Resolved "Ping 0" issue in multiplayer, invisible cars

Discussion in 'Community Support' started by Robert Wiesenmüller, Nov 3, 2015.

  1. Robert Wiesenmüller

    Robert Wiesenmüller Esports / Events

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    Ok, I am sure there is a thread about it in some form, but I have not found one where it is really described in detail and I am not sure if S3 know how big of a problem this is. I am talking about the "ping 0" lag issue in online multiplayer races. I try to describe it as best as I can.

    Randomly, during any session, sometimes some drivers have a "lagspike".
    For the user, everything looks normal, except that all other cars show up with ping 0 or 1 from that moment onwards (but they move like normal).

    For all other drivers however, the affected user's car becomes either completely invisible or warps around the track. For the remaining duration of the race, the problem does not fix itself (regardless of if the actual connection of the user is good). That means, a laggy driver will probably not notice he is lagging, not disconnect and cause havoc.

    On the lap where this lag starts, the game always registers that the affected driver drove a crazy fast laptime like 1 second faster than normal pace, but the affected driver won't feel that he jumps forward on track or anything like that.

    The weird thing is, the drivers stay on teamspeak and talk normal with no loss, while in the game they start to lag. I drove hundreds of races on Race07 and rFactor and never had a similar issue and the same can be said about several other drivers that I race with, that have had the same problem. I play Counterstrike with no issues, my internet connection actually works... And it is the same for a lot of people in the races.

    I tried to look for similarities when it happens, and it seemed to be particularly often when
    - the user was from far away (Brazil, Canada) when the server was located in Europe
    - the user was on wireless
    - the user has a non highspeed internet connection (I have around 6 Mbit/s btw)

    I drove in Touringproseries TCOne, VTM as well as a couple of races in Virtual Racing's VRTM92 and in the official DTM 2015 league, in total probably around 40 league races on R3E. This problem did not only happen to me. This problem happened for various drivers in each of these leagues, and it happened at least every 2nd race to somebody. Sometimes it was several drivers that were affected by it. It is a massive problem for online racing.

    I hope drivers that have experienced the same can confirm this here, and S3 can take a look on this issue.
     
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  2. Adaildo Vieira

    Adaildo Vieira Member

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    Playing here from Brazil, it happened some times and most often in the first two laps, that is even more critical so it strongly affects the race! Our team had a victory in a race where the driver simply wasn't appearing and the 2nd place just didn't push the pace being afraid of an accident. Another time I was at 2nd place and have been suddenly touched by the car in 7th, because he warped in the track with ping 0! And the last one, I was leading a race and my car got frozen in a straight, the cars just passed through, and 4 seconds later I became 4th with no lag!
     
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  3. Andre Rajkovic

    Andre Rajkovic Well-Known Member

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    Same here (Austria) ... the last 2 races in our league (WTCC + DTM92) drivers reported me as invisible or lagging/jumping around. My cockpit view was perfect, no lag, no issues. My connection is rock stable on a 50mbit with perfect ping times. First I thought maby my cockpit stream could be a reason for the lags (but its running on a 2nd machine, incl cam!)

    Result: Nope, without stream up (empty 50mbit/10mbit connection) I had the same issue in another race. Restarting R3E and reconnecting to the server solves the problem, but this is no option when the race starts :)
     
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  4. Öberg

    Öberg Well-Known Member

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    I can confirm this bug, it has happened to me countless times, most often on dedicated servers that are far away from me (150+ ping, im in Sweden with stable 10/1 mbit ADSL)
    Im fairly certain this bug first appeared with the release of the dedicated servers, so its been around for a while now.
    I know nothing about networking nor coding but could it be some sort of sync issue between the client and server?
    It seems almost as if the synchronization is broken and once that happens the client-server cannot re-establish the sync for some reason, despite the client not lagging anymore.

    I could be wrong about this but it seems these lag issues are more frequent on dedicated servers than on S3's own hosted servers.
    If S3 servers is running on the same dedicated server software then the only difference should be the host network line stability right?

    I have also noticed and agree that it seems to be more frequent amongst users with unstable internet connections (long distance, wireless, packetloss, slow speed etc)

    I have also come to the same conclusion as you have;
    The only way to identify that you (player client) is lagging and is invisible to others is when all your opponents have 0 ping in p2p range.
    Everytime opponents have 0 ping its turned out I was invisible to them, so it seems thats the only "sign" you will get that youre lagging.

    Please try to figure this out S3, its a big issue thats been going on for quite a while now, completely ruining MP and League races.
     
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    Last edited: Nov 3, 2015
  5. jayblue

    jayblue Active Member

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    I had this issue tonight in a league race. My car was invisible to all other racers yet i could see them just fine. Weirdly my car still registered in the timing display on other users screens and also appeared on their track maps.
     
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  6. shardshunt

    shardshunt Well-Known Member

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    can you suppy the two logs found here Documents\My Games\SimBin\RaceRoom Racing Experience\UserData\Log
    so i can pass them on to hannes. thanks

    they will be time stamped with the year month day and time of the session
     
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  7. jayblue

    jayblue Active Member

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    I hope these are the ones you need.
     

    Attached Files:

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  8. Hannes Wallstedt

    Hannes Wallstedt Well-Known Member

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    Yes, the Game.log had some interesting stuff in it. It continuously refers to a large time difference between your client and the server.

    All of you who are experiencing this issue, are you using any kind of overclocking or tuning software on your computers? While this error can be caused by an unstable connection to the servers, this time difference has been known (in Race 07) to sometimes be caused by this kind of software.
    If you do have any such software, could you please disable it and try to play for some time to see if the issues continue?
     
  9. Adaildo Vieira

    Adaildo Vieira Member

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    Hannes, in my case I don't use any kind of tuning softwares (at least I don't know if I do). Could you list some names of these softwares? So I can see if some of them are enabled here.... Tks!
     
  10. Hannes Wallstedt

    Hannes Wallstedt Well-Known Member

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    Certain PC manufacturers like to include them in those standard software packages you tend to get with new computers (especially laptops). I think @Sonat Ozturk has a better knowledge about which ones exist, but there's stuff like AVG PC Tune Up for example.

    Please note that we've now had reports from at least one player without this kind of software, so it might very well be something else. However, the more confirmation we get the better.
     
  11. jayblue

    jayblue Active Member

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    My computer is not overclocked, everything is running at stock speeds. Also may be useful to note that my son was in the same race and he had a solid connection throughout. Both of our computers are wired connection (not wireless) and i have a good quality fast broadband connection too. Before my car went invisible there were cars which were lagging on my screen but when i checked on my sons screen they were fine.

    Both of our PC's run the same CPU and ram, version of windows and identical anti virus packages. Only real difference is i run a more powerful graphics card.
     
  12. Sebbl

    Sebbl Member

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    I'm having this problem for months now and provided several logfiles in an different thread I opened a while back regarding this topic.

    No overclocked PC and no issues at all in other games.
     
  13. Sean Kenney

    Sean Kenney Well-Known Member

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    Even if not overclocked, but having tuning software, would that make a difference?

    I have Asrocks Tuning program on my cpu, but I don't overclock anything. I use it to shut all my leds off.
     
  14. m.bohlken

    m.bohlken Well-Known Member

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    normally it shouldn't have an effect on the timing - but who knows... you can give it a try and close the tool before starting R3E.

    @jayblue - maybe you can check if there are running Programms and Background-Processes that are running on your system but not on the system of your son. What Graphic-Card do you have and what does your son have?
     
  15. Sascha Brandenburg

    Sascha Brandenburg Well-Known Member

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    Another thing which maybe would be interesting is which AntiVir program do u use ? And which settings u gave them ? Sometimes AntiVir programs can have a really weird handling with games.
     
  16. Von Rygaard

    Von Rygaard New Member

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    Hi all
    I have same exspirrens, but can say, my friend and me play in same race, he live about 600 M from me, and we have a big internet conent. Even that, he or I, disserpere from screen, so its not about distance.
    sorry for my english
     
  17. jayblue

    jayblue Active Member

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    I will check but i keep my system pretty light on background programs.

    He has a HD6950 2GB in his computer and i have a R9 280X 3GB in mine.
     
  18. shardshunt

    shardshunt Well-Known Member

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    I use avg free. which is about as light as you can get.
     
  19. Sean Kenney

    Sean Kenney Well-Known Member

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  20. Andre Rajkovic

    Andre Rajkovic Well-Known Member

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    Possible that apps running in the background reading the API could cause a timing problem? I have 3 API apps running in the background. CrewChief, Pro Racing Dashboard and my own app writing status values to a textfile.

    Maby those apps cause threading issues causing the timing problem ?