Probably one for Ed or someone not as Welsh!

OK on sucking eggs etc ...

What is Lag ... as WE on Arma experience it?
Technically Lag on the internet, historically, used to be an event happening AFTER you expected it- due to distance from server + processing time of servers, routers etc.

But on arma we have the white 'lag diamonds' which (I assume) are an indication of the area you or the opponent possibly could be occupying taking 'lag' into consideration.

So a few questions: (Coz me thick probably!)

In an ideal world...assuming not downloading porn again! (CTers!) - and not on a 286
...if my ping (time to send a signal to - and receive it back from server) is say 100 ... and an opponents is 200....what is the relative lag? ..300? ...a POSSIBLE 300? ... so .3 of a second betwen the two of us? ....anywhere inbetween? ....or what?
Is his lag diamond gonna be larger than some other player whose ping is lower?

Does this mean ..when cries of "WTF - LAG!" are heard that it's bollocks because the lag is the same for us both? ..as in a value of 300? ...AS IF!
I'll have more questions I feel sure! :0

i think it's right, like it's 300ms of lag between you and he... but you're playing on a server... the time in game is the serverside time... so you know what happen 100ms earlier than your enemy. am i right?
and it's rather off topic issue

That makes sense.

(Off topic? oO)

Think of it that both you and an oppenent send a turn right/turn left command to the server at exactly 7:00:00.00000 PM. Let's take your example in which you have 100 ping (round-trip) and the opponent (me for this case) has 200 ping. The command reaches the server at 7:00:0005 for you, but 7:00:00.001 for me. The server now sends the info back to both of us, letting you know I turned left and letting me know that you turned right. It is sent to you at 7:00:00.0005 and to me at 7:00:00.001. Again, since you're closer to the server and the command was sent earlier, you are alerted that I turned left, before I know. In fact, you are alerted that I turned left, just as the server gets my command.

The problem is that my computer has yet to recieve the command from the server that you turned right. So, on my screen, it appears that I have turned left, but I haven't seen that you've turned right. I continue going straight not knowing that you've turned and run into your wall.

Even though this all happened in way less than a second (sorry if I calculated the times out incorrectly ), since there is a so little rubber, combined with the precision needed to play tron, AND the fact that it's normally not one turn, but the collection of turns done in a short span of time that causes the lag and confusion as to where the opponent REALLY is.

i think that is the maximum
Player 1: every .1 seconds sends data to and from the server so
Player 2: every .2 seconds sends date to and from server


lets say player 1 and player 2 start sending his date a t=0 ,unlikely but possible
t=.049
t=.099 player 2's data is received as of t=0 and player 1's data is sent back as of t=0
t=.1 Player 1 gets the data back and sends some more
t=.149 Player 1's data is received as of t=0 and Player 2's t=0 data sent back
t=.2 Player 2 finally gets player 1's data .2secound delay for them
Player 1 also gets player 2's data as of t=0 also a .2 second delay for them
in this case player 1 and player 2 are receiving each others data with the same delay

now lets try off setting the starting
t=0 player 2 sends data
t=.051 player 1 sends data
t=.099 player 2's data is received as of t=0
t=.1 Player 1's data is received as of t=0 and player 2's data sent back
t=1.51 Player 1 receives player 2's data as of t=0 (only a .151 difference)
t=2 player 2's gets player ones data as of t=.051 (a .149 difference)
player1's new data is received no new data sent on player 2
t=2.51 player 1 only has data up until t=0 on player 2 (.251 difference)
t=2.99 player 2's data received sands data from t=.2
t=3 player 1 gets sent data as of 2.99 on player 2
t=3.51 Player one has data on player 2 at t=2.99 (.052 difference)
t=4 player 2's gets player ones data as of t=.2 (a .2 difference)

Continuing it on you will get different numbers

so really it all varies on the server time lapse between processing your data and their data

lets just say, try and keep out of the enemies white shape... then u be safe!

im not sure exactly how lag/ping affects the size of the shape, though i do know if it does, it affects it far less than speed does

it is more probable that the higher your ping, the more chance the opponant is at the edges of the shape (since they are not always at the edges

i just know one thing (when playing at 200ms in speeders ^^)... how2insta :>

maybe p4 just said it, but why do instas happen?

instas deal with the speed of the other openest. or yours when the other player travels faster your client and yourself dont expect them to be there so soon.
when you are traveling fast and don't see anyone and all the sudden someone is there you die quickly because rubber increases faster with speed.

another way is if for some reason you miss getting a packet

Depends on how you define “relative lag”. if your ping is .1s and the other guy's is .2s, a signal would take .3s to get from you to the server, the server to the other guy, back to the server, and back to you, + processing time inside the server and clients (which can be quite high as the clients only evaluate packets once per frame, so a framerate of 25Bq means up to .04s extra lag).
What you usually care about, however, is the time it takes for the other guy's turn to reach it, and that's about half the roundtrip time, .15s.

About lag-o-meters: as far as i know, if your client gets a packet with a turn this packet contains the time the turn occured at (which is in the past as the packet had to get to you). The client simply takes the difference between that time and the current time, multiplies it with the cycle's speed and uses that to scale the lag-o-meter appropriately. That's also why you don't see the lag-o-meters at the very beginning of a round, because if the cycle hasn't turned yet the client doesn't know its lag…

@ kyle

then how come i am da king of instas?

do i make people lose packets?

There is a certain condition where the server can't determine for sure who should die if one player collides with the wall another player just left, it can't know who was there first. It's related to ping charity and only happens if you turn directly after the collision point. In that case the server simply kills the player with the lower ping, regardless of rubber.

basically yes. with your High ping it takes a while for people to get the updates on your position

Thanks for explainations ....outstanding replies ...and I actually understood them!

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.... and I'm glad that, when it comes down to it ... If there's lag aorund and you die ...that "There's still a little magic in the air"!

Glad we cleared that up.

Now Ogre. What have you got against the Welsh