Quote from Neilser :

Are there enough LA racers to try for your own multiclass server? (See earlier suggestion - I doubt Dave would be too keen to manage it, but you might twist his arm into helping you to set it up...)

Sadly no, the few s2 server from LA dont have any kind of rule, nor airio nor good server management as cargame.

Since CTRA and IHR die, cargame was the onlymain race server for the last 2 years, nobody care about doing another race server of the same type as cg... and i highly doubt is gona be another race server soon...

Have something to do with this 'attack' taking place now?

That's bad that lag attack!

Ok, despite any 'bad words' that may have dropped between me and Dave, I understand completely why he did the block. I left cargames (still the server I prefer), because I got sick and tired to be accused of poor driving or poor lag. Lag is the real culprit when I make mistakes (mostly lag manifesting as poor braking skills).

It is quite often difficult to distinguish accidents due to lag and poor driving without spending lots of time analising the incident. The problem with lag in LFS is that the client with lag are mostly ignorant of it, except when it gets really bad.

What I sometimes cannot understand is that I get accused (on cargame) of my high ping, when I cannot see any trace of lag when I pull the replay off cargame. I mean, come on, if I have a high ping, but not causing problems, what is the issue?

One of the reasons why people get upset when drivers or admins get angry due to lag, is that they do not know what the implications on the track with regards to lag is. I will attempt to explain that within a day or two.

As far as Inouva is concerned, he is a driver I always respect and never had lag issues with him.

Again in Dave's defence, I cannot even do a ping test between South Africa and Argentinia. The South American line is really pathetic, but then also routing from South Africa to there is via Europe with a massive amount of reroutes.

We can argue about it, but Africa and also South Africa are poor countries, but without effective communication networks, especially internet nowadays, a country's economy cannot grow. That is why, even though South Africa does not have a great connection to Europe, it is okay, even via wireless and huge effort and capital investment are put into improving it. Yes, I have to live with a wireless ping of 210ms, and a landline ping of 170ms, but better lines and wireless (4G) are being installed or already in a limited way available. Also, I have very little jitter (less than 10ms), and most of the time zero packet loss. Theoretically South Africa to Europe should have a ping of 80ms (do the math), obviously barring server induced and rerouting added lag. In practise, once our lines improve, I guess we should be able to get a 120ms ping. Team speak is also a nice way to check your connection apart from pingtest.net.

BUT, I do think admins or other drivers can ask laggy drivers nicely to leave a server. Yes, they admin the servers voluntary at their own time and expense, but we as drivers are needed to keep those servers going. And some of us really love it, we make a huge effort to be careful and to improve. A little bit of sympathy and niceness will go a long way - it does not have to be a lot of trouble, do it impersonally, like a hot message 'you are lagging badly, please join again later when the server is quiter' or something to that effect.

BTW, sometimes I feel like I am the most unlucky driver when I take part in leagues, but after thinking hard about it, I came to the conclusion that the biggest reason why I am involved in a higher that average amount of incidents, is due to my lag. Sorry guys, sigh!

Regards

The problem is that there is no 'nice way'... Either people don't understand what I'm talking about or they didn't master the basics of English at all or just don't respond. It's also not possible to make an automated message because it's currently impossible to auto detect low quality lines other then with help of CCI_LAG InSim flag but like I explained before that flag only shows up when over 1 second of lag occurs.

I can't remember that we had an argument by the way. South Africa is in the same timezone as central Europe which makes it more complicated.

South Africa already has excellent intercontinental connections to Europe (mainly ACE) but the country itself seems not organized that good yet.

But problems with laggy people will always stay. You mentioned it yourself already. 4G is getting the next new thing, a lot of people will take 'advantage' of that because I expect that mobile phone company's are going to price battle with traditional land lines. Already see that happening in Finland.. 4G is not going to improve the situation, making it worse actually.

But I think you mentioned that to explain the technology advancements your country is going through in general. Good reply, I don't know why it's less visible in a replay btw, I had the same conclusion. When you watch it live it's much worse. However realize that the server itself is only the recording bit... I mean, it receives all data but if you have someone from Argentina and Australia there is an effective lag on both ends of 500~600ms.

* And Argentina - Argentina also has an effective lag of 500~600ms. So the guys in my screenshot have to experience massive amounts of lag with each other when they exchange bumper/door paint. It has not much to do anymore with simracing and I thought that was the ultimate goal here

Thank you for the decent reply.

I did not mean an automated reply, just a manual hotkey assignment reply.

I am wondering though, as LFS after the latest patch are displaying the TCP or UDP pings, can this not be read via an Insim activating an automated reply or kick. Yes, I know there is no way you would've missed considering this, so I am just wondering why this will not work.

I also agree that the current insim lag test is next to useless, as by the time it warns or auto-spec a racer, anyone with half a braincell would've seen something is wrong, mostly by checking the lag bar or seeing other drivers being static on the min-map or disappearing. Too late, too tolerant.

As far as South Africa is concerned, the war between wireless and landline ISP's have been going on for some time. Luckily the majors wireless companies, namely Cell-C, MTN, Virgin, 8-TA target different market segments. Prepaid and contract customers also are provided different quality of internet services, all difference basically depends on how expensive your ISP's servixce is. Vodacom mostly attract the professional market, also the people mostly to use the internet for extra-ordinary recreational activities, such as on-line gaming which require more expensive hardware, accessories such as wheels etc. Thus, choosing the wireless provider wisely, helps to avoid from falling into a saturated overpopulated connection - I assume that is what you mean with 4G(LTE) going to worsen the problem.

Currently the cheap, slow, low bandwith ISP's and our sole landline provider, Telkom (all others just ride on their services) are way ahead with prices and bandwith, but not line quality. I tried them all trying to get a better LFS experience. Some private suppliers, to which I do not have access, must be much better, including at least one optical line. ACE, that you mentioned may be one.

But in a time when the Netherlands are watching television over the internet, I have to worry before league events about running out of bandwith, I have 2.2 GB available montly ;-). Via Vodacom contract, which are at the moment the best quality public wireless provider.

I also agree that issues like these should attain much higher priority in LFS than tyre physics (aaaargh) development. Per continent ocommercial and official LFS servers, bringing latency of players on par, with occasional international events based0on player quality. Obviously more car and track diversity, less sterile atmosphere during events. For me as an engineer, the physics and tyres are good. Let's worry about things that matter!

Best possible connections from US - EU/UK will never be below 200 ping, from my experience the 6 years I spent in the US.

And so kicking with a 200-300 MS ping range will guarantee the people overseas will be kicked. This inst just with LFS , any game were you a long range connection like this - it will be a problem, regardless of ISP.


South Africa also is minimum 200 Ping just to maintain a connection to the EU or the UK.

They have only major ( reliable ) 2 lines ( only one of these confirms to be fiber all the way ), that connect RSA to the international community - of these two , one runs over land through Africa, the other sits 5KM below the ocean. And connecting to EU stupidly routes up the easy coast instead of the longer and more direct line up the west - which Telkom Assholes tend to try and monopolize for themselves. Beleieve it or not - but RSA often sometimes even has worse connection to Australia than to the EU in some scenarios and provinces.

All other cables are utter crap down here. Most ISPs "buy" access to lines which are predominantly controlled through Telkom. Almost ALL ISP services are going to end up in Telkom's hands sooner or later - and they - being known to be one of the worlds most expensive Telecommunications entities comparing what they actually offer their clients to other ISPs - and also their outright attempts to discredit or downsize other local entities - as the majority of the Telecommunication related cables in this country belong to them.

There is no true alternative, the only way to possibly escape a connection that WILL go through telkom no matter what - is 3G, and only a couple of services are able to do it without Telkom, bypassing them entirely - but then again , wireless internet thus has additional problems especially to those who live in valleys, mountainside or hillside( facing away ) - or in remote areas.

The oceanic line is a piece of shit, and Seacom break it 5 times a year. This is the line used by personal and private internet users, and WACS tend's to be getting the better and bigger clientele , thus greatly disadvantaging the general population, especially those to the west.

The "better" overland line, is "intended' for bussiness use only - for some reason. However when the seaboard retards screw up 5 times a year as usual - then the entire country is clogged on the remaining Overland International Line, while in my work I have seen this line to be reliable - the distance cannot compensate for quality in any way , regardless of the available current technology, you are still cramming every ISP in RSA on it.


So anyone setting such limits (below 300) are greatly aiding to the prevention of overseas drivers from joining and racing on such servers.

Lag only becomes unbearable above the 300MS range... so if such limit exists I would suggest raising it. In my experience lag for RSA gamers only jumps and holds 300-400MS and if they are downloading at the same time, it would be impossible for them to maintain a 200-250MS ping otherwise.


I guarantee this: When I was in the US for 6 years, I never had a connection to any EU servers lower than 200MS. Average was around 250.

And right now - I am in South Africa - were LFS, and all other "games" , never have a ping below 200MS.

If I'm in Japan, it's a bit worse.

200-250 MS is bearable, and don't cause major problems... and recent changes in LFS have actually helped to make the pain less obvious... and it can only get better...


On the note about ACE - that is far from excellent - that's the unreliable line with a bunch of repeaters that cant last more than "months" near the southern tip - and was under repair more than 3 times last year. http://www.seacom.mu only actually reported a couple of the events and remained "no comment" for the remainder of the issues on this area.

Quote from CodieMorgan :

Best possible connections from US - EU/UK will never be below 200 ping, from my experience the 6 years I spent in the US.

Great.. But the US is big. 80 ms to NY. 100 to Florida, Austin, Chicago, Dallas.

http://just-ping.com/index.php ... 812057&vhost=_&c=

Rest of your text I ignored a bit. Did you just rediscovered Internet btw? Bumping over a half year old threads.

Quote from CodieMorgan :

200-250 MS is bearable, and don't cause major problems...

YOU say that, I don't agree. I don't want to see that kind of crap on the servers. Why not? Because it gives me work. Seen and analysed crashes every day for the last three years on LFS. And you?