internet lag or what?

[WaywardSaint]

I'm telnetting into the BBS just fine, but as soon as I get connected things start to go a little haywire.  Sometimes text commands go straight through...sometimes I gotta wait twenty seconds or so.  This obviously makes the action combat impossible...

Another post said that the data stream should be perfectly consistent...what should I change?

[PrinceConrad]

I have the same problem.  And I've got a superfast Cable-modem connection, so I'm not sure what is wrong.  

My suggestion - just build up the dexterity and leave it on Computer-based combat...

[Takkhardian]

What I've found to be the case is that the system lags if there is more than one user logged in at a time. So, after you log in, you get a list of who is on the BBS in which area. It usually is just one person (you), but if there is someone else, then the game runs significantly slower. It can be the case that slow-down is caused by someone logging in after you logged on, so the only way you'd tell is by having Action Combat slow down suddenly.

[Tarix]

What I've found to be the case is that the system lags if there is more than one user logged in at a time. So, after you log in, you get a list of who is on the BBS in which area. It usually is just one person (you), but if there is someone else, then the game runs significantly slower. It can be the case that slow-down is caused by someone logging in after you logged on, so the only way you'd tell is by having Action Combat slow down suddenly.

Yup.  The new system will be dual processor to help deal with this.

[GaryBavarski]

What I've found to be the case is that the system lags if there is more than one user logged in at a time. So, after you log in, you get a list of who is on the BBS in which area. It usually is just one person (you), but if there is someone else, then the game runs significantly slower. It can be the case that slow-down is caused by someone logging in after you logged on, so the only way you'd tell is by having Action Combat slow down suddenly.

Yup.  The new system will be dual processor to help deal with this.

Are you sure it's a hardware issue and not some kind of packet loss/networking issue? Hmph.

[Tarix]

Are you sure it's a hardware issue and not some kind of packet loss/networking issue? Hmph.

Unless you are suggesting that there is some major packet loss problems on my internal gigabit network then, yes, I'm very sure.

OOII is a 16-bit DOS game.  During action combat it uses 100% of the CPU power of any machine.  The only way to quell its bloodlust is to give it more processors.  It wasn't written to play nice.

The flip side of this is the Win32 port runs just fine with 4-5 players all going action combat on a little old P3-500.  Then again that's still not very well tested and was only a pipe-dream when I wrote that original message.

Now, if we're talking about OOIS, then that's a totally different story and a different section of these forums.  We've run 10 people all playing the game with no lag at all.  (In that case I ran out of players before I ran out of processing power!)  However, OOIS is designed to cooperatively multitask between players in a single process ...  Thus it's pretty obvious why the performance is so good.

[GaryBavarski]

Are you sure it's a hardware issue and not some kind of packet loss/networking issue? Hmph.

Unless you are suggesting that there is some major packet loss problems on my internal gigabit network then, yes, I'm very sure.

OOII is a 16-bit DOS game.  During action combat it uses 100% of the CPU power of any machine.  The only way to quell its bloodlust is to give it more processors.  It wasn't written to play nice.

The flip side of this is the Win32 port runs just fine with 4-5 players all going action combat on a little old P3-500.  Then again that's still not very well tested and was only a pipe-dream when I wrote that original message.

Now, if we're talking about OOIS, then that's a totally different story and a different section of these forums.  We've run 10 people all playing the game with no lag at all.  (In that case I ran out of players before I ran out of processing power!)  However, OOIS is designed to cooperatively multitask between players in a single process ...  Thus it's pretty obvious why the performance is so good.

Sorry, didn't mean to offend you, I didn't realize you were 1) a programmer and 2) someone with a gigabit network. Hehe.

What is OOIS and where can I find it/sign up for it?

[Tarix]

Sorry, didn't mean to offend you, I didn't realize you were 1) a programmer and 2) someone with a gigabit network. Hehe.

No offense at all.  I was just trying to claify everything.  That first paragraph should have a HUGE smiley after it. :lol:

My non-Overkill life has been super busy and I apologize for ignoring you guys.  To give you a little intro.  I'm the guy who inhereted the code from the original author.  We've worked together at game companies in the past and still keep in touch to party whenever we're in the same town.

What is OOIS and where can I find it/sign up for it?

OOIS was (is?) a complete rewrite of the Overkill code.   I was porting to by hand into a sort of C/C++ "script" language thingy.  (Yes, that's really the best description of it.  The script gets turned into C++ and fully compiles though.)

Since I'm having problems finding a good solid host for the Windows BBS it might get some more attention pretty soon.  It's been a bigger pain than I anticipated and after porting the original code to 32-bit ended up being so easy I kind of got sick of it.

In any case the whole thing seems to have fallen apart during my move.  I'll try and remedy that this weekend and see if I can't get the win32 version of OOII working on the BBS as well.

(If that doesn't fix the lag then I'm afraid it IS network problems!)

[spatula]

yes, I have noticed that OOII uses 100% of my cpu during action combat as well.  Is this really necessary?  My cpu fan gets all worked up if I am out fighting alot.

[Tarix]

yes, I have noticed that OOII uses 100% of my cpu during action combat as well.  Is this really necessary?  My cpu fan gets all worked up if I am out fighting alot.

In plain old DOS the only way to wait a certain amount of time, especially the small amout of time Overkill requires, was to sit in a busy loop which used all of the CPU.

Of course no one really cared or noticed until Windows 95 rolled around and finally brought about true multitasking.

The real Windows build of the game uses very little CPU power.  On the BBS is rarely gets above 3% and that machine is a P3.  I'll get a full beta package together for you guys to test locally.  I just want to see if there are any serious issues with it first.  (Unfortunately I think I've already seen one ...)