Putting aside the fact that your statement on rollback netcode being smooth is debatable, getting to chose between heavy rollbacks or input delay is like choosing between a turd sandwich or a turd burger. Both options suck.
How about a netcode that doesn’t screw over the player mid-match, but finds ways to compensate for lag at times when it won’t affect gameplay? That seems to be what Namco has been trying as of late.
rayplay
46
What does Namco do when it starts to lag? Also, no one’s linked this yet so
The netcode of Soul Calibur 5 and Tekken Tag 2 resyncs the connection at the start of every round, and changes settings to what it deems optimal for the connection. It seems to work well enough, though no amount of technical wizardry can fix a truly shitty connection.
In 3SOE for sure, but that port was botched in many ways including netcode. Every other fighter that uses Rollback netcode is universally agreed to have really smooth online.
That doesn’t answer my question though. When it starts to lag, what happens?
You’ll notice a brief period of slowdown, maybe some frame skipping, as the game tries to adjust setting to compensate. That’s if the connection suddenly starts to lag real bad or something, though, otherwise you’d barely notice it.
So it causes slow down and frame skips both. How’s that better than GGPO?
[media=youtube]Q5lrSl2hi5E[/media]
That’s how.
That doesn’t answer my question. All you did was show a rollback in action. You’ve said that when lag kicks in on TT2, it not only skips frames, but it also starts causing input lag. That sounds terrible. With ggpo, only one, as opposed to two bad things happening, will happen. And you have a good choice in the matter. If you hate input lag messing up your stuff, you can do rollbacks. If you hate rollbacks making the game seem less smooth, you can put more input lag. And regardless of what you choose, GGPO has still been shown to work very well when it’s been used. I’ve heard of no one complaining about it who’s actually used it. On top of that, I’ve never even seen rollbacks unless it was on a bad connection, so it’s not like it happens all the time.
I did answer your question. Tekken Tag 2 doesn’t take back your attacks and go “LOL sorry you didn’t actually do that, enjoy your loss. Better luck next time.”
And GGPO also has delayed inputs, and frame skipping out the wazoo. No slowdowns, though, so I’ll give you that. Yes, I have used GGPO to play several games (alpha 3, some KoF, ST, D&D shadows over mystria, and Final fight.), and I am of the opinion that GGPO is crap.
But don’t take my word for it. Ask Renic:
[media=youtube]HyGCP8Akg98[/media]
Emil
55
GGPO uses rollback netcode but in such a way that you won’t even notice a rollback is occurring unless you are playing someone with a bad connection.
Also make sure you aren’t using wireless.
I’m more than happy to admit that when GGPO is played on a good connection, it’s amazing.
But when it gets bad, it gets BAD.
That video seems like Renic just being angry without giving valid reasons (aka whining). If the game keeps rolling back, stop picking connections with 500+ ping. The only problem I ever saw when I played on GGPO was black bars at times, which is solved by just resetting. I’ve never noticed delayed inputs unless I set my delay up, and no rollbacks unless I played a bad connection. I’d rather the game not delay my inputs when it starts lagging to, which TT2 doesn’t do according to you.
What game doesn’t?
Grublet
58
GGPO is crap? News to me.
d3v
60
Missing the point of GGPO/Rollback netcode altogether. What we want is FIXED INPUT DELAY, this means that the input delay DOES NOT KEEP CHANGING depending on the speed of the connection. When my delay is set to 6, I want it remain that way throughout the entire match. This means that when I do a combo, THE TIMING IS THE SAME AS OFFLINE, my muscle memory isn’t affected since I don’t have to keep adjusting to changing amounts of delay mid combo. I only have to adjust once and that’s it.
Here’s another though, GGPO is simply a FG, peer-to-peer implementation of something that other genres have had for over a decade now - client side prediction. This is basically what makes FPSs/TPSs feel smooth online. By making the game REACT LOCALLY INDEPENDENT OF THE SERVER. In other words, the client doesn’t wait for sync from the server to react, simply resyncing the gamestate once the server detects some difference in the outcome. If it sounds familiar, it’s because that’s EXACTLY WHAT GGPO/ROLLBACK CODE DOES, except with 2 peers instead of a (multiple) client to (single) server setup.
I can list nine of them, in no order
P4U
AH3
BB
VF5FS
TTT2
Skullgirls
MvC2
MvC Origins
HDR
P4U/AH3/TTT2 are a substantial cut above the rest imo. Honorable mention(s) goes to NGBC on XBL if you can find anyone to play against, and Gundam EXVS (PS3) with USA/European players.
I think what we really need is a sticky/wiki that details what the optimal ping, upload, and download speeds are to play each game. Obviously the higher the better (except ping) but I’m taking about the minimum requirements to play the game online and have a good experience without lag. Maybe if people knew what the minimal requirements were, they’d at least consider using a speedtest before playing and then fixing the problem or just playing something else rather than wrecking someone else’s match.I’ve always wondered this stuff myself actually.
