70 replies to this topic

[Corvus Antaka]

shabowie, on 23 June 2013 - 01:57 PM, said:

Put your servers in Chicago like everyone else in the universe.

I'd rather keep them out of a country devolving into 1984.

[Kunae]

IGP is their data-center provider.

They need to move their web servers and especially the game servers to a real data-center, hosted by professionals.

[KahnRa]

I dropped $50 on more MC the other day, first time since Founders, now I'm almost wishing I hadn't, and this HSR/Hit Reg problem will be making me think twice before I do so again.

Oh PGI, why do you do this to us? Is it better to have HSR and lose it then to never have it at all? I don't know...

For those few weeks when all was perfect I was giddy as a schoolgirl, finally being able to land my PPC & Gauss rounds on running lights, but now, I might as well flip a coin before I shoot to decide if it is even worth it...

[Karl Berg]

Hey guys, just to reiterate that we are looking into any current HSR issues; including implementing better telemetry around hit accuracy so that we can track with high precision how healthy weapons fire behaviour is, and improvements to HSR which should help make the system more robust and accurate.

[Cest7]

Is the data center still on the east coast...?

[matux]

Relocating servers would cost MONEY!!!!...... /GASP! Pushing Matt Newman and his team to almost having stress induced mental breakdowns to fix a hardware issue with software, is already in the budget.

[Kunae]

Karl Berg, on 24 June 2013 - 02:15 PM, said:

Hey guys, just to reiterate that we are looking into any current HSR issues; including implementing better telemetry around hit accuracy so that we can track with high precision how healthy weapons fire behaviour is, and improvements to HSR which should help make the system more robust and accurate.

We appreciate that Karl, but it doesn't address the real core of the problem. Many of your network issues are directly caused by having your servers sited in an unprofessional and inadequate data-center.

[Lumpy Gash]

So uh, this explains why when i shoot lights that are stationary or slowly moving dead on, no hits are detected.

I'm going to start referring to the server location as north of the wall....

Edited by Lumpy Gash, 25 June 2013 - 09:32 PM.

[Ghoullees]

Exellent work Fragger. Very nice write up. I hope PGI take your thread seriously and with interest.

As an Aussie player, I come to expect an automatic handicap in games due to ping issues. Often the smart arse answer is that Australia's broadband sucks, or its just a distance issue.

Both the above statements are true to some degree. However I have always used the top band cable connections and would argue that they outperform most countries currently. And I find that any lag issues with servers only ever happen either stateside, or if the route tracks via Singapore ( which probably has the WORST transmission lag on the planet ).

There have been three games I've noticed lag effect gameplay especially. Warhammer Space Marine ( great game, but not playable unless on a local private game ). Battlefield ( not too bad, but I do die after being in full cover for well over a second or more ). And lastly MWO.

I once fired 4 double shot, ER PPC's at a shut down, stationary, Commando's head and the shots never registered despite being an unobstructed target. At other times, I play games with my Aussie companions, and our whole premade team fails to gain a single kill, despite our good players, and well equipped mechs and coordinated targeting. The other team seems to two shot every player in quick succession. This has happened on sever occasions which almost makes you want to throw your hands in the air and give up on the whole thing.

While the above occurances are not every game, or even every second day, there are times there are clearly US server issues which effect the game for everyone else.

I'm with you on this one. I hope a decent tech provider can be found, as the whole game experience relies on a decent connection, before you ever get to game design issues.

Cheers for the feedback.

Edited by Ghoullees, 26 June 2013 - 12:46 AM.

[Ghoullees]

And as if to emphasise the issue, was it just me, or did the forum just crap itself there for a while? lol

Edited by Ghoullees, 26 June 2013 - 12:47 AM.

[RiSE]

I'm not sure if a traceroute gives the correct information.
The game is UDP based, a traceroute uses TCP/ICMP/PIng...

And I wonder if the people who say that the datacenter is not professional actually saw the datacenter or been there...

[FREDtheDEAD]

RiSE, on 26 June 2013 - 05:52 AM, said:

I'm not sure if a traceroute gives the correct information.
The game is UDP based, a traceroute uses TCP/ICMP/PIng...

And I wonder if the people who say that the datacenter is not professional actually saw the datacenter or been there...

There's a lot of accusation with only circumstantial evidence.

The people running the servers will have a good picture of performance where we can only guess and use the most primitive of diagnostics (using a different protocol to the one the game uses): I keep mentioning it's UDP not TCP. ICMP echo is a function of TCP alone.

It's some interesting research but inconclusive.

Edited by Xajorkith, 26 June 2013 - 06:19 AM.

[Kunae]

RiSE, on 26 June 2013 - 05:52 AM, said:

I'm not sure if a traceroute gives the correct information.
The game is UDP based, a traceroute uses TCP/ICMP/PIng...

And I wonder if the people who say that the datacenter is not professional actually saw the datacenter or been there...

Soon after they moved their servers to this "data-center", they had their AC unit go out... they only had one, no backup, and couldn't even figure out how to go to "Wal-Mart" and buy 30 20" fans to prop in the doors to help mitigate it.

They are hosting their web-server and their game servers in this same data-center, which means that if problems take one off-line, they're both off-line.

The chronic issues they have with ping fluctuations on the game servers, and horrendous lag issues with this website, point to inadequate bandwidth and load-balancing at the data-center level.

This data-center belongs to IGP.

Thus they are unprofessional, and are basically under the direction of someone's cousin, who "worked in a call center for 3 months, back in the late '90s, so knows all about IT."

[Lugh]

Xajorkith, on 26 June 2013 - 06:16 AM, said:

There's a lot of accusation with only circumstantial evidence.

The people running the servers will have a good picture of performance where we can only guess and use the most primitive of diagnostics (using a different protocol to the one the game uses): I keep mentioning it's UDP not TCP. ICMP echo is a function of TCP alone.

It's some interesting research but inconclusive.

Logic dictates that if TCP is that bad, then UDP which isn't guaranteed state full communication, will be several orders of worse.

[BlackBeltJones]

Neema Teymory, on 21 June 2013 - 09:10 AM, said:

Hey guys, this is true, but its not the whole story. The HSR implementation is complex and as such is affected by many different factors. As for ping jitter specifically, we are planning to make improvements to the system that will reduce or eliminate this sensitivity to ping.



We are aware of the current problems, and rest asurred we are always working on making things better!

I very much appreciate this type of feedback and I applaud your sincerity and effort. Thanks for the good work.

[RiSE]

Kunae, on 26 June 2013 - 10:09 AM, said:

Soon after they moved their servers to this "data-center", they had their AC unit go out... they only had one, no backup, and couldn't even figure out how to go to "Wal-Mart" and buy 30 20" fans to prop in the doors to help mitigate it.

They are hosting their web-server and their game servers in this same data-center, which means that if problems take one off-line, they're both off-line.

The chronic issues they have with ping fluctuations on the game servers, and horrendous lag issues with this website, point to inadequate bandwidth and load-balancing at the data-center level.

This data-center belongs to IGP.

Thus they are unprofessional, and are basically under the direction of someone's cousin, who "worked in a call center for 3 months, back in the late '90s, so knows all about IT."

they only had one, no backup, and couldn't even figure out how to go to "Wal-Mart" and buy 30 20" fans to prop in the doors to help mitigate it.

You will be surprised how many datacenters have just one cooling system...

And really... you would go to wall-mart or something and get propeller fans? Yeah Right...
I rest my case.

[Kunae]

RiSE, on 26 June 2013 - 01:33 PM, said:

they only had one, no backup, and couldn't even figure out how to go to "Wal-Mart" and buy 30 20" fans to prop in the doors to help mitigate it.

You will be surprised how many datacenters have just one cooling system...

Not any reputable, professional, ones.

RiSE, on 26 June 2013 - 01:33 PM, said:

And really... you would go to wall-mart or something and get propeller fans? Yeah Right...

When your systems are down, you do what is necessary to keep them running. This is especially true if you've got a duct-tape and bubble-gum operation like these guys.

RiSE, on 26 June 2013 - 01:33 PM, said:

I rest my case.

You rest nothin'. You have no "case".

[FREDtheDEAD]

Surely fans can cool a small 12 kW server room... ahem...

[Kunae]

Xajorkith, on 26 June 2013 - 02:24 PM, said:

Surely fans can cool a small 12 kW server room... ahem...

We're talking about data-centers, not "server rooms". It's a completely different creature.

[FREDtheDEAD]

Kunae, on 26 June 2013 - 02:31 PM, said:

We're talking about data-centers, not "server rooms". It's a completely different creature.

Racks of computers are racks of computers and kilowatts of heat are kilowatts of heat. Datacentres have a lot of racks. If you think extra fans (trust me, there are LOTS of fans already in the rack units - it's absolutely deafening) can cool multiple racks in a small room, you haven't been in one. But you must have been in one in order to be correcting strangers and telling the people who work for PGI and IGP what's best for their infrastructure. Got to admire confidence.