Tips for people having trouble with MP

monkspider · October 30, 2002, 19:55

Here are a few pointers I have found to ensure optimal performance, at least until the netcode gets polished a bit.

-Make sure you download 1.04f, this is a must!
-Don't play games with anyone whose ping is greater than 200, if there are some high ping players in your room, politely tell them what the situation is, and then boot them.
-Be wary of trying to play behind a router or a firewall. Some players are having success with this, others are not.
-Don't play games with any more than 4 players or so. Too many players right now will cause the game to hang in the transition from the staging window to the setup window. One day we will have likely have 24 player matches without hiccup, but for now, keep things at 3-4 players. In fact, I have found that 1 vs 1 with a bunch of AIs is probably your best bet, but if you have to have more people, keep them at 3-4.
-Play on smaller maps, to ensure optimal performance and more lively games with fewer people.
-Make sure you're not playing with anyone with a warez/pirate version of PTW.
-Disabling Virus Protection programs while playing online may be useful as well.
-I have heard from some players that turning off auto-save as well as various unit animations can help reduce some of the lag that you may encounter once you are actually in game.
- Don't try to launch PTW through any kind of external Gamespy software, always launch through PTW directly.
-If al else fails, try finding someone close to your geographic region to play.

If you do all these things, you should look forward to some extremely fun and exciting MP games while things get polished up a bit on Firaxis' front.

kittenOFchaos · October 30, 2002, 20:01

Try to play people who are on the same OS...the best from my experience of beta-testing since June is Windows XP.

Windows ME in my opinion isn't really compatible with PTW...

I recommend using MSN or some other instant messenger device to talk to people you are playing with, crashes in the early stage could break up a game quickly.

If you try more people than 1 VS 1 make sure you all have a ping lower than 200 with all players and preferrably lower.

Also: the host player should have the most powerful computer (of the people playing), the host player suffers most slowdown and having a computer with alot of RAM can really help rectify this.

All this points to it being better to organise games outside the pathetic "lobby" and have some other means of "match-making" players.

Advise to newbies to the mp fun: defend your cities and settlers or I will attack them and you will give in

kittenOFchaos · October 30, 2002, 20:03

If you do PBEM try to play a scenario were there is alot to do each turn, or the mass regicide option (humans only for best results).

Passing a save file around when people have only pressed enter is boring...lets hope some nice fellows putout some great ww2 scenarios soon.

ColdFever · October 30, 2002, 20:05

I only have a minor thing to add: with few people it is more fun to play on a PANGEA world, as you do not have to play until Navigation to meet each other via oceans - one massive continent usually is more fun to play on short games with few people.

Boris Godunov · October 30, 2002, 21:02

Quote:

Originally posted by monkspider
One day we will have likely have 24 player matches without hiccup

I doubt it, considering MP is limited to 8 civs only.

monkspider · October 30, 2002, 21:04

Kitty/Cold: Thanks for the suggestions guys.

Bory: Stop correcting me when I'm wrong, damn you.

Capt Dizle · October 30, 2002, 21:31

I used to play games at gamespy and could keep up to six players on consistently with pings twice as high as 200 so Firaxis should be able to improve this.

Oerdin · October 30, 2002, 22:00

So does the game seem to be unstable a lot of the time? If it is then it would be a sure sign of a rushed production cycle.

monkspider · October 30, 2002, 22:05

UPDATE-
The only games that seem to be working on a reliable basis are two player games, that is only two human players, but with a few AI civs.
So don't try any games with more than two human players. Try a small pangea map with another human and two or three AI civs.

Oerdin · October 30, 2002, 22:12

Does it seem to be a problem with the server or with the software itself?

Boris Godunov · October 30, 2002, 22:20

Quote:

Originally posted by monkspider
Bory: Stop correcting me when I'm wrong, damn you.

Like on the evolution debate?

Alright, I need to test out MP...

Tuberski · October 30, 2002, 22:49

Sounds like MP is a bust at the moment.

Boris Godunov · October 30, 2002, 22:59

Did you get PTW yet, Tube?

monkspider · October 30, 2002, 23:09

It's not a total bust, there's still quite a bit of fun to be had in games with 1 on 1 and AI civs.
The various single player features are impeccable, with no bugs to speak of.

Boris Godunov · October 30, 2002, 23:14

monkie, let's play.

Tuberski · October 30, 2002, 23:42

Quote:

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
Did you get PTW yet, Tube?

Nope, didn't even realize it had been released until today, and to think, I was at Wal Mart last night, and didn't mosey over to the electronics section......

ACK!

monkspider · October 31, 2002, 01:33

Hey Bory, do you have MSN or any other of the various chatting aparatuses?

ColdFever · October 31, 2002, 03:31

one more thing: if you have disconnection problems try to disable any antivirus-software. On my machine I had to disable "F-Secure Antivirus" to play without frequent ingame disconnections.

Turambar · October 31, 2002, 07:44

Does anyone know if I'll be able to play multiplayer from behind my university firewall?

notyoueither · October 31, 2002, 08:04

The rumors of only 1 on 1 are false.

Yes, it works better if you are all close. However, I have hosted 7 other players.

High ping times will kill you. For instance, if I hosted someone from Europe, that would drag things.

Then if I hosted someone from SE Asia, that would make things worse.

Bottom line, keep the ping times down, and it will work.

metalhead · October 31, 2002, 09:40

notyoueither, I wouldn't say they are false. I tried entering 4 different games, and crashed every time. Now, it is possible that after I went to bed, less traffic or server maintenance or some other factor allowed it to function properly, but even with low pings, everyone that was trying to play the same time as me (9-11 PM EST) was not able to play.

SpencerH · October 31, 2002, 10:56

So whats the problem with WIN ME?

Boris Godunov · October 31, 2002, 11:58

Quote:

Originally posted by monkspider
Hey Bory, do you have MSN or any other of the various chatting aparatuses?

yeah, I have msn... dosifei@hotmail.com

monkspider · October 31, 2002, 14:15

Thanks Boris

I'm monkspider@hotmail.com

Now on the topic of more than one on one matches, I have been getting some PMs asking if there is any way whatsoever to play in games that have more than 2 humans. It *is* possible, but I can only advice that the most masochistic of souls try it.
If you follow the advice outlined in this thread, make sure no one is behind a router or firewall, running an out of date or pirated copy, no one has a ping below 200, possibly make sure no one is running Windows ME (I'm not sure on that one personally) and take time out before hand to hope for the best, you can maybe get a game going with four people. However, even if you do get it going, you can expect to be playing for an hour and only be at 3200 BC. It's really, really, really, laggy.
I have never heard of any games getting started with more than four people, but they may be theoretically possible.

ggerrietts · October 31, 2002, 16:25

Is the router/firewall issue a simple matter of port discovery at this point, or do we think the networking code is doing something stupid, like use externally-perceived IP addresses in addressing game-level packets?

Is the NAT/routers/firewalls problem only with hosting, and not with playing? I tried to get into the only available game I saw last night, and found that it had disappeared by the time I managed to get in -- or it crashed, or whatever.

Has anyone done work to identify whether it's the NAT or the firewall that causes the problem? I have some spare routable IPs but I don't really have anyone I know, that I can test with (and it'll be well into the evening, PDT, before I can be available to put a couple hours into it, anyway).

Do we think the problems have to do with the way the networking code was written, or is it just buggy code? In the latter case, there's very little that we can do to ease the pain; it's all about bugfixes. But in the former case, whole network topologies may be excluded from play.

I'm a little disappointed that the primary selling feature of this $30 add-on (namely, the multiplayer support) seems to be the piece that received the least amount of attention, in favor of inventing new game modes. I would have happily avoided turnless or regicide or whatever, if I could at least play the game against real people with distinct personalities.

SpencerH · October 31, 2002, 16:39

Quote:

Originally posted by monkspider
Thanks Boris

I'm monkspider@hotmail.com

Now on the topic of more than one on one matches, I have been getting some PMs asking if there is any way whatsoever to play in games that have more than 2 humans. It *is* possible, but I can only advice that the most masochistic of souls try it.
If you follow the advice outlined in this thread, make sure no one is behind a router or firewall, running an out of date or pirated copy, no one has a ping below 200, possibly make sure no one is running Windows ME (I'm not sure on that one personally) and take time out before hand to hope for the best, you can maybe get a game going with four people. However, even if you do get it going, you can expect to be playing for an hour and only be at 3200 BC. It's really, really, really, laggy.
I have never heard of any games getting started with more than four people, but they may be theoretically possible.

I just dont get this. 8 people playing PBEM with broadband could have a faster game than what you're describing. Surely multiplayer doesnt require the same amount of data movement as sending bics everywhere. How can it be so slow ?

NeOmega · October 31, 2002, 18:01

Quote:

Originally posted by SpencerH

I just dont get this. 8 people playing PBEM with broadband could have a faster game than what you're describing. Surely multiplayer doesnt require the same amount of data movement as sending bics everywhere. How can it be so slow ?

I think a lot of it has to do with the customizabiltiy of the game.

Alsio, I played 2 games with four people. The first was turn based, and slow. The second was simultaneous, and no that bad, except for the very beginning.

notyoueither · October 31, 2002, 19:48

Quote:

Originally posted by metalhead
notyoueither, I wouldn't say they are false. I tried entering 4 different games, and crashed every time. Now, it is possible that after I went to bed, less traffic or server maintenance or some other factor allowed it to function properly, but even with low pings, everyone that was trying to play the same time as me (9-11 PM EST) was not able to play.

You may have a point about server load at GameSpy. I am not too familiar with how that works.

I can say that I responded to say that it is possible to play with 3 or 4, or more, players.

I have hosted 7. That game was very slow, due to the number of players and geography, but it can be done if all the players have figured out what they need to do to be successful.

Zamphyr · October 31, 2002, 23:42

Quote:

Is the NAT/routers/firewalls problem only with hosting, and not with playing? I tried to get into the only available game I saw last night, and found that it had disappeared by the time I managed to get in -- or it crashed, or whatever.

Games are only up while the are being formed, you snooze you lose.

Quote:

Is the router/firewall issue a simple matter of port discovery at this point, or do we think the networking code is doing something stupid, like use externally-perceived IP addresses in addressing game-level packets?

the readme has all the port forwarding info in it. As for your offer to test, please do. I have the game on 3 machines on my LAN. All can join games(or host for that matter) but they cannot join the same game. This means my roomates and I can't get into a war with our buds in MD. I've heard there are programs to mask/adjust external and internal IP's but don't know that much about them.
Again any help is welcome.

ggerrietts · November 1, 2002, 02:43

well, that SOUNDS like using externally-visible IPs to address packets. It's possible that they simply built something in to disallow multiple clients from a single IP, but I don't think that's a decision most developers would actually make; too much NAT in the world.

I haven't tried to do any protocol analysis (and won't) but that strategy suggests that everyone gets the network traffic for all endpoints, which in turn can be exploited to gain unfair information about an opponent's activities. Hopefully I'm wrong on both counts; if I'm not, the network code isn't going to be as good as your average FPS or RTS game's network code without a major rewrite.

Thanks for the pointer to the README. I should have checked first, but I was at work and wondering, and the game was at home (and beckoning).