Reducing lag..again

Post by **Metis** » Sun Sep 03, 2006 6:28 pm

Its on the sticky but it looks like some people need reminding.

TGPO wrote: 2: Large Parties. Parties larger than 5 or 6 people have a severe negative impact on the server. Please do your best to limit the size of your group to this.

Especially when when you have 2 people in avendell, 1 in the earth plane, 3 in mezzoloths, etc you get the point. If your group isnt going to be in the same area no reason to have everyone spread out on the server.

Drunken Dwarf · Post by **Drunken Dwarf** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 9:25 am

Pardon me for my ignorance but I fail to see how having people in a party spread out over the world impacts server performace. I am fairly new here so I rarely party with others and never with more than 3 players.

Anyway. Not questioning the mandate, just wondering if there is any technical information to back it up.

Thanks

Squikker2001 · Post by **Squikker2001** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 9:47 am

A DM said it, so it is automatically true.

If chase said the sky was green and grass was blue, you shoud believe it!
If Metis says green jello tastes like grapes, it is true!

Actually, I dont know why large spread out parties would matter.

Post by **Flailer** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 9:53 am

Well, I'm not sure about spread out parties causing more lag than parties on the same map. But, I believe Metis' point about party size was, that if you're not in the same area adventuring together, don't be in a party together. Large party size definately contributes to lag.

Post by **TGPO** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 10:44 am

Large party size has alot to do with the messages that get sent to players in the party. If you are a large party the server has to decide whether to send the combat messages to a person or not. It has to be done on a person by person basis. The larger the party the more the decisions the greater the hit to resources available for other things.

We played with this several years ago back in NS3, some of the old Northies may remember helping us with this. Thats where we initially set some numbers down about party sizes, and also numbers of people in the same zone.

If you dont believe, and your not required to, feel free to duplicate the expiriments. ON A DIFFERENT SERVER!!! You are free to question anything, however you are not free to intentionally negatively impact our servers and community to assuage your curiousity.

Cthulhu Drega · Post by **Cthulhu Drega** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 11:43 am

if im to understand this right if sday in a party of a total of 4 but only 2 are together this would not realy effect lag? i ask this because some of my guild members are new and need frequent directions or other input from myself or other more knowagable players.

Kromix · Post by **Kromix** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 9:25 pm

Cthulhu Drega wrote:if im to understand this right if sday in a party of a total of 4 but only 2 are together this would not realy effect lag? i ask this because some of my guild members are new and need frequent directions or other input from myself or other more knowagable players.

use tells or get a TeamSpeak server up...

MLoki · Post by **MLoki** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 9:31 pm

It sounds like the server has to figure out which party gets the infor whether you are in the same area or not. I would assume if you aren't in the same area it wouldn't really matter or not but the big problem is in larger parties where it has to compute each attack and send or not send the relevent info to each party member.

Think of it this way...

(Attacks, damage and effects per round for each character + attacks, damage and effects against the party in a round X the number of characters in the party Aprox. = the amount of information the server has to compute each round)

This number can get really big really fast in large epic parties.

Simply put the more characters in the party, the more information has to be shared throughout the party, meaning more overall computing power required. So don't party in large groups is all they are asking. I think the point Metis was making is that you really don't need to be in a party if you aren't acting as a party or even trying to do something together.

MLoki

watchwood · Post by **watchwood** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 11:27 pm

I thought that we now have a high powered box though, and that the current limitation lag-wise was the pipeline, not the processor power.

Post by **Sparky** » Wed Sep 06, 2006 12:09 am

The current limitation is engine wise, not pipeline or processor related. The game engine can only handle so much before causing problems.

P. Fricebottle · Post by **P. Fricebottle** » Wed Sep 06, 2006 9:11 am

In other words, Blame Bioware

.