Choke & Maybe FPS

[Killa]

Ok here's the deal: I start my computer ready to play DoD:S. When I go onto donner, my choke goes to like 30-60 and FPS to 9-10 in intense fighting such as a lot of gunfire or a lot of grenades exploding. My FPS went to like 5 at one point. Before, all this never happened. I had the game running very smooth with very little spikes of high choke or lag. So I need your guys' help so I don't have to die as much because my gun won't move as fast to my target.

Thanks,
Killa

 

[GreenMonkey]

Well, Choke can be a little more complicated than interpreting ping and stuff, but basically a common reason for it to be high is because your computer and the server computer are not able to compute the game data at the same speed and one is not ready for the next piece of information. Often Packet loss.

Changing your rate is a common fix to a high choke, try going intot he console and change your rate to somehting like 15,000. type "rate 15000" - for better accuracy go here and type informatin in from your computer to find th ebest rate for you. To find the information they need - type in console "net_graph 3" and type it in this website http://dodnetwork.com/rates.htm

Your FPS problem may be independant of this, but may also be tied together.

 

[Glock_Coma [JONES]]

Rates are enforced on our server... changing them won't do anything to his choke. I really wish it wasn't, rates should actually be higher (cl_cmdrate 101, cl_updaterate 101, rate 75000).

If your fps is dropping, that's a clear indication to me that it isn't a problem with the server, but rather your computer. To really diagnose the issues you're having, I'm going to need more details about your machine and your internet connection (processor, ram, motherboard chipset, graphics card...etc). You might also want to take a look at what you have running in the background. When I play... I quit everything else.

 

[GreenMonkey]

changing the rate to 15,000 instea dof 75,000 will help. I knwo someone who had done this on the kalt server and fixed his problem. As i was trying to say, the FPS problem is probably something else.

 

[Glock_Coma [JONES]]

As I've said earlier, the rates on our server are enforced and overwrite the user settings.

Even if you were able to change your rates, you would normally only want to increase the rate. Decreasing your rates is a terrible idea and is an indicator that you need new hardware. If your computer can't handle the rate... you need to lower your graphics settings and increase the amount of cpu time your game has. Decreasing your rates significantly will decrease your hit registration by a very wide margin.

If you want... I can describe what your rates actually mean... but I'd prefer not to write an essay right now ;p

 

[Killa]

Well for now I'm good because I've fixed some of my problems; edited my startup etc.

 

[GreenMonkey]

Glock, I am not trying to pick a fight with you. I was on OUR kalt server along with plenty of EG and EGO players who were telling this perosn over hl teamspeak to change is rate to 15,000 and he did and it lowered his choke from 40 to 6.

Lowering the rate, although may mean your hardware isnt the best, doesnt mena you have to buy new hardwar,e not everyone is rich. Plus is lowering your rate makes you able ot play then there is absolutely nothing wrong with being able to play better.

 

[daMduck]

I think we can lower our rates on the servers but we can not exceed 25000. If you try and set them higher than that in console it will accept it and you think your at a higher rate but if check again your back to default 25000. I could be wrong though.

 

[Glock_Coma [JONES]]

You're right you can lower, but not raise past. My bad. You still will not want to lower your rates. I'll show you what the rate means now.

Your rate is just the frequency at which your computer communicates with the server. So lets take a look at two people with two different rates.

__________(rate 25,000)
_ _ _ _ _ (rate 12,500)

So what does this mean. It means the upper person is communicating twice as often as the person below. However, as we all know, there can occasionally be problems communicating... which results in choke. The following is a representation of choke:

_ __ __ __(rate 25,000)
_ _ _ _ _ (rate 12,500)

So what does this mean? Lets give a scenario where, the + represents a shot

+++  ++ ++
_ __ __ __(rate 25,000)
_ _ _ _ _ (rate 12,500)

So what happened here... what % of shots got registered by the server?

Well lets take a look at the user with higher rates... but with choke we find that only 1 of his shots didn't register (the first shot).

Now take a look at the user with 10,000 but no choke...here... 3 of the shots didn't register on time.

So what does this mean? It means the 25,000 rate user has a much greater advantage over the 12,500 rate user... because he's sending his packets in before the 10,000 rate user typically... and even if he misses that packet... it attempts again twice as fast as the 12,500 rate user. This can mean a world of difference. This is why lowering rates is highly unrecommended... although choke is lowered... even with choke... a person of higher rates has a greater % of success in sending packets than one with lower rates but no choke.


In terms of ping, the rates which are most effective at lowering ping visibly are cl_cmdrate and the cl_updaterate settings. These two variables are horribly misundestood... and typically people with poor ping will lower cl_cmdrate and cl_updaterate and go wow... my ping just dropped proportionally to the amount I just lowered it.

Here however, they don't realize they just really screwed over game play for them and others on the server. By lowering your rates to such a low level... you're basically making it difficult for others to hit you... but much harder for you to hit others... since their data comes in before your data does typically.

In league competition, this is known as rate hacking and is illegal (cl_cmdrate/cl_updaterate are forced at 60 and rate is forced at 75000 i believe).

Personally I'm an advocate... of pushing rates as high as possible on a server. The cost is much greater though, because a server at higher rates requires more processing power and data throughput... however... the effect on the game is strongly noticeable.

One of the biggest complaints about dod:s is hit registration. The problem isn't with dod:s... the problem is with the servers. Dods servers are more intensive than 1.3 servers... so ithey are much more expensive to operate. Thus, in order to attract customers with price, a lot of hosting servers are putting out servers with subpar rates... and even when they do allow higher rates... the server hardware/connection just can't keep up.

To really play dods the way it's meant to be play... I strongly recommend servers with max cl_updaterate 100 and cl_cmdrate 100 and rate 75000. Yes, they cost 3x more... but problems with hit registration completely disappear.

Have you ever fired a bullet at point blank range that you could swear was on the mark... yet for some reason it misses? Next time that happens... you should know... it may not really have been your fault... but rather the server's.

 

[daMduck]

Nice work Glock and with that being said maybe we can convince council to drop some servers to upgrade our more popular ones. Click the advertisements.

 

[GreenMonkey]

I can agree with that, and also apreciate you taking the time to post it. I will in the future point people to this thread.

However, that being said you are missing a little bit of what you might call 'personal preference'. Although your arguents are demonstrated and good - there is somehting to be said for opinions. Using the same two examples as above - 25,000 and 12,500 - consitter that even with the higher rates and small amount of choke seen at 25,000 although you have shown that 'hits' COULD be registered more often, i point out two things:
#1 - having choke is disorienting to humans, you expect to be past the box NO WAIT now your behind it again. Even though hits have a better chance of registering you as a human might not have the same reaction time to make the shots in the first place. This alone would make me want to go with the lower rate.
#2 - The scenario can be more even - or exactly equal depending on how you handle the choke in your example. Had you spaced the dashes or shots differently things would be altered alot. Take even for example that you spray and pray, and that there was no pauses in your + signs. Then the person with higher rates misses 3 shots, and he with lower rates misses 4 shots.


Take into account the way in which you chose to space the dashes and playing style as well as with the disorientation from choke / packet loss and i see this topic as very dependant on personal opinion.

 

[Glock_Coma [JONES]]

As for # 2 - It's a lot more complex than what I've explained. I could go even deeper on this ;p

As for #1 I can agree with that. ;p

 

[GreenMonkey]

yay glock doesnt hate me.

 

[GreenMonkey]

Everytime I re read this I seriousely thing that Glock and I should team up to make one continuous post and sticky it because since this post was created I feel as if 10 threads have been asking about choke and rates,.... or ping and lagg.