Anyone else having to jump through hoops to resume multiplayer games? [5.011]

[Draxis]

We have a 4 player game on the go, and every time we load the game, we have to go through this ritual of rapidly pausing-and-unpausing the game to placate some kind of network demon that has taken up residence in the code.

When the host loads the game, we can all join one at a time, or all together, it makes no difference.  Despite everyone being loaded in, all our screens say 'waiting for players'.  We have tried leaving this for a minute or two, but the game didn't get going.  The host has to pause / unpause until the game kicks off.

Does anyone else have this issue?  Dont know if it makes a difference, but the game was started on version 5.011, with zenith and narwhal expansions enabled.

[Commiesalami]

I've had that with LAN games when starting up a game, Though the two of us dont have very beefy rigs so I just assumed it was the two computers taking their time discussing the game state.  Generally waiting it out works, but that takes a little bit long sometimes.

[x4000]

Generally this is caused by outdated network card drivers or a router that needs it's firmware updated. If all of that is up to date, then you can adjust the network sync size in ai war settings to work around it. Pausing and unpausing is doing nothing, I'd expect -- it just happens to take that long before all the resends finish after the network clogs up with messages it isn't delivering properly for some reason.

Hope that helps! Usually a quick router firmware update is all it is.

[Philo]

Well for me it always took some time for it to load when playing with a VPN client. You know, create a LAN network. But then when I port forwarded AI Wars and people joined through direct IP connect the game always starts in a second.

You can see the countdown of how much time it takes before all are synced in the STATS screen.

[Draxis]

Thanks for the replies, glad to know the issue has been encountered before.

you can adjust the network sync size in ai war settings to work around it

Any idea if we should adjust the value to be higher or lower than the default?  Would changing this value have an effect on anything after the game has been synchronised?

You can see the countdown of how much time it takes before all are synced in the STATS screen.

I cant remember exactly, but when I checked this last game, two remote players looked ok, but one had 600 or so of some number next to their name, counting down at about 1 per second.  I assumed this was some kind of timeout for an auto-kick feature.  Is this actually the number of packets that the client has to acknowledge before their game is synchronised?

[Cyborg]

I cant remember exactly, but when I checked this last game, two remote players looked ok, but one had 600 or so of some number next to their name, counting down at about 1 per second.  I assumed this was some kind of timeout for an auto-kick feature.  Is this actually the number of packets that the client has to acknowledge before their game is synchronised?

Just general troubleshooting, try pairing yourself with just one other person and load your current game. See what happens. When you add more and more people, it becomes difficult in trying to figure out the point of slowdown. In some of my larger multiplayer sessions, the game gets quite chaotic with massive battles, and it's at that point where computer issues really come to light.

[Philo]

I cant remember exactly, but when I checked this last game, two remote players looked ok, but one had 600 or so of some number next to their name, counting down at about 1 per second.  I assumed this was some kind of timeout for an auto-kick feature.  Is this actually the number of packets that the client has to acknowledge before their game is synchronised?

I think it is, at least when that goes down to 0 with my friends the game begins. So it may be down to 1 player having connection problems
Have you port forwarded? The port forward helps game speed too in multiplayer since packets get sent better and faster.

[Draxis]

Have you port forwarded? The port forward helps game speed too in multiplayer since packets get sent better and faster.

Yup, ports are forwarded

[Nalgas]

Does anyone else have this issue?  Dont know if it makes a difference, but the game was started on version 5.011, with zenith and narwhal expansions enabled.

I like it.  Heh.

Anyway, yeah, we were having the same problem.  In our case, we tried just about every conceivable option of updating or changing various network crap, until it finally turned out to be one person's VOIP box that was screwing with stuff.  No amount of changing settings in or out of game was able to compensate for it.  Once he stopped trying to play from behind that, all problems have disappeared.  It was a bit weird, because it didn't affect any other game or anything else he does, but whatever.  It stopped now, the game works, and that's good enough.

I guess the moral of the story is that it can really be anything in the network hardware/software of anyone in your group, and if screwing around with the settings in the game doesn't fix it for you, you have to isolate what it is so you can fix it outside the game.  Start by having as few people connect as you can and still cause the problem i.e. if you have players A, B, C, and D, go down the list and try AB, AC, AD, BC, BD, and CD if you have to and see whose fault it is, and then keep narrowing it down from there.

[x4000]

Any idea if we should adjust the value to be higher or lower than the default?  Would changing this value have an effect on anything after the game has been synchronised?

I'm not really sure off the top of my head, but I think lower down in the list will be what you want.  It says in the game, I think.  Other than synchronization of enormous blocks of data, this setting doesn't have any effect on the rest of gameplay at all.

I cant remember exactly, but when I checked this last game, two remote players looked ok, but one had 600 or so of some number next to their name, counting down at about 1 per second.  I assumed this was some kind of timeout for an auto-kick feature.  Is this actually the number of packets that the client has to acknowledge before their game is synchronised?

That countdown isn't in terms of packets, but it is in terms of blocks of data that are outstanding.  So if it's only counting down at like 1 per second, then that's incredibly slow and you've probably found your problem.  That person ought to look at their router to see if QoS options are interfering with their influx of data from you.  Similarly, they may just want to look at a router firmware upgrade in general for that very reason.  Most likely the router sees all that data from you, goes "oh crap!  no you don't!" and starts throttling the data in.  If that person has VOIP services like Vonage, their older firmware tends to do this.  Newer versions are smarter about preserving phone service while actually not mucking up Internet service.

Hope that helps!