Understanding Net Lag and Gunnery

[bustr]

I'm attempting to understand what net lag does to my gunnery and my enemies ability to hit me with his guns.

I have 3 hops that periodicly drop packetts at 100%. I can expect this during storms, school vacation, holidays and weekends. Sometimes it has no effect on my ability to hit other planes. But, some times it causes me to have rubber bullets.

It is at it's worst on large maps with a large number of planes in my map area if it is happening. If I move to an area of the map with a small number of players my hit% goes back up. If I move to another arena with less players, that can also improve my hit%. I have been told Im warping very few times that I can remember. But when the packett loss is at its worst, I disco. But so far this year, twice, and last year four times.

So,

1. When I am experiencing rubber bullets, but my enemies bullets find my plane with no problem, what is the network relationship between my plane\PC and the enemy\PC? I suspect a description of a healty network relationship between planes would be necessary here. In the Matrix called AH what is really happening as opposed to the eye candy used to fool our senses?

2. What does the relationship of numbers of players to my proximity have to do with this? I dont get screen stutters during furballs. Vsync is on, my desktop refresh is 120hz and my vid card is a Radeon x1650 Pro, CPU Int3.06 Northwood HT on, RAM 1G RAMBUS.

The AH executable uses 50% of the processor when I reduce to game to check task manager. I do get a stutter sometimes that lets me know when the game is loading a skin for a new plane coming into my vicinity. Not that often anymore since I installed the x1650.

3. Why does moving to an area of the map with a lower player density help my hit% along with moving to another arena?

[Murdr]

Hit detection is done on the shooters front end.  You shoot, your PC detects X amount of hits that do Y damage.  Your PC tells the server, and the server tells the targets PC.  The targets PC has to acknowledge the hits and executes damaging parts (if needed).  If parts are damaged, it reports it to the server, the server distributes that info to any players who need it.

Lag can cause a delay in damage taking affect, but it does not really play a direct part in gunnery or "rubber bullets".  Damage packets will keep trying to send to the affected player until acknowledged.  In theory, there is no such thing as rubber bullets

It can make gunnery difficult if the player you are shooting at has an erratic varience.  Only because it makes it a bit harder to predict where to lead a shot on them.  Slower frame rates are also an issue that might affect your ability to lead a shot.  Usually that is caused by terrain detail, or a large number of planes in proximity.

Originally posted by hitech
Every report of rubber bullets or duds that was filmed has been proven false. If you see the flash, damage is accumlated.

HiTech

Originally posted by hitech
There is no such thing as rubber bullets. Hits can NOT be droped.

HiTech

Originally posted by hitech
Xjazz, I belive you just hit on the apperent effect. The delayed damage my cause some people to think they have rubber bullets.

Few thing to note.

Hits can not be lost do to bad connect, but they can be delayed.

How much you lead an AC is not effected by connections.

HiTech

[bustr]

How do my 3 hops that periodicly have a 100% loss rate factor into this?

My turn around time via PingPlotter is 49-60. When the 3 hops are busy its 60-63 with the hops showing wild variances 52-500 at times. Are those lost packetts also lost gunnery info that the server wont tell my targets PC about? I suspect when those hops are acting up the 52-500 varience is my occasional disco. udp switch to tcp.......

When those 3 hops are quiet I hit what Im shooting at and I use a samll number of rounds. If they are active my perception is a lowering of hits on my targets even at point blank range while expending almost all of my ammo. I would think players near me would be seeing me warp...but I dont get the normal observations about warping by my country or the enemy. I have asked my squad mates and they see my plane fly steadily. Also different arenas will give me different results when the 3 hops are busy.