A Plea to Hosts!!

Hi, I live in Australia, where our pings to America, Europe and generally all overseas countrys are in the region of 450 to 600. Lately, since the birth of the 1.1 patch, i have noticed that quite a few of the hosts i used to connect to are now making it impossible for Australian sim racers to join their races, due to the setting of the Maximum Latency Allowed numbers, being too low.. I can understand the hosts not wanting 700 to 1000 ping clients in their races, but a ping in the region of 500 to 600 does NOT cause a problem for anyone.. The ignorance on this fact, is starting to show on VROC!!!! If you want to continue to shut us out of your races, then continue with your <=500 ping settings, but i hope that sensibility prevails soon, and the ignorance of the effects of medium latency figures, with a good error free connection prevails. I have raced on-line to America, Europe and England, with pings up to 650, without creating ANY problems for the other clients or host, and it is a real shame to see some of the GPL Hosts on VROC, taking this selfish step in Latency delay Policy. If you really feel the need to limit high latency users, then cap the limit at 600, which is both a reasonable and fair limit to impose on the clients, but to cap it under 600, is just being selfish in the extreme.. Cheers, Ron, a sim driver from DownUnder.

Hi Ron, I setup my PC as a dedicated host when I can and set the limit to 500ms (shame on me). I don't mind increasing it as long as people of any latency would check their Latency and Quality. The best quality is 1.0. If they have, say, 0.6 quality I would expect them to to the right thing and leave the server or ask the other drivers if they are warping too badly. Since I don't race and can't see the screen in dedicated mode, anyone racing on my machine can give me feedback via email (check my URL at the bottom of the page) on the warping of other cars and the overall enjoyment they get out of using my server. I've tried to host Brands Hatch but it doesn't want to start -- very strange. Expect my machine to be changed to 600 from this evening on. Jason. (J.Monds hosting on VROC)

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> Hi, > I live in Australia, where our pings to America, Europe and generally > all overseas countrys are in the region of 450 to 600. > Lately, since the birth of the 1.1 patch, i have noticed that quite a > few of the hosts i used to connect to are now making it impossible for > Australian sim racers to join their races, due to the setting of the > Maximum Latency Allowed numbers, being too low.. > I can understand the hosts not wanting 700 to 1000 ping clients in > their races, but a ping in the region of 500 to 600 does NOT cause a > problem for anyone.. > The ignorance on this fact, is starting to show on VROC!!!! > If you want to continue to shut us out of your races, then continue > with your <=500 ping settings, but i hope that sensibility prevails > soon, and the ignorance of the effects of medium latency figures, with > a good error free connection prevails. > Cheers, > Ron, a sim driver from DownUnder.

-- -------- Jason Monds "My other car is a Ferrari" http://members.home.net/gpl.mondsj/gpl - For my combined gas/brake setups (Please remove 'no extra spork' when replying)

I'm with Ron on this. I try to avoid 500+ pings but up to 600 I get a good race. I drive in-car with the host and it is rock-solid. It seems that system settings are more improtant than pings up to a point - I think that lost data is worse for warping than slightly slow data (remember we're talking fractions of a second slow!). I've never had a fellow racer complain about my car warping or jittering. Ben....who hasn't had a decent race since 1.1 :( .....but who will get a ff wheel soon :)

I can back Ron up here. He and I (UK based) have had many a trans global s***in the early hours with pings of around .9 to 1.00. Please remember that most high ping guys will willingly disco if they are causing problems and if they don't, you can always use the kick function these days -- Mark Seery GPML league director http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/mark.seery/

Thanks Jason, that's all i ask for from the mainstream hosts on VROC, a simple chance to be able try our connection stability and lack of warping in any given race. I am sure that if any medium latency clients join a race and notice they are disrupting proceedings, they will willingly leave the race. Once again, thanks Jason, it is appreciated.. Regards, Ron ps.. by the way, my original post wasn't a dig at you, just a general plea to all sensible and caring hosts....

Sorry Ron, I must confess I myself was one of those "selfish" hosts setting flag "L" to 300 as I wasn't really aware of the situation you describe.........this is a real treadmill (??Zwickmhle in German??), because on the one hand, you wanna get rid of ppl not caring of others *at all* and just click everything that's under their mouse-cursor, on the other hand you wanna get reasonable, fair racers into your event. I for my part will change the flag to 600 in the future and put even *more* emphasis onto reminding people to be a bit more sensible concerning their attitude when joining races, see my "Some more thoughts on VROC-Racing", posted in this NG........... BTW, while Papyrus is "looking into the patch", maybe a Flag "A" could be implemented? (ping less than 0.xxx + Australia) :)) cya and keep smiling! :)) Markus

Ron, I have turned off all ping restrictions, because of the reasons you post. I did that the first day with my server. With a good connection, with stable pings, you can easily race with ping above .500. The stability of ping and amount of errors/lost packages determine how well it works... ---Asgeir---

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> Hi, > I live in Australia, where our pings to America, Europe and generally > all overseas countrys are in the region of 450 to 600. > Lately, since the birth of the 1.1 patch, i have noticed that quite a > few of the hosts i used to connect to are now making it impossible for > Australian sim racers to join their races, due to the setting of the > Maximum Latency Allowed numbers, being too low.. > I can understand the hosts not wanting 700 to 1000 ping clients in > their races, but a ping in the region of 500 to 600 does NOT cause a > problem for anyone.. > The ignorance on this fact, is starting to show on VROC!!!! > If you want to continue to shut us out of your races, then continue > with your <=500 ping settings, but i hope that sensibility prevails > soon, and the ignorance of the effects of medium latency figures, with > a good error free connection prevails. > I have raced on-line to America, Europe and England, with pings up to > 650, without creating ANY problems for the other clients or host, and > it is a real shame to see some of the GPL Hosts on VROC, taking this > selfish step in Latency delay Policy. > If you really feel the need to limit high latency users, then cap the > limit at 600, which is both a reasonable and fair limit to impose on > the clients, but to cap it under 600, is just being selfish in the > extreme.. > Cheers, > Ron, a sim driver from DownUnder.

% I can back Ron up here. He and I (UK based) have had many a trans global % s***in the early hours with pings of around .9 to 1.00. % Please remember that most high ping guys will willingly disco if they are % causing problems and if they don't, you can always use the kick function % these days I understand why some folks think that setting the maximum ping rate for clients to join a GPL session is a "good thing". But, this in and of itself is a very misleading criteria for a good connection. It's not the latency in and of itself that is the killer, but lost packets. I would much prefer that Papyrus use a percentage of lost packets instead of a simple ping scale for chosing who can and can't join a host. Since GPL 1.1 does not seem to synch the hosts send_every rate with the clients, we can't use the "quality" rating of the connection. However, if Papyrus were to implement the host dictating the send_every settings for all clients joining the race, it would be highly more reliable, fair and accurate to use a minimum "quality" threshold for allowing clients to join a host. I have hosted more than my share of races online and I can vouch for the fact that many of our overseas brothers can have a more stable presence in GPL online races with high pings than some local folks with low pings. So, please be judicious if you feel you must use the feature in the 1.1 GPL to exclude folks with high ping rates. (That is unless you are trying to exclude some of the cream-of-the-crop fast racers which all seem to reside somewhere right of the Atlantic <G>). -- **************************** Michael E. Carver ************************* Upside out, or inside down...False alarm the only game in town. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=<[ /./. [- < ]>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

I have to agree too. Only because (I think it was Ron) Ron connected and said that the pings were in the 600ms range and he *did* have a great connection. The only time I will not allow someone in a race of mine is when they drive counter race, or are full of four letter words. (F3's ^*&ckin &^*ck 68ck ec..) It's just my opinion but I would assume that at least 90% of the warping drivers are from people that run online races with computers strait out of the box rather then tinkering with the computer to run with online racing. Plus, people that run a lot of applications in the back ground while racing thinking that it shouldn't matter. Just guessing, Mike Barlow

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> I'm with Ron on this. I try to avoid 500+ pings but up to 600 I get a good > race. I drive in-car with the host and it is rock-solid. It seems that > system settings are more improtant than pings up to a point - I think that > lost data is worse for warping than slightly slow data (remember we're > talking fractions of a second slow!). I've never had a fellow racer > complain about my car warping or jittering. > Ben....who hasn't had a decent race since 1.1 :( > .....but who will get a ff wheel soon :) > > Hi, > > I live in Australia, where our pings to America, Europe and generally > > all overseas countrys are in the region of 450 to 600. > > Lately, since the birth of the 1.1 patch, i have noticed that quite a > > few of the hosts i used to connect to are now making it impossible for > > Australian sim racers to join their races, due to the setting of the > > Maximum Latency Allowed numbers, being too low.. > > I can understand the hosts not wanting 700 to 1000 ping clients in > > their races, but a ping in the region of 500 to 600 does NOT cause a > > problem for anyone.. > > The ignorance on this fact, is starting to show on VROC!!!! > > If you want to continue to shut us out of your races, then continue > > with your <=500 ping settings, but i hope that sensibility prevails > > soon, and the ignorance of the effects of medium latency figures, with > > a good error free connection prevails. > > I have raced on-line to America, Europe and England, with pings up to > > 650, without creating ANY problems for the other clients or host, and > > it is a real shame to see some of the GPL Hosts on VROC, taking this > > selfish step in Latency delay Policy. > > If you really feel the need to limit high latency users, then cap the > > limit at 600, which is both a reasonable and fair limit to impose on > > the clients, but to cap it under 600, is just being selfish in the > > extreme.. > > Cheers, > > Ron, a sim driver from DownUnder.

-- ========================================= Mike Barlow of Barlow Racing? ========================================= Member of R.O.R. 1999 http://w3.ime.net/~marknjess/ror.html ========================================= Racing online with the help of...... Mark Seery ***sports [link lost in import] Sim Racing Mag http://www.simracingmag.com/ Race Communications Association http://members.xoom.com/RCA/toc.html Holodyne Engineering Mystic Music (have Your !!Name/Address!! placed here) mikeba.vcf < 1K Download

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> Hi Ron, > I setup my PC as a dedicated host when I can and set the limit to 500ms > (shame on me). I don't mind increasing it as long as people of any > latency would check their Latency and Quality. The best quality is 1.0. > If they have, say, 0.6 quality I would expect them to to the right thing > and leave the server or ask the other drivers if they are warping too > badly.

No one has been able to answer this question yet... being a Quality of 1.0 is what you are after.. would a 1.500 be better? My clients get 1.450 to 1.5xx all the time. Should I play with the core.ini to get that figure lowered to 1.0? I understand that the Quality of more then 1.0 means that the clients are getting more then expected, but, is that a good thing? or a bad thing? Mike Barlow -- ========================================= Mike Barlow of Barlow Racing? ========================================= Member of R.O.R. 1999 http://w3.ime.net/~marknjess/ror.html ========================================= Racing online with the help of...... Mark Seery ***sports [link lost in import] Sim Racing Mag http://www.simracingmag.com/ Race Communications Association http://members.xoom.com/RCA/toc.html Holodyne Engineering Mystic Music (have Your !!Name/Address!! placed here) mikeba.vcf < 1K Download

> My clients get 1.450 to 1.5xx all the time. Should I play with the >core.ini to get that figure lowered to 1.0? I understand that the >Quality of more then 1.0 means that the clients are getting more then >expected, but, is that a good thing? or a bad thing? Bad. Guess you use a 84/2 setting, and the clients a 84/3 setting. And we all know a CORE.INI mismatch is bad.... Remco

Ron, if ANYONE doesn't want a classy safe and fast driver like you in their race then more fool them.

% No one has been able to answer this question yet... being a Quality of % 1.0 is what you are after.. would a 1.500 be better? I do think that Randy Cassidy did address this issue in another post. Quality basically reports the percentage of lost or bad packets. Actually I should say "expected" packets. A quality of 1.0 would mean that 100% of the expected packets have been received. A quality of 0.500 would indicate that 1/2 of the expected packets were bad or missing. % My clients get 1.450 to 1.5xx all the time. Should I play with the % core.ini to get that figure lowered to 1.0? I understand that the % Quality of more then 1.0 means that the clients are getting more then % expected, but, is that a good thing? or a bad thing? This would indicate that you are sending more packets than your clients are "expecting". I would wager to guess that you have your server_send_every set to 2 and not the "VROC norm" of 3. Apparently with 1.1, this is not an issue like it was with verion 1.0 (where if these settings were not identical on both machines, the client could not join). When I tested with this in version 1.1, it seems as if the races hosted with a setting of send_every = 2 on the host made for very warp free races. This was even the case when the clients had the send_every set to 3. However, I am still waiting for word from Randy as to whether this works they way it seems (i.e., host dictates the send_every and send_size). A quality of 1.5 would indicate that the client is receiving 0.5x the amount of packets it was expecting. -- **************************** Michael E. Carver ************************* Upside out, or inside down...False alarm the only game in town. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=<[ /./. [- < ]>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

I know :D I remembered racing with you at MC's events and you looked fine to me. That's why I responded. Jason. > Thanks Jason, that's all i ask for from the mainstream hosts on VROC, > a simple chance to be able try our connection stability and lack of > warping in any given race. > ps.. by the way, my original post wasn't a dig at you, just a general > plea to all sensible and caring hosts.... -- Jason Monds "Insert Witty Remark Here" theCLAPPER in Kali http://members.home.net/gpl.mondsj/gpl/ - My combined gas/brake setups (Remove 'no spork' when replying)

Hi I have just started going on line in reference to Ron's post what exactly is latency and pings and how would know if you were messing up someone race. Regards Bob

A ping is the process of sending a data packet to a server and returning. Latency is the amount it takes to complete this task. Therefore if you have a latency of .5. the ping is taking half a second. -- Mark Seery GPML league director http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/mark.seery/ > Hi I have just started going on line in reference to Ron's post what exactly > is latency and pings and how would know if you were messing up someone race. > Regards > Bob > > Hi, > > I live in Australia, where our pings to America, Europe and generally > > all overseas countrys are in the region of 450 to 600. > > Lately, since the birth of the 1.1 patch, i have noticed that quite a > > few of the hosts i used to connect to are now making it impossible for > > Australian sim racers to join their races, due to the setting of the > > Maximum Latency Allowed numbers, being too low.. > > I can understand the hosts not wanting 700 to 1000 ping clients in > > their races, but a ping in the region of 500 to 600 does NOT cause a > > problem for anyone.. > > The ignorance on this fact, is starting to show on VROC!!!! > > If you want to continue to shut us out of your races, then continue > > with your <=500 ping settings, but i hope that sensibility prevails > > soon, and the ignorance of the effects of medium latency figures, with > > a good error free connection prevails. > > I have raced on-line to America, Europe and England, with pings up to > > 650, without creating ANY problems for the other clients or host, and > > it is a real shame to see some of the GPL Hosts on VROC, taking this > > selfish step in Latency delay Policy. > > If you really feel the need to limit high latency users, then cap the > > limit at 600, which is both a reasonable and fair limit to impose on > > the clients, but to cap it under 600, is just being selfish in the > > extreme.. > > Cheers, > > Ron, a sim driver from DownUnder.

Hi Bob, As Mark said, the ping is the time it takes for your computer to send a packet of data to the hosting computer and return to your computer. The time taken for the round trip back to your computer, is the recorded ping (latency) It is ideal to have as low as ping as possible between the host and client, but a medium ping of around 500 to 600 is acceptable for good on-line racing, providing the client (you) has taken appropriate steps to achieve a good error free connection as possible. I have had excellent, warp free races with pings up to 650. If you are connecting to a host in your own country, then ping times should be in the order of 100 to 300, any higher than that and you have connection or Router problems. If you are connecting to an overseas host, pings in the order of 450 to 600 would be more common, depending on how far away the hosting computer is located. With on-lline racing in GPL, it is not so much the latency that creates problems, (within reason), but lost packets and poor error filled connections, which causes clock smashing and warping, which occurs when the client's computer is pulled back into synchronization with the hosting computer and the hosting computer tries to fill in the blank spots that happened when the host and client were out of synch to each other.. The end result, is nor pretty.. :) If you want any help or any info on setting up your computer and dial-up connection for maximum on-line *** performance, drop me a line with any ***ies you may have.. Good luck with your on-line career.. Cheers, Ron

I think that you should be able to limit people by quality also. I have been in races with a .285 latency but when someone with a low quality gets on (or the server gets too busy) the latency jumped to .35 and the quality dropped from 1.0 to .98, enough to cause some *** warping. -- Kirk Lane Tempe, AZ ICQ: 28171652 BRT #187 "I read dead Russian authors volumes at a time I write everything down except what's on my mind 'Cause my greatest fear is the sucking sound And then I know I'll never get back out" -'Narcolepsy', Third Eye Blind >> Hi, >> I live in Australia, where our pings to America, Europe and generally >> all overseas countrys are in the region of 450 to 600. ><snip >>> If you want to continue to shut us out of your races, then continue >> with your <=500 ping settings, but i hope that sensibility prevails >> soon, and the ignorance of the effects of medium latency figures, with >> a good error free connection prevails. ><snip> >> If you really feel the need to limit high latency users, then cap the >> limit at 600, which is both a reasonable and fair limit to impose on >> the clients, but to cap it under 600, is just being selfish in the >> extreme.. >> Cheers, >> Ron, a sim driver from DownUnder. >Sorry Ron, >I must confess I myself was one of those "selfish" hosts setting flag "L" to >300 as I wasn't really aware of the situation you describe.........this is a >real treadmill (??Zwickmhle in German??), because on the one hand, you >wanna get rid of ppl not caring of others *at all* and just click everything >that's under their mouse-cursor, on the other hand you wanna get reasonable, >fair racers into your event. I for my part will change the flag to 600 in >the future and put even *more* emphasis onto reminding people to be a bit >more sensible concerning their attitude when joining races, see my "Some >more thoughts on VROC-Racing", posted in this NG........... >BTW, while Papyrus is "looking into the patch", maybe a Flag "A" could be >implemented? (ping less than 0.xxx + Australia) :)) >cya and keep smiling! :)) >Markus

Well Bob, I think you were in my Mosport race last night. -If that was you in the Lotus, you looked pretty solid to me as far as connections go. If, for yourself, you got a decent connection to me, my semi-educated guess is you'll be pretty much ok on the regular hosts. One method for determining the quality of your conneciton described to me is to go into replay mode and "ride along" with host.... if the picture is stable, you got a good connection. If it stutters a little you're ok, but if the picture stops for a little while and then resumes at another location (and the red tell-tale on the tach is reset) your car will appear to do the Rhumba to the other drivers and it's better to quit rather than messing eachother's race up. Jan. ------ New motto: "Keep yer foot in it at T1" >Hi I have just started going on line in reference to Ron's post what exactly >is latency and pings and how would know if you were messing up someone race. ><snip>

I hosted for an aussie racer last night while connected at 33.6 baud. he had a latency of over 0.6. But it was one of the best races I have ever had, because a ping is bad, does NOT mean they are going to be ziggzagging from side to side in the turns, it MAY mean that they are just a little further back from where they really are, all you need is a clean aussie racer, and a clean english racer, and you can have one of your best races ever. I have NEVER had as many passes on a single lap before, and that's saying something. Tim .

Only 1? You shouldn't get problems then no matter what latency..... hey Tim, you know where I live? :)) cya at..........hmmm...........say: Spa?? Markus

we've had a few battles ain't we bud? :o))