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A-Net's method on tackling lag
Warband
Member UncommonPosts: 723
It should be more than obvious that this game will put a massive strain on the servers probably a heck of a lot more than other mmo's since it actively encourages perhaps hundreds of player to interact in the same area through dynamic events and WvW pvp.
In fact this game is so dependent on hundreds of players interacting that if A-Net can't solve the lag problem they might as well not create the game.
So fair we've seen 60 players fighting the dragon with physics and particle effects all abound and there has been little to no lag which bodes well for the rest of the game as if it doesn't A-Net must be extremely incompetent if they can't solve a problem that pretty much the vast majority of the game is based around.
What do you think of gw2's current level of lag and how do you think A-Net is managing to do where many mmo's have failed.
Comments
Answer is in the Guild Wars 1 engine.
I remember playing Guild Wars using 56k phone modem. Grouping , even competitive PVP. With no lag at all !
How did they do it, god knows?
Same goes for graphic lag. GW1 was famous for running on very low eng PCs.
So I imagine that they are using same technology for GW2...
Considering that a number of players in the demos were playing from Anet's Bellevue office, I would say that lag is a non-issue.
It would be even more impressive to learn that the demos were being served from their office, but I think at this point that that information is not available.
They got the knowledge and the tools. I don't forsee any problems with lag in this game.
Unless of course they change something and problems appear.
At this moment I can only see a good future for this game. But we do need to wait for an open beta and stress test the servers.
If this game does well as did GW1, we will have a winner.
It won't be a WoW killer though, no game will ever be. The only thing that can kill WoW is Blizz themselfs, with bad decisions on the game.
Peace.
There will be multiple servers which I guess will have population caps, that should help. Historically GW1 has had its lag problems but Anet always reacted quickly to finding the source with the help of players.
That's easy to answer.
GW1 is ALL instanced gameplay. You simply load up ALL the graphics data to even begin the instance play.
In this respect it cuts the usual limit on open ended design of an MMO where unexpected data (from players) need to be uploaded on the fly.
In fact pre loading data is why other games have so much better graphics than open ended MMO's.
In view of this GW1 was a terrible game compared to present day pre loaded games like COD series. The graphics today are even subpar.
That's why I am very skeptical of those so called fantastic GW2 graphics.
Chances are that each and everyone of those "massive" fights will just be uploaded in an instance ... to avoid the client data lag from the HD's. HD's are still by far the slowest part of any PC.
The present day show offs from GW2 run on optimized local hardware which simply can't be compared to present day average gaming machines.
Help may come from the new SSD hard disks though as this will allow much higher rates of data transfer from and to your hard disk. I gues they will become standard within 2 years.
GW1 was actually a terribad solution: preloading graphics is simply a lazy game design compared to backgropund loading we saw in WOW.
If GW2 uses the same technique: expect camouflaged loading screens from instance to instance, I hope for them the SSD will save their asses because if not the community will kill Arenanet for the promiseses they made.
There is no magic formula unless the game is written entirely for DX10+ then the overall bandwidth can be raised for PC's,this will not be the case in any MMORPG.
There is only one solution and that is to have less over all polys on a map,less objects and the ones that are on the map will be of low end quality,low resolution .To the person who thought GW1 played lag free,that is a no brainer an easy thing to acomplish as it was an instance game with very low end tech.
I will go on a limb and suggest that they might very well make very small zones,and have very short view distances with quality dithered at very short distances.This means the only quality you will probably see is right up close,detail in objects will fade fast.
This game as did GW1 operates with zero profit from subscriptions,so running the servers is a profit loss,you can bet the allowable bandwidth probably rivals FFXi,which is very low.
A-net might also pull a page from SOE and have these instanced zones maxxed at say 200 players,then the game might create mirror zones.
One thing to remember is that even FFXI a VERY low tech game has quite a bit of lag in Beseiged battles,which is mobs attacking the cities,however that is a lot of animation with a lot more mobs than say maybe one dragon attacking in GW2.I expect GW2 to lag for sure.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
The game is heavily instanced, those events are happening in an instance, small one..so it should handle it fine...
No it isn't. I haven't seen any loading screens in the open world of gw2. If their are any they're very few. Look at the gameplay it's all persistant don't just go off your own misconceptions.
Check again the videos m8...i see loading screens everywere...its suposed to be the open world events..but they are instanced..not like wow open world where you have only 1 barrens for the entire server, and a whole continebt in wow you can moove without a single loading screen..
In GW2 zones in the open world arent open, because you must load a screen to change zone, and a zone only allowes a certain ammount of players to join the event...if more then that the game creates another copy of the zone with the same event...
Just think..a game looking good as GW2 does..with tons of npcs running arround, with players all over..what pc on earth could handle it if it wasnt an instanced zone?
Alot of people are thinking its open world like wow..they will get very disapointed ...
*Face-palm* You do realise those loading screens were there because they were teleporting and not because they were instances. They could travel there on foot if they wanted to it would just take too long. Were you even paying attention to the demo's? What part of stumbling into PLAYERS aleady fighting monsters did not tell you it wasn't an instance.
@ Wizardy and KingKong007: the graphics have very little to with lag. For most MMOs, the graphical assets are stored locally on your hardware and the data transmitted is just delta values. So lag only occurs when when you are required to receive more deltas than your bandwidth can handle. The only advantage to instances was that when you were in a party, the game would preload the model deltas (i.e. the character looks, armor, weapons, etc.) for your party, and with GW2 the nearby character deltas could be similarly cached with dynamic LODs.
So, realistically, the only time you would have lag from graphics deltas being sent, is when you suddenly start adding lots of new players all at once.
I think the key for GW2 and not lagging will be the dynamic LOD for animations. If you look carefully at the videos fighting the Shatterer, you might see that some of the animations farther away from your character loose details and become as simplistic as possible.
Yep basically because of the use of UMBRA.
Man get real..check fallen earth...no high res graphics at all...in a town with npcs that dont even move you get really low fps with a high end rig...get out of town 500 meters and lag in gone..
Now check GW2 how can that game run at very high fps with hundreads of spell effects, mooving npcs of all sizes, better res graphics , and loads of players onscreen..no lag at all??
I tell you..its instanced..if you wanna get out of that zone you get a loading screen to load all the world of the next instance that is part of the world but has its own instance so that the pc can load everything...just like AOC
Show me examples of this happening that don't occur when you are enter a major city. Just because another game can't do it doesn't mean this one can't.
We will see...so many people will get pissed...im not because im expecting it to be instanced like AOC.
Dude : I T A L K client side and the coms between your slow HD and the CPU ....
And the blue is where open ended MMO's differ from GW1 models where everything is instanced and preloaded.
By far the worst part of you client data handling is your hard disk.
As I said this may change dramatically in the near future with SSD's (which are far more important than the latest video cards btw).
But it is very clear that the 10 minute show off displays of GW2 "gameplay" at the moment is coming from preloaded graphics on local machines.
On older machines it takes sometimes up to 30 seconds to load everything present from your HD to the video cards. This results in hampered gameplay and drops in Frames per second.
The problem IS that open world MMo's simply have NO controls of who teleports and who/what shows up unexpected.
But it is very clear GW2 is taking the "easy way out" at the moment to preload those graphics (from the HD) just like GW1 did.
It cuts it all up at the cost of advanced background loading and an open world.
Most people are too stupid to notice it anyway.
Why do people think that spell effects has anything to do with lag. The effects are all handled client side and has nothing to do with the server. The damage and hit/miss calculations, player/npc location, etc all depend on the server, all the graphics are done by your computer.
...oh look! I found something... -.-
It's kinda cruel to kill the innocent monsters standing in the fields picking daisies. -GW2-
Lot's call it lag when their fps rate drops down due to massive amount of loadings and effects at same time. When you only see 1 frame per second it feels laggy.
So at least read my comments.
The hic up in gameplay comes from the terribad data handling of your current hard disks.
The 25 Gigabyte is stored on your ... HD.
To avoid those hic ups: in instanced games a lot is preloaded from that HD to your CPU. Server coms have little to do with this transfer (they are just numbers data).
The opposite are games with background loading of those graphics coming from your hard disk. The problem is ... there is a limit to the quantity of those data (compare Dalaran with Stormwind for instance). So MMO's with lots of backgropund loading use LESSER data (lesser graphics/vectors) than preloaded games like COD and GW1/2.
That's the reason why MMO's have far less spectacular graphics than preloaded (from Hard disk) shooters and more conventional video games, because in an MMO you have no control of who and what comes in.
GW1 was a game created from instance to instance, NOT for gaming purposes, but for graphics loading. GW2 graphics shown are a clear proof they use the exact same techniques.
GW2 will be instanced all over the place.
They got lucky SSD is on the way though.
Besttheiswow, most of the loading screens you saw were map travel, its a mechanic in the game that allows players to get from one end of the map to the other once they've already walked there once(the place must also have a waypoint, which is what you will travel to).
The game isn't instanced in the open world, its instanced when you are doing your personal story. It is also not seamless when talking about the main cities.
The thing about lag is it's not just one sided, its a 3-horned beast. When looking at lag you have to consider your computer's cpabilities, your ISP and the game itself. Usually its either your computer's capability or your ISP. For instance I currently lag a lot in Lego Universe and that game is not graphics intensive. I keep wondering why it happens but the only explanation I can come up with is that my PC is upstairs and my router is downstairs. If I were to plug my PC directly to the router, it probably wouldn't lag at all.
What I'm trying to say is, Anet can only do their part to stop lag but its not just dependent on them, its dependent on your computer as well as your ISP.
This is not a game.
Isn't beta under NDA?
There is no beta available to the public yet, the only stuff we have is gamescom and its demos interviews and hand-ons.
People need to realize we have no real data to judge what lag will be like in the game for real customers.All the demos we've seen so far are on upper end rigs,very controlled and limited demos and not being played over the internet by peopel all over the country/world, average user internet bandwith being the biggest bottleneck in MMO gaming.
We cannot really tell if the "open world" is done in a one instance for everyone style or if it spawns multiple instances based on user demand liek say AoC or even more heavily instanced but 1 server for everyone system used in cryptic games.It could even be a mixture of them with say with a one isntance for everyone on a server for non combat segments but it spawns instances of zones were there are dynamic combat events and/or expected heavy player load for PvP/PvE.
Until we get more info and personal accounts from server stressing beta numbers we cna draw no real conclusions.
@ KingKong007: You are operating on the premise that GW2 is primarily instanced? As has been said time and again, the game is not heavily instanced, and areas where the dynamic events occur are open world.
Now, you referenced the background loading technique used in WoW... you are aware that that system was developed by Blizzard North--which coincidentally had their project relocated and the branch-office dissolved, and those not willing to move to Blizzard's California branch formed Anet.
So the technology being used is likely going to be a hybrid of the two systems developed by the team: it will probably use background streaming in the open world areas, and will use instances for the highly populated main cities. In fact, we already know as much--the main instance area from the demo videos is Divinity's Reach.
I know that hardware limitations (primarily the HDD) are a key issue for graphics running smoothly, and that some of the un-initiated call graphical hiccups lag. For those that experience such hiccups, I suggest turning your settings down. But my interpretation of the thread was concerns over network latency, thus my (probably poor) attempts at re-routing the thread conversation away from the graphics, and back to actual packet transfers.