SFS Lag issues

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trevorchandler
Posts: 7
Joined: 13 Apr 2010, 17:42

SFS Lag issues

Postby trevorchandler » 21 Sep 2010, 15:10

Hello,

We have a game with character movement, animations and chat (as well as other features, but they are not hooked up or using SFS). Its really more of a chat world with a few extra features.

At any rate, on a LAN the game works fine, but when internet testing with our friends, even using interploation code, the characters look like they are pushing and pulling about every few seconds.

Additionally, the animations, that play and appear fine on LAN, start to get stuck when playing over internet.

We are really in a bind, as we missed our release, but all the other features in our app are ready and tested, but we cant figure out how to solve this lag/interpolation/syncing issue.

I hate to admit it, but out of desperation we are considering yanking SFS and going to Photon. It seems kind of crazy to be so close and pull out the entire networking piece. im sure there has to be some kind of solution on SFS to make this work. That being said, people on the unity forums have been equating SFS to 'use for small games' and Photon for large scale applications.

Is that true?
It seems a little hard to believe that SFS cant handle very large usage.
Im a pro licensed customer, so getting rid of it is losing time and what we spent on the licenses.

--> No disrespect meant here, I really want SFS to work, and I'm sure there has to be some kind of fix for this. Unfortunately, we are not sure what that is and are just trying everything we can think of in hopes that this issue will be fixed. I really liked SFS, and hope we can make it work.

Are there any experts out there willing to take a look at our network specific code? We would be happy to pay for some help, or official support to solve this. In fact, overjoyed, we are in real trouble here.

Thanks for reading,

Long live the SFS!
ThomasLund
Posts: 1297
Joined: 14 Mar 2008, 07:52
Location: Sweden

Postby ThomasLund » 21 Sep 2010, 15:18

Sorry to hear about your issues.

Interpolation problems have nothing to do with SFS being for small or large games. Those would also exist using photon (not dizzing photon - fine product).

I know several games out there that are _many_ users in realtime usage without issues.

Did you write your own interpolation/extrapolation code? Try to post what you got and see if someone can help.

Personally I dont have time to help - even paid. Swamped already.

/Thomas
ThomasLund
Posts: 1297
Joined: 14 Mar 2008, 07:52
Location: Sweden

Postby ThomasLund » 21 Sep 2010, 15:22

Ahhh - if you find that the networking part is killing you (and its not an interpolation code issue), talk to Marco about getting access to the SFS2X beta. It has a muuuch optimizing networking + UDP support for e.g. transform syncs. Everything photon has and more.

/Thomas
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Lapo
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Joined: 21 Mar 2005, 09:50
Location: Italy

Postby Lapo » 22 Sep 2010, 06:49

In all honesty you can move to any other solution but if your code and messaging frequency is not working no engine out there will fix the problematic code or coding approach.

Lag is a physical issue that any application server faces.

Additionally, the animations, that play and appear fine on LAN, start to get stuck when playing over internet.

This is quite normal. If you only test on the LAN you'll see little to no problems because lag time is negligible, usually <= 1ms.

Over the internet the lag goes up to 100ms on average and you should be testing your game also for higher lag such as 150-200ms at least.

If you expected to design the game on the LAN and launch it on the web without any testing/fixing phase then I have to tell you that is not the way it works. Please don't take as an offense, just that we see this happening frequently and we want to stress that there is a significant difference between the two and testing in the final environment is vital.

With a lag time of 50-200ms your ideal message rate will be around 10-15 messages per second. Are you within this range?
SmartFoxServer can help optimizing the packet size with the JSON and Raw protocols, are you using those?

Let us know...

p.s.
That being said, people on the unity forums have been equating SFS to 'use for small games' and Photon for large scale applications.

Is that true?

Quite funny :D Did you check our showcase? To name a few...Disney, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, Zynga are running some of the largest MMOs out there with SmartFoxServer. Dunno about Photon ;)
Lapo
--
gotoAndPlay()
...addicted to flash games
ThomasLund
Posts: 1297
Joined: 14 Mar 2008, 07:52
Location: Sweden

Postby ThomasLund » 28 Sep 2010, 05:44

Hey trevorchandler,

Just wanted to check up if you got around to solving your issues?

/T
trevorchandler
Posts: 7
Joined: 13 Apr 2010, 17:42

Just Checking in

Postby trevorchandler » 05 Oct 2010, 18:20

Everyone,

Out issue is indeed lack of good interpolation code.
Thomas helped us out over a skype chat, and we are wokring on putting in some new code to address out issues.

When we get it worked out, will post what we had to do.

Thanks everyone!

Special thanks to Thomas.

Trevor

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