Does anyone experience this:

you have already run races with people in the grid but when the race restarts, it feels like the guy infront of you on the grid, doesnt pull away on the green light? its just a small delay, a second? the name doesnt show lag, the car just appears to have a slow start.

i get this, so i sometimes back off the throttle only to find the guy has accelerated away and then i am slower and so the car behind me catches up? or i will turn left or right to avoid him only to find that i just moved off my line for no reason.

to solve this i have just started flooring it at the start and hoping the guy infront has actually gone too, if he hasnt then, well, im going to crash into him.

this is on all servers i get this

Yes, that's normal and is a result of finite bandwith.

Vain

is there anyway to limit this happening to the cars directly around your own car? i dont care for a slight delay in the other cars which dont affect me, but i would like to know what the car infront is doing as the lights go green.

you could always try pulling onto a slightly odd line (maybe middle of the track?) from the start, if you're worried, so even if the guy in front of you did have a slow start, you'll go past him not into the back of him?

Perhaps Scawen can put in a little 'fudge' in the netcode for starts, so that the car starts moving if a throttle input was recieved in the last few seconds, thus 'predicting' the start on remote computers. If not throttle input is detected when the red lights are on then assume the driver is not paying attention or is AFK and do the normal start so that the car stays still (as it's more likely that it IS staying still).

Just thinking out loud. Well, not out loud, but as I type. I'm not talking to myself whilst I type.

The solution is simple, we all start at the same moment in LFS as there is no dropping of the clutch, so why dont the cars automatically drive forwards the moment the light hits green?
EDIT: Tristans idea is better still.

LFS' much exhalted net code has one major failing: It sends data packets on timed intervals and does not appear to set the "timeUntilNextPacket" to zero when the state of the players controls changes. This causes excess latency at starts and during violent reactions (car correction), and can meen we wait up to 250ms for important information on the activities of other cars.

im not very good with netcode stuff, my brain is fried from years of abuse, but can you be given 2 or 3 netcode "buddies" that have a kind of priority at getting data to you? so you almost ignore the netcode of a car that is 3 or 4 grid positions infront or behind?

its a little harsh to adjust your line off the start because sometimes you need the pack of cars to be neat through T1, or maybe even a little drafting before making a more secure move on the car ahead. plus I want my wheels straight because turning will cause wheel spin or a slower start because you have swerved up the road doing an "S" at the green lights i guess you know what i mean. I wonder if this was partly the cause of some of the problems in the first lap we've been having.

Rolling starts may eliminate it? but i dont prefer to do rolling starts, i like the starts we have already...F1 style.

is there a way to time the netcode + the start lights to work together so you receive packets as the lights change?

To a point yes the packets *could* be re-ordered, but you can only send a packet on from the server once the client has sent it to the server in the first place - and at the moment that's done on a time interval.

Another enhancement LFS could use is some kind of data portal where cars further from the player are sent packets at less frequent intervals, for the purposes of replays perhaps not totally culled - but two a second would be fine for a car on the far side of the circuit. This would then enable more cars to race on the same server by sending more frequent updates between players when they are closer. This does however require more bandwidth on the server, but makes use of more of each players available bandwidth and could be used to have 30-40 car races.

Would we still have this problem if we had to react to the green light ourselves? i.e with everyone starting at (slightly) different times.

That's the ideal solution yes, coupled with the data being sent the moment the player lets go of the clutch, rather than at the next packet interval. Along with a whole new series of penalties for jump starts .

last rolling start i did was when the car in front really hadnt moved and i went over his rear tyre and barrel rolled into the rest of the grid

Quote from richy :

is there anyway to limit this happening to the cars directly around your own car? i dont care for a slight delay in the other cars which dont affect me, but i would like to know what the car infront is doing as the lights go green.

No cuz this is not your connection problem but just the netcode is that bad. Last race on OWRL. It was really horrible. About 4 people warped on start and on the fast straight cars were just lagging around until it settled after some corners. We were even doing LAG check lap so dont tell me the netcode is so great lol.

tinvek: same thing happened to me one time. I was P3 on the grid and the guy who didn't move was P1, so it was nice and destructive. Flying cars are so pretty!

im not sure rolling starts is the best way to solve this problem, me and i guess a lot of others do prefer the option of having non rolling starts sometimes?

maybe its something the devs have been trying to figure out a while now and havent been able to fix due to technology limitations that we still have. maybe in 10 years time it will be better

Quote from richy :

im not sure rolling starts is the best way to solve this problem, me and i guess a lot of others do prefer the option of having non rolling starts sometimes?

maybe its something the devs have been trying to figure out a while now and havent been able to fix due to technology limitations that we still have. maybe in 10 years time it will be better

It can be done in any other game. Even in games which by default dont have a netcode at all like GTA:SA so why not here?

Quote from Sawyer :

It can be done in any other game. Even in games which by default dont have a netcode at all like GTA:SA so why not here?

i dunno what you mean, GTA san andreas has online start grids and racing on servers? i have that game can you link me to the mod or something?

i hope it can be fixed easily, im just worried that technical limitations are having an effect here

Never been a huge problem for me personally, in most league races I've been in we've run a lag lap before the start of the race when exiting the lobby.

Keiran

Quote from keiran :

Never been a huge problem for me personally, in most league races I've been in we've run a lag lap before the start of the race when exiting the lobby.

Keiran

I have this issue even if a 5 lapper race has finished and is being restarted. what gets loaded on that first lap that stops the lag? at first guess im thinking it lets you download any skins you may need to download? does something reset after a race is completed and then everyone hits restart then it reloads something?.... does that lap even stop the issue? (i realise you dont get it). What kind of connection do you have, i have 512k down and 128k upload, i think...

if you need to run a lag lap for the leagues then there must be a slight problem somewhere, it should be called a warm up lap instead of a "lag lap" right?

Quote from thisnameistaken :

http://www.mtasa.com/

It's crap, but it's there. They're still working on the multiplayer free-roam, it's just races and a weird car deathmatch-type mode at the moment.

Cool i shall check this out just for a laugh, infact ive never even tried GTA since i got LFS or my DFP so i guess i should reinstall it. thanks.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

http://www.mtasa.com/

It's crap, but it's there. They're still working on the multiplayer free-roam, it's just races and a weird car deathmatch-type mode at the moment.

Yeah this one is still in works more or less. It had autoracing mod but it was warpy just like LFS. However the movie looks impressive again.

I play this one for fun also. http://www.sa-mp.com/
Car sync is better the LFS lol. Only problem is bullets sync but you can imagine how fast bullets fly compared to cars in LFS
and all this on 100 player servers. Try it out its great fun to do drivebys with some people and steal others money or loose a million in the Casiono

Quote from richy :

I have this issue even if a 5 lapper race has finished and is being restarted. what gets loaded on that first lap that stops the lag? at first guess im thinking it lets you download any skins you may need to download? does something reset after a race is completed and then everyone hits restart then it reloads something?.... does that lap even stop the issue? (i realise you dont get it). What kind of connection do you have, i have 512k down and 128k upload, i think...

if you need to run a lag lap for the leagues then there must be a slight problem somewhere, it should be called a warm up lap instead of a "lag lap" right?



Cool i shall check this out just for a laugh, infact ive never even tried GTA since i got LFS or my DFP so i guess i should reinstall it. thanks.

Yeah I agree. Can anybody explain what a lag lap should actually fix or is this just to see how bad it will be when the race really starts lol.

I'm not sure how or why, but a lag lap can reduce the lag effect at T1/T2, when low lag is most important. Sometimes it works, and other times it doesn't.

Personally I'd rather have a pace lap, reform on the grid, and go when the lights go out/green, but this will only have any point when grip is dynamic (i.e. effected by dirt, water etc and you need to know, via a pace lap, where the grip and puddles are).

I say...how often does that actually happen to you? (car infront of you doesn't move) well personally, not very often...so my opinion, yea its annoying but LFS has a lot bigger problems and concerns to worry about so i say let those things come first

ALWAYS
In a big grid at last 2 wont move and some will warp bad on fast stragihts.
Go download some big race replays and you will see how bad it is.
http://www.owrl.de/request.php?80