Halo 1 & 2 for PC
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  • Subject: Which component has the most effect on online lag?
Subject: Which component has the most effect on online lag?

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Internet connection
Video Card
Memory
Processor

I ordered them the way I suspect is most important, but if anybody knows for sure I would like to know

  • 04.18.2005 11:19 AM PDT
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The networdk connection affects it too. However, tspywrae, viruses are important too.

  • 04.18.2005 11:38 AM PDT
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The video card will not affect your network lag. It will however create visual lag if its not a good card. Your modem, as I found out, also has a big impact on your lag. If your modem doesn't support the speeds that you will lag. The processor and ram do play a part in lag but not as much as your connection.

  • 04.18.2005 1:54 PM PDT
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In order of most effect:

Internet
RAM/Proc
Video card

Internet, obviously if your pipe is too small or you have high ping. Then your processor must process locations, physics, and RAM must store this. The video card displays everything, and it's easy to lay off with lower resolutions.

  • 04.18.2005 2:08 PM PDT
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Internet Connection is by far the most influential component of lag. I have a very high end computer, and my uncle is a computer tech. For fun, we tried using a @#(% modem and played/tried to play a few rounds of Halo PC Multiplayer. After great frustration, we popped in the good stuff, and my ping was split in half several times over. By the way, don't listen to ioniz, he doesn't know @#$& about Halo. I played him online and schooled his @$$ with a pistol when he had a flamer less than three feet away from me.

[Edited on 4/18/2005]

  • 04.18.2005 3:10 PM PDT
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Nice experiment there. Yeah, I moved from 200K dsl to 3 meg cable, whew! Blazing fast and no lag, ever.

Flamer = bad and not worth much

Flaming = not cool

  • 04.18.2005 3:20 PM PDT
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Flamer is good on no shields. I kick a$$ in longest with it.

  • 04.18.2005 5:10 PM PDT

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So my Comcast connection at 2100 down / 383 up will make up for my 800Mhz PIII processor

*Everyone in forum falls on the floor laughing hysterically*

and my 256 Mb of RAM

* Laughter and rolling intensify*

and my 128Mb 4200Ti

*laughter slowly subsides*

I usually get 40FPS online which can drop to 10. I usually don't get problem unless i get in a Chainhog or banshee dog fight. That becomes too much for the processor to handle and I get major skipping. If it is skipping on my machine is it necessarily doing the same on the other machines or if they have better machine are they seeing the action smooth. I just don't want to cause problems and lag for anyone else.

  • 04.19.2005 6:33 AM PDT
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I played fine with 256 of ram. Your porcessor is old, but I think I have the same one on one of my old computers and it runs halo with the same lag as on my new one. If your video settings are higher, it takes more CPU up that would normaly go to network stuff there fore creating more lag. They will only see you warping if they have a good machine. Don't worry about causeing lag, you won't be a trouble.

  • 04.19.2005 8:55 AM PDT
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Heyyo,

Obviously internet connection's the cause of lag for everyone, this affects the lagger the most though. Spyware, and such do affect your latency as it tends to sap up cpu cycles and some of your network bandwith. They don't really sap up your network bandwith alone, but once you get more than 100? that's a couple cycles off your cpu, and off your bandwith. So yeah, they add up guys, so keep your comp's clean.

CPU and ram tend to play a big part in lag for you. for HaloPC I noticed aboot 256mb's of ram is enough since the game's not that high poly, and the textures aren't that high rez as newer games. Cpu is definately limiting you dude. I suggest keeping your comp at the lowest rez when gaming, cause cpu's power (or lack of..) impact preformance on your screen rez a lot.

ioniz is a good forum poster, don't flame him, and no making up stories either pls. gg.

  • 04.19.2005 12:34 PM PDT
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Found out recently that while my wireless adapter is causing occasional quicklag (have yet to go to Best Buy to ask why my comp won't recognize LAN cable), our home's cable modem has issues; every now and then the internet connection is lost altogether, causing my great, player-populated servers to suddenly drop. Our ISP sucks, and they haven't gotten their asses out here to do soemthing about it.

  • 04.19.2005 2:51 PM PDT

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Another 6 or 7 weekends at the restaurant I'll save up the remaining $600 needed to buy an ASUS A8N-E nForce 4 Ultra with an Athalon 64 3000+ 939 socket 512 Ram 120MB SATA and either a x700 or 6600 PCI-e video.

  • 04.19.2005 3:03 PM PDT
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I don't think there is much of a difference between a PCIe and AGP 6600 other than the price.

  • 04.19.2005 3:28 PM PDT
Subject: Lag, Ping, etc...

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I keep hearing about, and from time to time experiencing, lag in online Halo. From what I've heard, there will always be some lag, since it takes some amount of time for the info to go from server to clients and back.

I have a few questions:

1) Occasionally I freeze in a game and an icon appears in the lower right hand corner of the screen. I can swivel and look around but not move from that spot or shoot. Others seem to be playing with no problem. What does the icon signify? Other times either I find myself warping or see others warping. Are there different kinds of lag? What are the causes?

2) When I check the score I see ping numbers for each player. What do these numbers signify? Are they related to the players connection speed or just numbers that the server assigns to each player to keep track of them? Sometimes there are huge differences in ping numbers, but players seem to be playing reasonably lag free. I've never kept track to see if these numbers change during the game. Is that what ping spiking is?

3) I have a DSL connection and when I set up Halo I saw that it recommended only 4 players. As a result I've never tried hosting. When servers get "laggy" is it because the host is exceeding the recommended number of players or because players with slow connections joined or will either one do it?

4) I was playing on BG the other night. I'd hear one pistol shot and I'd start going down dead! Then I'd hear the other two– no time to react. At times it seems I'm knee deep in molasses and my opponents are not. Is this a connection speed issue? Would a spiffier graphics card speed up my play or just render the game prettier? I'm playing on a dual 1.8 GHz Mac G5 with an NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 card. I have no speed issues when I just play in the campaign mode, so I suspect it's connection speed.

5) Is cable generally sufficient to host games of 8-10 players? Are some cable providers better for Halo than others or is cable just cable and the "difference" between them is just ad hype? I'm concerned about the upstream/downstream difference and it's effect on game play.

6) the other night I saw something unusual: I was on the top of the enemy fort in BG. There were enemy players in the fort in the little nooks. They were running in place. I was shooting them with rockets and they continued to run in place even after 4 or 5 rockets. One rocket on the field would kill in that game. Was this some kind of lag mirage?

  • 04.19.2005 4:49 PM PDT
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A few things - to start with, chewy, there is a HUGE difference between PCI-x and AGP - the fact that you don't see it probably means you haven't see a PCI-x card run a game that's gfx-intensive enough to show, but go do a search and check out the benchmarks and the raw frequency differences.

#1 - The are 2 'types' of lag. I don't divide them by their source - lag is lag, for the most part no matter where it comes from. Lag comes in 2 varieties regardless of where its from, though. A. Normal Lag - you get this because your connection is slow, your computer is slow, or the server is slow. B. Lag Spike - you get this because something bogs the server or your conenction becomes saturated (for DSL and Cable, if a lot of ppl in your area get on at the same time, it can bog down your ISP).

#2 - Ping = lag. Ping is generally measured in ms (that's milliseconds) anything over about 250 tends to have a significant impact on gameplay. Those numbers will change and they signify the latency of each players' connection. The Lower the better.

#3 - If Halo recommends only 4 players on a DSL connection... what the frick kind of DSL have you got? I have DSL Lite and I won't lag down a non-dedicated server until 4 more ppl join - that's 5 ppl relativelt lag-free. Halo does give a conservative estimate of your ability to host a game, IMO.

#4 - this is lag - either from you or the other players. It sux - try a faster server.

#5 - it depends on what type of cable you got (bandwidth, latency, upstream, downstream) You want everything except latency high - you should run a search online to find some tests for your connection. A 3 mb Cable connection with a 768kb upstream should definitely handle that game if your comp is good - especially if the server is dedicated.

#6 - well, put - lag mirage - that's what did it.

  • 04.19.2005 5:56 PM PDT
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Posted by: SimonJester753
I keep hearing about, and from time to time experiencing, lag in online Halo. From what I've heard, there will always be some lag, since it takes some amount of time for the info to go from server to clients and back.

I have a few questions:

1) Occasionally I freeze in a game and an icon appears in the lower right hand corner of the screen. I can swivel and look around but not move from that spot or shoot. Others seem to be playing with no problem. What does the icon signify? Other times either I find myself warping or see others warping. Are there different kinds of lag? What are the causes?

2) When I check the score I see ping numbers for each player. What do these numbers signify? Are they related to the players connection speed or just numbers that the server assigns to each player to keep track of them? Sometimes there are huge differences in ping numbers, but players seem to be playing reasonably lag free. I've never kept track to see if these numbers change during the game. Is that what ping spiking is?

3) I have a DSL connection and when I set up Halo I saw that it recommended only 4 players. As a result I've never tried hosting. When servers get "laggy" is it because the host is exceeding the recommended number of players or because players with slow connections joined or will either one do it?

4) I was playing on BG the other night. I'd hear one pistol shot and I'd start going down dead! Then I'd hear the other two– no time to react. At times it seems I'm knee deep in molasses and my opponents are not. Is this a connection speed issue? Would a spiffier graphics card speed up my play or just render the game prettier? I'm playing on a dual 1.8 GHz Mac G5 with an NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 card. I have no speed issues when I just play in the campaign mode, so I suspect it's connection speed.

5) Is cable generally sufficient to host games of 8-10 players? Are some cable providers better for Halo than others or is cable just cable and the "difference" between them is just ad hype? I'm concerned about the upstream/downstream difference and it's effect on game play.

6) the other night I saw something unusual: I was on the top of the enemy fort in BG. There were enemy players in the fort in the little nooks. They were running in place. I was shooting them with rockets and they continued to run in place even after 4 or 5 rockets. One rocket on the field would kill in that game. Was this some kind of lag mirage?

#1 is what I call quicklag. It is the only lag I experience due to my own hardware, and it pisses me off.

[Edited on 4/19/2005]

  • 04.19.2005 8:43 PM PDT
Subject: Lag, Ping, etc...

Don't drink to excess– You might shoot at tax-collectors... and miss

Computer: Power Mac G5 CPU Type: PowerPC G5 (2.2) Number Of CPUs: 2 CPU Speed: 1.8 GHz L2 Cache (per CPU): 512 KB Memory: 1.25 GB Bus Speed: 900 MHz

ATi Radeon X800 XT Mac Edition
Display Type: LCD Resolution: 1680 x 1050 Depth: 32-bit Color

#1 is what I call quicklag. It is the only lag I experience due to my own hardware, and it pisses me off.


Red Mage Joe-

What about your hardware or mine could be causing quicklag? I've got a dual 1.8 gig processor G5 Mac with 1.25 GB memory. That's not exactly low end hardware. My video card is not the best, but I did not think that had much effect on lag. Besides, if it's my hardware, wouldn't it happen all the time? It's intermittent.

I've been wondering if a newer DSL modem might not give me a faster connection– I've had this one for over 3 years, maybe closer to 5. You'd think they would come out with some technological advances that would speed things up in that time.

  • 04.21.2005 4:51 AM PDT
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If you are running a dedicated server, your video card will not affect the lag at all. If its not dedicated then your video card is using up some processor that might be used for processing network information. That will cause a little lag. Yes a newer modem will allow for faster speeds, if you are paying for them. I have a 6-7 year old (maybe 5) modem that is seriously resticting my speeds. I am getting a new one that will hopefully allow me access what I am paying for.

  • 04.21.2005 8:46 AM PDT
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quicklag = lag spike - your network becoming suddenly saturated can cause this too... damned P2P...

  • 04.21.2005 9:01 AM PDT
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Posted by: SimonJester753
I keep hearing about, and from time to time experiencing, lag in online Halo. From what I've heard, there will always be some lag, since it takes some amount of time for the info to go from server to clients and back.

I have a few questions:

1) Occasionally I freeze in a game and an icon appears in the lower right hand corner of the screen. I can swivel and look around but not move from that spot or shoot. Others seem to be playing with no problem. What does the icon signify? Other times either I find myself warping or see others warping. Are there different kinds of lag? What are the causes?

2) When I check the score I see ping numbers for each player. What do these numbers signify? Are they related to the players connection speed or just numbers that the server assigns to each player to keep track of them? Sometimes there are huge differences in ping numbers, but players seem to be playing reasonably lag free. I've never kept track to see if these numbers change during the game. Is that what ping spiking is?

3) I have a DSL connection and when I set up Halo I saw that it recommended only 4 players. As a result I've never tried hosting. When servers get "laggy" is it because the host is exceeding the recommended number of players or because players with slow connections joined or will either one do it?

4) I was playing on BG the other night. I'd hear one pistol shot and I'd start going down dead! Then I'd hear the other two– no time to react. At times it seems I'm knee deep in molasses and my opponents are not. Is this a connection speed issue? Would a spiffier graphics card speed up my play or just render the game prettier? I'm playing on a dual 1.8 GHz Mac G5 with an NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 card. I have no speed issues when I just play in the campaign mode, so I suspect it's connection speed.

5) Is cable generally sufficient to host games of 8-10 players? Are some cable providers better for Halo than others or is cable just cable and the "difference" between them is just ad hype? I'm concerned about the upstream/downstream difference and it's effect on game play.

6) the other night I saw something unusual: I was on the top of the enemy fort in BG. There were enemy players in the fort in the little nooks. They were running in place. I was shooting them with rockets and they continued to run in place even after 4 or 5 rockets. One rocket on the field would kill in that game. Was this some kind of lag mirage?


i realy cant belive u dont know what that is.........

1) that happens when ur connection to the server is going crappy, an ur connection is desperately trying to recconnect, if u cant do anything for mor than 10 secs, ur not going to be able to so just leave that game an join in a dedicated server. also, in case u havent looked at the icon it resembles a little ethernet symbol..

2) 2 has been answered a lot

3) just b/c u have a DSL connection doesnt mean u now have a lightning fast connection. if u didnt order a specific speed from ur ISP, more than likely u have a 256kb down/ 128kb upstream, which is why halo automatically choosed the 128kb option an ur stuck hostin a 4 player game. an a host cant exceed the number of players, because that only happens if they choose a connection speed in the options that exceeds his actual one, makin everyone lagg like crap.

4) This happens to me too, just b/c u have a slower connection an u appear to be seriously laggin/ warping doesn't mean this is how a player with a much faster connection/ higher end machine cant properly see u. I constantly get killed by players with a pistol b/c even though i am laggin in my screen, the other player still has a fast enough connection to target me properly. many times i get meleed in the back when i attempt to do the same an suddenly i hear a "twhack" an 2 seconds later im dead, even though my i never saw this on my screen, cuz the guy appeared to be rushing me, not running behind me.

5) yea, it usually is, as long as ,again, u order a fast enough speed to do so. remeber that you have to ask for the specific speed u want, or they'll just stick u with the standard.
the only problem i found with cable was that if u live in an area where theres lots of ppl with cable as well, it can cause u to seriously lagg, because unlike DSL, Cable shares a connection with everyone else, and DSL uses an individual persons phone line.
of course if u dont live in such an area that populated with cable users, go with cable, but remember that if u want the cheaper option go with a high speed DSL instead to save some dinero $$. an most importantly, always demand to know the minimun download/upload speeds, as DSL an Cable are asynchronous, meaning that while the download may be 2mps, ur upload will be somwhere close to only half that speed.

6) that happens when other ppl are lagin, in much the same way u are left when u are laggin an can only look around, but cant shoot. often whenever u see others lagg, but u suffer none/less, u can walk around an the lagger/s will be doing their last registered action (the last thing u saw them doing) in place, but when u are the lagger, u will see ppl running into walls an stuff b/c runnin was the last thing u saw them do.

surprisingly idk y explosives stil work an can kill u even in a game that suffers from major lag

sry for my inhumanely long response, just hope it helped a BIT

[Edited on 4/22/2005]

  • 04.22.2005 3:35 PM PDT

Don't drink to excess– You might shoot at tax-collectors... and miss

Computer: Power Mac G5 CPU Type: PowerPC G5 (2.2) Number Of CPUs: 2 CPU Speed: 1.8 GHz L2 Cache (per CPU): 512 KB Memory: 1.25 GB Bus Speed: 900 MHz

ATi Radeon X800 XT Mac Edition
Display Type: LCD Resolution: 1680 x 1050 Depth: 32-bit Color

bunGi3dOtn3t–

What's not to beleive? No where in the instruction manual or on the disc or on Bungie's website is there an explanation of the symbol. At least none that I've found. I figured it meant my connection was seriously screwy, I was looking for a more technical explaination. If they program the game to flash it at you, they should tell you what it means. Kind of like when the "vehicle on fire" light comes on, you don't stop and fuel up, you get the fire extinguisher out– if you know what the symbol on the "vehicle on fire" light means.

I found a link that was helpful: http://www.forumplanet.com/haloplanet/topic.asp?fid=6707& tid=14634 98

Based on his recomendations for my connection speed I set up a game on BG for 8 including myself. No lag for me! No complaints of lag from others!

Yeah, I've been killed while frozen in lag and I've returned the favor. That's why I was couldn't figure out that was going on when I couldn't kill those guys with the rockets.

Thanks for the info.

[Edited on 4/22/2005]

  • 04.22.2005 7:06 PM PDT
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yea np, it took me a while but one time when lag rendered me completely unable to play i took a look at waht the hell that thing was, an saw resembled a ethernet port, even with the two little lights on either side........a real problem solver for the people out there who dont know crap about computers an just play for the hell of it.
an yeah, always make sure of ur current connection setup in case for some reason its ever changed.

always nice to find out u've helped someone, unless u just helped them assassinate someone,.................................unless u hated that peson as well...............

  • 04.28.2005 2:33 PM PDT