a few shots that run, but my percentage dropped quite a bit.  

I've seen the same probelm. And IMHO it is a problem. I contribute it to lag and perhaps total number of planes in a given spot.

A couple of things I've noticed. Something has changed once again within the game. The last update seemed to cause me lags almost everytme I flew. Along with the lags came screen freezes and  
missing impossibly easy shots. When a patch came out it went away and things got back to normal. The past week or so...introduction of the new pony or the N?....and the lags seem to be back. I saddle up on a yak from 200 out for almost a minute and parked there peppering away. Not even a sprite.
Along the same lines I was in low at 52 last night in heavy traffic and whenever I looked around my screen would freeze for up to a second. During that time a full freeze left me wondering just what direction my plane was turning. Since I'd seen it just a few weeks before I just looged for the night as I knew it wasn't going to get any better. Also, I put a second and a half, unloaded into some guy and was pulling off thinking, "gotta love the lag" and as I had turned 90 degrees away he completely blew up. It happened 2 or 3 times last night. Im thinking it was 3 seconds after I shot him.


As far as filming...I normally don't film fights as I did that around 12 years ago and I got the "look how great I am syndrome" outa the way a long time ago so I don't have a film showing it but I'vve been doing this long enough to understand what I'm seeing. I'm wondering if it might be the new (old) map  that just began in the last week....

____________
Ren
The Damned

[Fariz]

Originally posted by hitech
Hmm travels 3 times to client and server, wonder where that rumor started.

Fariz you are incorect in both your description and deduction.

HiTech

Film fight with someone with high lag, then jump into his plane in the film viewer, and check the time after the tracers fly from his plane, and the damage your plane gets. Because film records the event on YOUR side, tracers flying by and dammage message shall be simultanious or very close if it is server side delay, but in fact it is more than a second, which is equal about twice the lag the other guy has. Film the encounter with someone with smaller lag, and you will see there are no such a delay. May be there are some other explanation? Will gladly listen to it, and where I am wrong in my assumption.

I have sent you a film to info@hitechcreations.com with explanation how to check for it the results I got.

[hitech]

Your asumption is wrong because it dosn't travel 3 times.

Shooter detects hit, sends to server, server sends it to the person who was hit.

There can be up to a 250ms  added lag do to hit buffering for bursts of hits.

2nd.
Burst are seen from other players in 250ms or 500ms blocks.
There is no way to know what bullet in the show burst hit you, weather at the end of the burst or the begining.

HiTech

[megadud]

Is it possible that shooting both machine guns and cannons at the same time only the machine guns will hit? because i have switched to using only cannons and planes seem to fall apart easier.