Lag....?

[aznctguy00]

Ok, first of all, I've been playing 3rd strike for a LONG time now. I mainly played on the playstation2, although I was angry it didn't have online play. However, I still regularly play friends at my house and go to local arcades to play, although I am better with a controller.

Today, I decided to get a used Xbox since they are dirt cheap now, and got a free 2-month trial to Xbox Live. One of my friends gave me his copy of anniversary collection, since he doesn't really play it anymore. I still use the ps2 controller by using the magic box converter.

I was really excited to play, since I thought playing people online would be virtually lag-free if I play someone with a fast connection like me.

However, I've noticed that the lag is somewhat unbearable. Its pretty hard to get used to it. There is probably like a 0.5 second delay on average for me (I have to parry before the hit actually hits me). One of my mains is Yun, and doing Genei-Jin is almost impossible, the timing is completely different. Hit-confirms with Ken or other characters are also hard too. Offline, I really have no trouble doing these.

I've played about 70 matches so far, and it makes me sad that my characters lose alot of their potential online, especially since timing is a big part of the game.

Is it always like this? Is there any way to improve the lag, or do I just have to get used to this?

Any help is appreciated. Thanks.


Gamertag - Chai69

[SaBrE]

part of your lag is probably the converter. converters usually add a little lag. and i know sfac is extremely picky on converters with what works and what doesnt.

and the other thing, the "virtually lag free" you speak of for fighters, is an impossibility, you will get lag, no matter how "fast" your connection is. it takes time for that data to make a full round trip at the distance it needs to travel. can you get some good connections that has very minimal lag? yes. wil lyou have literally lagless play? never.

fighters are just too frame intensive to play online with current technology. plus its the broadband age, so that means households have numerous computers or whatnot hooked up to one connection in a house that can suck up the players bandwidth. plus torrents are all the rage, dumbasses will have that going while getting on live, killing the connection to all hell. or just downloading a lot of crap. the player could just be too far away from you. using wifi to play live dont help either.

theres so many factors, but even so, even under perfect connections, the gameplay itself, will never be perfect, years and years off from that happening. and by then, im sure fighters that are any good, will go the way of the dinosaur and it wont matter anymore...

[exodus]

i've had EXTREMELY CLOSE to offline-paced latency against some players (i know because the animations are almost indistinguishable from offline). but that is RARE. most of the ECers i play with, the delay is very minimal (it DOES take some adjusting to). the difference between me and most players, however, is that i have a 2mbps upstream, which DOES help. the downstream is not as important (i used to play at my girlfriend's 6mbps/786kbps cable, then switched back home when my fiber optics 5mbps/2mbps arrived, and the difference is absolutely beautiful.) since most providers have an ample amount. however, when you send packets to the live servers, it helps to have a faster upload.

[ramza]

wow, I really do not fucking GET IT. The inconsistency of my connections on Live are driving me crazy. It's gotten to the point where I can't even casually enjoy the game anymore, the animation starts to stutter before matches even start to begin(the "ready" part). Mind you I'm playing this game on a cable connection directly connected at 3 FUCKING AM, and it does this with three random people.

[MaybeMemories]

part of your lag is probably the converter. converters usually add a little lag. and i know sfac is extremely picky on converters with what works and what doesnt.

and the other thing, the "virtually lag free" you speak of for fighters, is an impossibility, you will get lag, no matter how "fast" your connection is. it takes time for that data to make a full round trip at the distance it needs to travel. can you get some good connections that has very minimal lag? yes. wil lyou have literally lagless play? never.

fighters are just too frame intensive to play online with current technology. plus its the broadband age, so that means households have numerous computers or whatnot hooked up to one connection in a house that can suck up the players bandwidth. plus torrents are all the rage, dumbasses will have that going while getting on live, killing the connection to all hell. or just downloading a lot of crap. the player could just be too far away from you. using wifi to play live dont help either.

theres so many factors, but even so, even under perfect connections, the gameplay itself, will never be perfect, years and years off from that happening. and by then, im sure fighters that are any good, will go the way of the dinosaur and it wont matter anymore...


WIFI doesnt effect lag [unless its a wifi isp provider], its all in how many hops your connection takes to send/recieve packet. aznctguy00 try some local gamers. MaKe sure your router is allowing the port/ip your xbox connects through. Your upstream as mentioned above is most important, i think mines 256 kb :s
im picking an xbox up today.....
turn off

also see here
http://www.shoryuken.com/forums/showthread.php?t=75139&page=4

[bassventura]

With fellow UK heads I get really good connections, so thats what I mainly stick too, sometimes with other European countries I get good connections too. But I never try and play Americans or Canadians the lag is just baaaaaaaaaaad. I also notice that after having a session on live, when I play offline I have trouble parrying fireballs from a full screen away (I end up parrying early), but after 5 games or so I adjust. SFAC is always gonna have lag issues so you gotta try and play peeps local to yourself for best connections. I also find that my ken sucks on line, I sweer you have to play him different but I find online Ryu does alot better probobly cause it's punishment rather then hit confirm.

Anyway dude try finding peeps close to you and see what kind of connections you get, you might get a pleasent surprise or not.

[Vildiil]

Hey Chai69 we played earlier the connection blew ass I couldent believe I did any genei jin shit in that. I gave up on Chun which is my main, for the past couple days I swear shit has been laggier than ever before. Good games though I know you got skills lag just makes the game weak =/

*edit also I stuck around cause believe or not my best connection of the night was with you :rofl:

[Captain Ryu]

I have optimum online with about 1 meg of upload and almost 5 megs of download. Shit is hot fiya. I still get lag though which is normal but it's minimal. Just make sure you dont have any shit downloading or anything.

Oh exodus I found another person I cant connect to besides you. I'm thinking it's a router prob for people on both ends. Me and deviljin were trying to join eachothers game with no luck but I can connect to people in the uk and shit with no probs.

Anyway I have a linksys wrt54g. I downloaded the xbox live compatable firmware, I hope it helps.

[Vildiil]

I have optimum online with about 1 meg of upload and almost 5 megs of download. Shit is hot fiya. I still get lag though which is normal but it's minimal. Just make sure you dont have any shit downloading or anything.

come play some cvs2 with that hot connection =/

[Captain Ryu]

come play some cvs2 with that hot connection =/

Yeah man i'm up for it but I have to get home from work first :tup: I will be home 3-4 pm.

[SaBrE]

WIFI doesnt effect lag [unless its a wifi isp provider], its all in how many hops your connection takes to send/recieve packet. aznctguy00 try some local gamers. MaKe sure your router is allowing the port/ip your xbox connects through. Your upstream as mentioned above is most important, i think mines 256 kb :s
im picking an xbox up today.....
turn off

also see here
http://www.shoryuken.com/forums/showthread.php?t=75139&page=4


wtf you talking about, wifi connection is not as solid as cat5 connection. interference from other sources (cordless phone, microwave, cell phone, thick walls, neighbors wifi shit thats also in range, etc...) that all can EASILY contribute to random spikes in the connection. theres so many more fators you have to worry about when you use a wifi adapter for live. which, imo, is not acceptible when there are ALREADY so many factors involved with lag even with a cat5 connection. why add to the problem? its silly.

[MaybeMemories]

wtf you talking about, wifi connection is not as solid as cat5 connection. interference from other sources (cordless phone, microwave, cell phone, thick walls, neighbors wifi shit thats also in range, etc...) that all can EASILY contribute to random spikes in the connection. theres so many more fators you have to worry about when you use a wifi adapter for live. which, imo, is not acceptible when there are ALREADY so many factors involved with lag even with a cat5 connection. why add to the problem? its silly.

eh lets take pc for instance.
if you have a wireless router and are connecting to that router with your pci/pcmcia card, let say for instance g standard, 58mb, your connection is not going to exceed that, so theres no worry about the speed loss and since the main connection is made via router which is connected straight to your phone line, your not losing any packets or anything, its the same connection just being passed wirelessly. You dont need wifi adapater for live, you can connect your xbox to the pc and use its wireless./

UNLESS it was a wireless connection where your router is a wireless one and recieve signals from an isp satellite then your bound to have a bad connection for gaming, thus the bad ping youd read commonly about.

cat/ethernet speed > wireless = BUT you're not recieving 100mb a second from your isp to choose one over the other.

my experience.

[SaBrE]

bleh, its not all about bandwidth. its about how well those packets can make a round trip without too much collision with other data. ive used wireless and cat 5 in my place. wifi bandwidth was just fine, but a major drop in packet stability showed, data has a harder time being sent wirelessly than thru a cat5, and that is the major determining factor for gaming, successful packets being sent and received without too much collision and/or loss. wifi seriously increases that just from within the house. is it by muchc, not really, depends on all those factors i said. but it isnt as good. and not everyones home is clean of interference. so for gaming, that is a huge problem, i dunno how anyone can dispute it

[Chachi]

Not sure if anything can be done with current technology, other than making improvments to the netcoding of games...

[MaybeMemories]

bleh, its not all about bandwidth. its about how well those packets can make a round trip without too much collision with other data. ive used wireless and cat 5 in my place. wifi bandwidth was just fine, but a major drop in packet stability showed, data has a harder time being sent wirelessly than thru a cat5, and that is the major determining factor for gaming, successful packets being sent and received without too much collision and/or loss. wifi seriously increases that just from within the house. is it by muchc, not really, depends on all those factors i said. but it isnt as good. and not everyones home is clean of interference. so for gaming, that is a huge problem, i dunno how anyone can dispute it

i guess, but if the frequency is at a different range then there wouldnt be much interfierence but obviously cat5 is much more solid and a better solution, but my routers downstairs and im gonna have to go wireless [connecting xbox to pc and using its wireless] hopefully it will work.
My connection is being upgraded to 3mb down and 348kb up, so major difference soon enough.

Also as said about netcoding of the games and maybe live would improve stability greatly. But i hope chankast goes all out and makes 3rd strike perfectly playable with net play and with the different video filters it would be amazing...

[MaybeMemories]

okay so i got a crossover cable and connected it to my pc and used its wireless, hub like. Not much lag at all, xbox controller is awful so got creamed, gonna have to wait for my magic box convertor.
Would like to see what my connection comes up for other gamers, i see alot of Goods, didnt see any "best". No one showed up worldwide though, some domestic, seemed a bit deserted.
Xbox+everything else = cost 270 euros. steep !

[aznctguy00]

Thanks for all the comments and suggestions guys. =)

I've played quite a bit of Xbox Live since I got it, and I have to say that it is addicting and frustrating at the same time. In fact, I've played hundreds of matches to actually get used to "the lag." It is great to have such a variety of people without going to an arcade or inviting people over.

However, my friends came over recently and decided to play some casual matches as we usually do. OMG, online play #@)*@%)s up my offline play so much that I didn't even know that I was playing so bad until I realized I lost multiple matches in a row. I was SUBCONSCIOUSLY parrying early, red parrys were impossible, and my Genei-Jin combos were totally off. Although in about 30 minutes I was back "in the groove," I hated that feeling of having to adjust back to offline play.

I have decided to stop playing 3rd strike on XboxLive, I don't want it messing around with my offline play that I have worked on so hard on developing =P. It has been fun playing with everyone online, from the people who only knew how to use fierce and roundhouse, to the xboxlive pros who raped my ass.

Maybe I'll see how SFII:hyper or CvS2 plays online since I'm not too competitive in those games. :wonder:

[ramza]

good thinking, if you have people to play with offline, I don't think XBL is even remotely worth it, even though there is obvious talent out there. If you're not able to do what you know you are capable of online and in addition it fucks with you offline, stopping XBL is a great idea. With my connection, it's generally NOT worth it, no matter who I play.

[MaybeMemories]

Thanks for all the comments and suggestions guys. =)

I've played quite a bit of Xbox Live since I got it, and I have to say that it is addicting and frustrating at the same time. In fact, I've played hundreds of matches to actually get used to "the lag." It is great to have such a variety of people without going to an arcade or inviting people over.

However, my friends came over recently and decided to play some casual matches as we usually do. OMG, online play #@)*@%)s up my offline play so much that I didn't even know that I was playing so bad until I realized I lost multiple matches in a row. I was SUBCONSCIOUSLY parrying early, red parrys were impossible, and my Genei-Jin combos were totally off. Although in about 30 minutes I was back "in the groove," I hated that feeling of having to adjust back to offline play.

I have decided to stop playing 3rd strike on XboxLive, I don't want it messing around with my offline play that I have worked on so hard on developing =P. It has been fun playing with everyone online, from the people who only knew how to use fierce and roundhouse, to the xboxlive pros who raped my ass.

Maybe I'll see how SFII:hyper or CvS2 plays online since I'm not too competitive in those games. :wonder:


only time i get lag is when people in my house are using the net,
are you playing domesticly and are you sure your routers not blocking any ports ?
XBOX uses UDP

[aznctguy00]

only time i get lag is when people in my house are using the net,
are you playing domesticly and are you sure your routers not blocking any ports ?
XBOX uses UDP

Yes, I was playing domestic and my routers have ports 88 and 3074 UDP ports forwarded.

From my experience, there is no way to get lagless play. No matter how good connections are, unless its LAN or something, I don't think its possible to have it anywhere close to offline play. :sad:

[SaBrE]

lag exists no matter what. you cant get rid of it. even if you lan up a fighter, it will still lag some. extremely minimal it may be, but its still there...

technology still has a long way to go. and by the time that technology comes, im sure our fighters will be long gone

[Arcas V]

lag exists no matter what. you cant get rid of it. even if you lan up a fighter, it will still lag some. extremely minimal it may be, but its still there...

technology still has a long way to go. and by the time that technology comes, im sure our fighters will be long gone
What are you talking about? Street Fighter gets more popular every day...... *still in denial*......... :shake:

[MaybeMemories]

Yes, I was playing domestic and my routers have ports 88 and 3074 UDP ports forwarded.

From my experience, there is no way to get lagless play. No matter how good connections are, unless its LAN or something, I don't think its possible to have it anywhere close to offline play. :sad:


did you try not forwarding anything and allowing everything ?
There will be lag, but sometimes un noticible lag, its never going to be perfect but when people say lag i think CS with a ping over 100 where sometimes frames skip/freeze.
small stutters are acceptable...

[3pyon]

From my experience, there is no way to get lagless play. No matter how good connections are, unless its LAN or something, I don't think its possible to have it anywhere close to offline play.

The lag was not noticed on my end with the game today.
GG to you man, I knew you had to be on here.

[aznctguy00]

The lag was not noticed on my end with the game today.
GG to you man, I knew you had to be on here.

GG to you as well. Sorry I couldn't talk since I was using a ps2 controller (via magicbox) so theres no place to put a headset or microphone.

did you try not forwarding anything and allowing everything ?
There will be lag, but sometimes un noticible lag, its never going to be perfect but when people say lag i think CS with a ping over 100 where sometimes frames skip/freeze.
small stutters are acceptable...

Forwarding ports 88 and 3074 slightly helped the lag alittle bit, but what do u mean by allowing everything? Using DMZ host? I really don't think it would make much of a difference though, and allowing every port through is kind of dangerous. Does it actually help?



Although I've had better connections than I used to have when I first started playing on XboxLive, the lag is still hard to adapt to after playing offline. However, I can still learn alot from players and its really addicting, even though it still annoys me how I have to press everything earlier than usual.

Have any of you guys actually had a good enough connection so you parry when the hit actually "hits"?

[galfordo]

I've been getting an increasing amount of lag lately, and I've noticed that there are quite a few people on XBL that lag intentionally. Beat them a round or two, and the lag suddenly becomes unbearable .... hmmmm.

The bottom line is that online sucks, but it's better than nothing.

[TheStreetman]

That is true my friend it is better then nothing. Dont get me wrong I will take offline over online anyday.... but the fact is this no matter what goes lag is apart of the data transition process, its going to happen weither u get new convertors, a better router, or like me have your broadband connect straight to the xbox. Its going to happen because other machines are involved. And distance will always be a factor... period.

But its street fighter regardless of how much we hate the lag we love the game... so it will still get mad play until they either bring back the arcades or the come with a better internet.