lag
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The BBC has 'solved' the lag between live streams and TV
Live streams often lag behind TV, sometimes by half a minute or more -- and that's a big problem when you may hear your neighbors cheer a goal or story event you haven't seen yet. The BBC might have licked the problem, however. Its researchers have developed a streaming method that could dramatically reduce the gap between online coverage (such as through iPlayer) and TV. The solution, according to the broadcaster, is to manage the rate at which you receive chunks of the video feed.
Google opens up its tool for testing your Android phone's lag
For years, Google has had tools to test the lag in Android and Chrome OS devices, letting it know when bad hardware or sloppy software is causing delays in touch input or voice commands. Wish you could check that lag yourself? As of now, you can: Google has posted the source code for WALT, its latency timer. While you'll need to build some Arduino-based hardware to perform the tests, Google promises that the whole thing will cost you less than $50. You won't need to go all-out and recreate the company's TouchBot, then. True, this will mostly be useful to developers who need to check their code, but it could come in handy if you've ever wanted to prove that a phone was unacceptably sluggish.
Nexus 5X update should fix those lag and slowdown issues
Google's Nexus phones (and tablets) usually run Android at its best. Because, well, Google also makes Android. However, the company's recent heavy-middleweight Nexus 5X wasn't quite working how you'd expect. Several users, and reviewers, noted slowdown, apps shutting down, and other things that might ruin your time with the latest version of Android. (Marshmallow, if you were still paying attention to the candy-themed naming pattern.) In our review, we didn't see such extensive performance woes, deeming it "pretty smooth" -- although that's the diplomatic way of saying that the experience wasn't completely smooth. The next update, rolling out over the next few days, will help solve that issue. And you'll get some security updates too.
Here's how Google checks for lag on your Android phone
Yes, Google hates lag on smartphones as much as you do -- enough so that the search giant has a robot dedicated to spotting that delay between your finger input and what happens on screen. Meet the Chrome TouchBot, an OptoFidelity-made machine that gauges the touchscreen latency on Android and Chrome OS devices. As you can see in the clip below, the bot's artificial digit pokes, prods and swipes the display in a series of web-based tests (which you can try yourself) that help pinpoint problems in both code and hardware. This isn't the only gadget monitoring device lag at Google, but it could be the most important given how much the company's software revolves around touch. Don't be surprised if this automaton boosts the responsiveness of Mountain View's future platforms.
WoW Archivist: 3.0.8, the "disaster" patch
WoW Archivist explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? Who is etched into WoW's history? What secrets does the game still hold? Any game that survives for 10 years and counting will have its growing pains. There will be moments when the urge to deliver the best possible content gets the better of the developers, when they reach too far but only figure that out after it's too late. Wrath of the Lich King was so ambitious in scope, as originally conceived, that Blizzard simply couldn't deliver what they announced. Blizzard cut major features before the expansion even went into beta testing. Wrath's systems went live with patch 3.0.2 in October 2008, and the expansion hit live realms two months later. As with most expansions, there were early problems. In patch 3.0.8, Blizzard tried to fix those problems. Instead, they made them worse. Far worse. WoW Insider called the patch a "disaster." Read on to find out why! Wintercrash Rebalancing the popular Wintergrasp outdoor battle was one of the patch's biggest features. Blizzard buffed vehicles and turrets to make them less fragile. The keep walls also became sturdier, while the final door received a nerf. Other adjustments and fixes went into effect. So did a bug so catastrophic that players couldn't believe it ever found its way to a live realm.
Trion's games DDoSed again
E-thugs are at it again: Trion's MMO services are once again under attack. Last night, the official RIFT twitter account announced, "Ascended, our servers are experiencing a DDoS at the moment. We're working to restore network stability as quickly as possible." On the official forums, RIFT Executive Producer Bill "Daglar" Fisher confirmed that ongoing RIFT lag problems are compounded by the attacks: "Adding on top of the oddities that people are reporting, we've also been under DDOS attacks and our network team has been working to minimize the impacts of these." Overnight, even the first few pages (five, as of the time of this writing) of the RIFT general forums were flooded with spam from attackers. Several low-traffic forums on the ArcheAge boards have also been spammed early this morning. [With thanks to Omedon for the tip and apologies to Daglar for the temporary demotion!]
Roberts' latest post peeks behind the Star Citizen development curtain
Star Citizen has opened another window on the world of game development, this time courtesy of a Chris Roberts post that details the investigative process behind Arena Commander's lag and rubber-banding issues. In a nutshell, the problems surfaced with patch 12.4 as Cloud Imperium expanded the pool of AC participants past the initial 60,000-player threshold. "Like doctors trying to identify a mysterious illness, we looked for common environmental factors," Roberts writes. "Was there a significant geographic distance between players? Surprisingly, no: in many cases, players with almost no latency between them were still having issues. The team moved on to examining our own code." He goes on to explain how CIG translates potential problems into JIRA tasks and assigns them to engineers who are responsible for repairs prior to the next patch. [Thanks Cardboard!]
What lag looks like in reality with Oculus Rift
This experiment is a huge relief. It turns out that we're not "clumsy" – we have real-life lag. Four people strapped on an Oculus Rift headset that displayed the immediate outside world at a delay, imitating the effects of shoddy internet speeds (if the real world ran on an ethernet connection). They then attempted a series of relatively standard tasks – dancing, ping pong, cooking, bowling – and failed pretty miserably at all of them. If poor dancing, trouble cooking and uncoordinated athletic moves are a symptom of real-life lag, we've been sick for years. [Image: UMEA Energi]
This ad uses Oculus Rift to show how internet lag could ruin making brunch
We've seen some pretty nutty uses (and a very sentimental one) for the Oculus Rift so far, but a Swedish ISP's might take the cake. For two days, Umea Energi had four people strap on one of the VR headsets rigged with a webcam and a Raspberry Pi, in an effort to illustrate what it'd be like if internet lag invaded real-life activities. The outfit had the lab rats do everyday stuff like go to aerobics class, make breakfast and play ping-pong while wearing the get-up and a pair of noise-cancelling headphones. It's bananas; we know! The results are pretty hilarious -- failed attempts at cracking eggs and dropping crêpe batter onto a griddle, in particular. There's a first-person view of the shenanigans too, but if you're prone to motion-sickness it's probably best to steer clear. The Oculus dev kit's second version features a powered USB port on top of it, so let's hope that this type of experiment isn't the last.
Elder Scrolls Online promises 'polished, lag-free launch experience'
ZeniMax Lead Developer Matt Firor rallied the legions of Elder Scrolls Online fans today with a lengthy post about what the studio's done and what it's planning to do to ensure a successful launch of the game. Firor said that beta feedback and testing has been invaluable, prompting the team to streamline the starting experience and make combat "more substantial." He was also impressed by what he saw during testing: "Some of the things we've discovered with your help excite and inspire us -- like seeing that 98% of characters created have a unique appearance, or seeing the first emperor crowned in our epic PvP system -- while other findings challenge us to make the game better." To ready the game for launch, there will be one final stress test this weekend. ZeniMax has prepared megaservers for both North America and Europe, and the studio assured players that playing cross-region will not result in any drop of latency. The team also has a number of overflow servers on the ready to deal with the initial crush. Finally, Firor said that we'll soon hear more about the first post-launch update that will add the Craglorn zone for endgame players. "We will make sure that no matter where you live, every player in North America, Europe, Oceania, and many places beyond will have a polished, lag-free launch experience," Firor promised.
WoW Archivist: The battle for Hillsbrad
WoW Archivist explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? Who is etched into WoW's history? What secrets does the game still hold? Almost ten years later, people still talk about the Southshore versus Tarren Mill battles, the most infamous and celebrated world PvP in WoW history. They go on about how glorious it was, how they'd like to see that kind of intensity return to world PvP. It's not often, however, that they discuss the details. If you want to know exactly what it was like to fight in those battles, keep reading. I lived it. My old tauren hunter still bears the scars. Pull up a bench and pour yourself a glass of ale. I will tell you about the war. Why Hillsbrad? Several places on Azeroth in classic WoW had two faction-specific towns in close proximity. You had Astranaar and Splintertree in Ashenvale. Arathi Highlands featured Refuge Pointe and Hammerfall. Theramore and Brackenwall squared off in Dustwallow Marsh. A few others had proximity also. So why didn't any of these pairs become as legendary as Southshore and Tarren Mill? The fact is that battles did happen here -- some fairly major ones, too. World PvP ran rampant in the early days, even on PvE realms, and even before the honor system arrived to reward you for doing it. Many raided faction villages for the simple joy of denying your enemy a stronghold, a questgiver, or a flight point. Such players sought out undefended towns, which these others often were, at least when you first struck. Other players wanted resistance. They wanted to march forward as part of one vast army of players into an equally imposing force. They wanted the chaos, the rush, the endless bloodshed, the death cries of their foes echoing all around them. And they knew exactly one place you could find that experience, at virtually any hour of the day or night. It had to be somewhere. Early forum threads began to buzz about such battles taking place. As word of mouth spread, more players wanted to make it happen on their own realm. It became the thing to do. But why there?
Philips' 27-inch monitor with NVIDIA's G-Sync tempts gamers with silky-smooth visuals
When NVIDIA unveiled its G-Sync tech that alleviates lag, screen tearing, and stuttering, it counted Philips among the companies that would make monitors with its secret sauce. Now that CES has rolled around, Philips has finally revealed a panel that uses the graphic titan's technology. The panel (catchily dubbed 272G5DYEB) measures up at 27 inches and carries a resolution of 1,920 x 1,080, a 144Hz refresh rate, 1,000:1 contrast ratio and displays up to 16.7 million colors. If you're fixing to connect the screen to your PC via HDMI, you're out of luck as it only sports a DisplayPort. Enjoying the buttery visuals will drain your pockets of $649 when the monitor arrives this spring. Of course, if you can't wait till then, a modified ASUS VG248QE is already available with G-Sync from a handful of boutique PC outfits.
Latency and connection issues on all US Realms
On logging into my US World of Warcraft client, I was greeted with the following screen. The Breaking News section informs players that, due to technical issues, they may experience latency or loss of connection on all realms. Blizzard Customer Support has also confirmed that the issues are being investigated: We're looking into the #WoW server stability, folks! Our technicians are on the case! Updates to follow. - BlizzardCS (@BlizzardCS) December 19, 2013 The responses to the tweet imply that the lag is the most problematic part of these technical hitches, with players reporting very high MS on their connections. However, not everyone is affected, as my latency is only 70 MS, which while higher than usual is far from problematic. Blizzard's tech team are working hard to rectify these issues.
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Rise and Shiny: Zombie Pandemic
I really want to recommend Zombie Pandemic, a browser-based, post-apocalyptic "MMORPG" by Pixel Pandemic. I really do. The problem is that I can see you sitting down to play a cool-sounding game, recommended by me, only to leave it within an hour because its server issues literally make the game unplayable at times. It's such a shame because there are several great ideas going on in the game and several systems and mechanics that rely heavily on real timing and, you know, the server running smoothly. During my time with the game this week, I had the game reset a good portion of my progress, kill me with server burps, and block me from purchasing item shop goods. Yes, that's right... not only did the game prevent me from playing at times, but it also prevented me from giving it money. Still, I'm going to tell you why I liked the game and why you should still check it out. It's a great game for players who enjoy zombies, post-apocalyptic survival, board games, and relatively deep storylines.
A plea for information on Input Lag in Siege of Orgrimmar
For 25-man raiders, input lag is the hottest news right now, and Lead Encounter Designer Ion "Watcher" Hazzikostas has put out a plea for information. A while back, in late August, a thread was started in the official forums talking about some experimentation players had done, trying to work out what was causing this occasional massive and problematic lag in 25-man raids. Since then, there have been some serious changes made to various AoE heals, resulting in massive nerfs to spells like Healing Rain. And yet, according to the forums, and to our recent interview with top guild Method, nothing has changed. The lag is still there, it's still a problem, it's still having a massive impact on players. One forum thread has posted a fix for some weird nameplate/UI issues, which the poster also said might have an impact on FPS issues, but as Lead Encounter Designer Ion Hazzikostas clarifies in his post, lag is a term that can mean many different things for many different people. So if you're experiencing this lag, characterized by an absence of low framerates or high pings, start gathering information.
WTFast service aims to slay lag
When playing MMOs, there is one common beast that players dread facing no matter the game: the lag monster. One very ill-timed spike can leave a player vulnerable to attack in PvP and turn near victory into defeat or cause a missed heal or cure that cascades into a massive wipe. After getting the best internet connection in your area and upgrading to the best PC you can, what's left for a player to do? WTFast suggests using a global private network connection established for gamers only. The WTFast service claims to improve game speed and reduce disconnects, response deviation, and lag by connecting players to game servers via Gamers Private Network (GPN), a private global data network/highway optimized for online games. The video after the break explains the premise behind the program. Can it work? If you want to find out for yourself, WTFast offers a free 30-day limited trial on the official site along with a detailed list of all the supported games. [Source: WTFast press release]
WoW Archivist: A rolled-back history of realms
WoW Archivist explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? Who is etched into WoW's history? What secrets does the game still hold? If your low-population realm hasn't been linked up to another one yet, it soon will. This is a drastic step for WoW, but one that should solve the long-bemoaned low-population problem on many realms. When WoW first launched, Blizzard had the exact opposite problem on their hands: realms had far, far too many players. Let's look back to 2004 to the earliest months of the game and remember just what players had to endure -- and what Blizzard had to do to fix it. Uncharted realms The servers that run the game's realms have always been shrouded in mystery. Technical details have never been shared. In a 2005 interview, producer Shane Dabiri deflected questions about the realms hardware: "Well, I really can't get into how we structure or build our infrastructure," he said. "Much of the information is proprietary and complex."
Display Lag database rates 170 HDTVs based on input lag
Input Lag is a condition that affects millions* of people – and now there's something we can all do about it. Competitive Street Fighter 4 player Adeel Soomro has compiled a database of 170 HDTVs and monitors that he put through the ringer with Leo Bodnar's Lag Tester, on a site called Display Lag. Soomro rates the screens by "Excellent," "Great," "Okay" and "Bad," as defined here. All screens are listed by the variable of your choosing – brand, size, resolution, etc. – right here. The lag in question occurs due to additional processing by the display, which can cause a delay between your button presses and the results appearing on-screen. In reflex-focused games, such as fighters, lagging visual information can put players at a disadvantage when they need to react immediately. "My personal favorite choice so far is the F7100 series from Samsung," Soomro writes. "This HDTV boasts a 40ms input lag rating in our database, meaning it will be responsive for the majority of gamers." Check out the stats and pick your favorite HDTV or monitor for yourself. *Dramatic made-up statistic.
Disconnects and latency issues and Patch 5.3
No one likes high latency, least of all someone playing an MMO that can demand reaction time the way World of Warcraft can, especially in raids. But even out in the world, latency can be a killer. So when people started reporting issues with connections to World of Warcraft soon after patch 5.3 launched, it got a lot of players noticing. In a six page forum thread there's been a lot of lively discussion of what's going on - whether it's on Blizzard's end, or somewhere between the computers of the affected players and the Blizzard servers. If you remember the Lagpocalypse post, you know how complicated these issues can get. MVP forum poster Lissanna posted an interesting walkthrough of her own attempts to find the culprit today, and explained why despite some forum poster dissatisfaction that it is indeed helpful to run a traceroute and pathping and post the results to the tech support forums, since it gives Blizzard an idea of who to talk to about these issues. If they don't know who's being affected, where those people are, and more importantly where the issue is physically located there's not much they can do to help. So if you're having the same problem, giving Blizzard as much information as possible is definitely helpful in terms of getting this sorted out. I've seen people in my raids disconnect on every single boss so far while I haven't had the issue at all myself, suggesting the problem isn't on Blizzard's end but is out there somewhere in the path the data takes between Blizzard and the players. Hopefully it can be solved soon.
Path of Exile hands-on: The sequel Diablo II deserved
Like many gamers in their mid-20s, I spent countless hours in my teenage years smashing through dungeons and hunting for loot in Diablo II. The deep itemisation system made building effective characters a real challenge, and periodic ladder resets kept the loot-hunting economy fresh. Fast-forward 10 years and the highly anticipated sequel Diablo III was released to some serious complaints. The servers were unstable for weeks at launch, the always-online DRM caused a stir, and the endgame item grind was severely underwhelming. Indie developer Grinding Gear Games aims to beat Blizzard at its own game with its new free-to-play action RPG Path of Exile. The game boasts a dark art style and an unprecedented level of character customisation that lets players build truly unique characters. Each skill is itemised as a gem that can be slotted into your gear and augmented with dozens of different support gems. The sprawling passive skill system is better described as a "skill octopus," with millions of different ways to build a character. I've spent the past few weeks smashing up monsters in the Path of Exile open beta and absolutely loving it. Read on to find out why I can honestly say that Path of Exile is the sequel Diablo II deserved.
