Lag: DETAILS

[Thanimal]

So what is the point of all of this.

To provide Turbine with data. I am a professional software developer, and while I have no expertise in network communications, the one thing I know for sure is that debugging is a LOT easier when you have detailed information about the problem. And I consider it "obvious" that they haven't isolated the problem yet, or they would have fixed it. (The alternatives to this assertion are too horrible to contemplate )

Client-side lag is totally different and easily identifiable, since it only effects you. Obviously they cannot fix that.

[Gratch]

Well, we do know:

1) Moria was about to release
2) We had a maintenance "day" that crippled the servers in all quests for everyone for a few months...
3) Moria released
4) You'll soon be getting a hardware upgrade announced
5) Hardware upgrade, devil teleport fixes in patch, lag somewhat less
6) More server crashes and network problems and login server problems and Sarlona's always broke...
7) but getting slightly "better" now... *fingers crossed* *Knock on wood* *Leprechauns in captivity* *Hamsters fed* though we're still getting some lag filled instances (network or load balancing needs some more tuning or there's a server not operating on all processors).

The guess at the time, which seems about right based on events is that step 2 above was moving the DDO services to the new datacenter servers... and one that was "lacking" in either server power or network load capability. Sounds like we did get a hardware upgrade at that datacenter... and they did somewhat delay devils telporting... but they're still getting all the routing, load balancing issues figured out at the new datacenter area.

[Gratch]

Dup. - deleted.

[Tarrant]

I hold the possibly generous belief that if fixing the lag were easy, Turbine would have already done so.

You hit the nail on the head.

Guys, we know lag makes the game frustrating to play. We take a lot of pride in this game, and want you all to have the ultimate DDO experience. We want the lag eradicated. We're already working on fixes for lag issues, but unfortunately it is not as simple as flipping a switch and making it go away. These things take time, and we're going to need a little more.

Hang in there, we're doing everything we can, and we appreciate your patience.

[DagazUlf]

You hit the nail on the head.

Guys, we know lag makes the game frustrating to play. We take a lot of pride in this game, and want you all to have the ultimate DDO experience. We want the lag eradicated. We're already working on fixes for lag issues, but unfortunately it is not as simple as flipping a switch and making it go away. These things take time, and we're going to need a little more.

Hang in there, we're doing everything we can, and we appreciate your patience.

Whatever. "Deeds not words" is appropriate here.

[weyoun]

You hit the nail on the head.

Guys, we know lag makes the game frustrating to play. We take a lot of pride in this game, and want you all to have the ultimate DDO experience. We want the lag eradicated. We're already working on fixes for lag issues, but unfortunately it is not as simple as flipping a switch and making it go away. These things take time, and we're going to need a little more.

Hang in there, we're doing everything we can, and we appreciate your patience.

If you would make a sticky about this and maybe give us an update occasionally it might calm the storm here, might. Its really bad. If we didn't like playing so much we wouldn't care, but we love the game and want to know its in good health. So please more communication.

[vtecfiend99]

Whatever. "Deeds not words" is appropriate here.

Agreed. There have benn so many times over the last year that this tripe has been spewed at us. We have lag fixes coming! This should eliminate a bit of the lag! All that has happened is the lag has gotten worse and worse and worse until at times some quests in the game are unplayable. And, like so many other issues, the complaints on the forums have to reach a near riot befroe we can even get a single PEEP from someone at turbine about it.




The issue here is not just the lag, the issue with this company is some of the worst customer service I have ever seen or heard of. Simply appallingly bad. Tolero included, we have a 40,000+ view thread of complete hate about respec mechanisms, not word one. But someone posts a thread about vin diesel and we get like, 7 responses in an hour. Sheeeeeeesh.......

[kingfisher]

You hit the nail on the head.

Guys, we know lag makes the game frustrating to play. We take a lot of pride in this game, and want you all to have the ultimate DDO experience. We want the lag eradicated. We're already working on fixes for lag issues, but unfortunately it is not as simple as flipping a switch and making it go away. These things take time, and we're going to need a little more.

Hang in there, we're doing everything we can, and we appreciate your patience.

thanks for sacking up and acknowledging the problem, you've got guts. like weyoun said, a sticky and updates would go along way. i used to laugh about the lag and the crazy runs it created but its getting to the point that i am running out of jokes. if you are trying to fix it, it let us know, no matter how small the info, if you are trying people will give you a chance to succeed.

[kingfisher]

Whatever. "Deeds not words" is appropriate here.

no. if its a lengthy fix, then its better to have 'words' while we wait for 'deeds'

[Gratch]

If you would make a sticky about this and maybe give us an update occasionally it might calm the storm here, might.

Tarrant: A quick word by SIG with a few specifics might calm us a bit. I've noticed the lag off/lag on switch seems to get flipped by Monday maintenance days and less so by patch/client updates days. So I'm guessing this is either processor loading balancing issues, data storage access issues or network loading. Pretty please with very very slowly falling sprinkles on top for a few words from SIG?

[Missing_Minds]

Whatever. "Deeds not words" is appropriate here.

Asinine to insulting commentary that has been flowing freely will keep any such information from being flowed back to us.

So by all means... keep killing a flow of feed back.

[Strakeln]

I hold the possibly generous belief that if fixing the lag were easy, Turbine would have already done so.

In this case, fixing the lag is easy.

Turbine needs to undo whatever they did a few months back during their "mystery update" that caused all of this to start. Most seem to suspect that they removed hardware from DDO. If this is the case, then the problem isn't that they can't fix the lag... it's that they refuse to, because some exec somewhere decided they needed that hardware for something else, and won't be changing his mind anytime soon(tm).

[Baron]

I suspect most of the "Lag" is really latency. Will be harder to fix.

Network Engineer by trade....

[vtecfiend99]

Asinine to insulting commentary that has been flowing freely will keep any such information from being flowed back to us.

So by all means... keep killing a flow of feed back.

Yeah, just like all lag is a product of our sub-par computers, all lack of feedback is also our fault.

[kingfisher]

Yeah, just like all lag is a product of our sub-par computers, all lack of feedback is also our fault.

********, no dev has ever said to upgrade your puter that i can recall, thos comments are made by other players who are lucky enough to not have horrible lag. the comments mm was talking about were made towards a dev who finally acknowledged the lag issue and asked for some patience to fix it. those types of comments are idiotic and do not encourage further commentary by the devs, so yeah in this case they hurt feedback

[Ryss]

Let me chime in here.

I'm playing from EU and I'm lagging just like everybody else. This is clearly a server sided issue because all players in the party lag at the same time. It has nothing to do with FPS. My comp is one of the beefiest of them all .

[Tolero]

I can do without the unnecessary flaming of users who are experiencing legitimate lag issues. I'm sure the Cube has no problem with an early St Patty's feast.

[baylensman]

in the spirit of giving specific info to help isolate and identify the problem.

I have three accounts, mom, dad, son. Only two active right now, mom working early shift so hits the sack during our playtime. until recently had the game running on three very different systems, system one is a new highend three coore MAD bassed machine with 3 gb mem and a BF video card by n-videa with its own power supply and 2gb mem (boys computer as he is studing game development in college) my tower an older 2.3gh with 1 meg and 128mb pny video card and a lap top with 1.7 gh and 1 mb memory and od board graphics. at times all machines experienced the same lag even though in different instances. Could be local network access except that other players complained of lag spike then also. Current set up is the boys system and my new system running 3 core amd 3gs mem and 786mb nvidea graphcis. new router and cable modem have upgarded to bussness class service with cable CO. Lag is not on our side, boy can play WOW (Ithink thats another MMO) while im in game i lag he doesn't. we play together both have lag at same times when in the same instance. when we are not in the same instance sometimes the lag is only on one of us at other times on both. During most lag spikes others complain of lag issues also, I frequently however outrun some of the group because they are laggy while i'm not. But when I get lag spikes so does everyone in the group.

[Arianrhod]

OK, well...in the spirit of the OP (at least i hope it is), here's what my group has experienced lately:

In general, very little lag - occasional little spikes where everyone will freeze in place for a second or two, then resume normal play. One of the players in the group (in PA - we have 2 in PA, 2 in MD & 1 in CA) has frequent, noticeable lag that affects gameplay; the other player in the same house does not - presumably her computer and not their ISP is the culprit here. Once recently she also had severe VC lag (during a run of Tomb of the Shadow Knight). Notably, this same player until recently could not enter the Necropolis without having severe graphics issues that made the game completely unplayable. I think she either changed some settings or upgraded a video card to deal with that issue. All her lag issues have been since that change.

We don't zerg - we go slow and kill everything. We also don't use a lot of big flashy magical effects (the occasional web or firewall, haven't got cloudkill or acid fog yet, and never did use hypnotic pattern). [edit - oh, yeah, one other thing - we play on Khyber]

No idea whether any of this will be useful, but no harm in providing info.

[miceelf88]

I have to admit I am happliy surprised that the devs acknowledged the issue. I am with DagazUlf, but acknowledging the problem is a Good Thing.

We'll never know the real reason for the lag, I suspect, although I think the working theory is the best guess.

(sigh). Frackin suits.