Netcode Lag/Delay Test Reports

[Sabin]

Nocturnal: Yeah, it would be amazing if we could have honest matches without the input delay. As you can see, my fios does help a lot in keeping the connection smooth even tho there is a good amount of input delay, which allowed us to quickrise as much as we did  since the delay for the most part, was consistent. Damn it SNKP, fix the netcode

I'd like to test my connection with Art as well, I need to upgrade my modem but I recently bumped up my internet speed to the fastest COX cable has to offer.  My up is around 30Mbps down (which should improve as it's limited to the modem) and roughly 7-8up.

Yeah, sure I don't mind testing it out with you, just let me know. I'm thinking about doing at least one stream a week for 13 at this point. Hopefully I'll get better connection than Nocturnal. The best connection I had with a Cox user was w/ Latif, who has Cox, and we have amazingly playable matches in SSF4 over his connection (as you know, Viper/Sim are really chars that get affected hugely with any kind of delay, but it was honestly fine.) Maybe it might be bad for us since you're a little further to the WC than Latif is..and its 13 netcode..but yeah, i dont mind giving it a shot. Should hit me up on twitter if anything.

I hope that my experiences and videos get back to SNKP/Atlus in some way, since as far as I know I'm the only person on fiber optics that streams their matches in the US...so generally if the connections are "meh" for me its ogin to be a hell of a lot worse for everyone else

Ky0: Honestly, I expect the connections outside the US in some parts of Eurasia to be a lot better...it seems that this gam was designed from the ground up for high speed connections/fiber and it was built and tweaked around that...evidenced by the # of 4 bar matches that Poongko got on his stream in his home country =( Where are you from?

[GuamoKun]

I was playing against someone, they were from the US, I don;t know where, but we both had a two bar connection.

The first round was pretty bad and had the "synchronizing" message for a while before the round started. After round two, the synchronizing message didn't appear and the game ran really smoothly.

[IceWater]

Whelp finally got to play this online after waiting a year and a half since I first saw the arcade version advertisements and I haven't been this angry/disappointed in quite a while. The game itself is wonderful and is just as fun as I thought it would be which makes it all the worse that I can't play it against other people as it is meant to be played.

Like other people have said 3-4 bars is playable but I haven't experienced any matches without a big chunk of input lag, enough so that everything feels noticeably delayed and playing offline and online feel like totally different games. If you haven't picked this up yet then you should definitely be aware that the online portion still isn't what it needs to be, so if that's going to be a dealbreaker for you then you may want to pass on buying it. I don't see myself sticking with this for very long if nothing is done about it, and after getting 98/2002 UM too and having to deal with the same thing I doubt if I'm ever buying anything with snk put on it again after this.

[zeech]

I think the best testing is done this way:

- Get a pair of players who own several recent FGs, including well regarded netcode BB, and big popular game SF4AE.
- Try playing each FG together and compare the experience with KOF13.

This makes it easier to spot issues with your setup.  If all FGs work poorly for you, then KOF cant be expected to do any better.  Similarly, if SF4 and BB work better against the same opponent under the same conditions, then its a powerful argument for Atlus/SNK that KOF13 is not performing up to industry standards.

--------------------------

Personally, regarding a patch, I think the very first thing we should demand is an "advanced network info" mode.
You turn it on in the options, and when you do:

- You see a true ping value rather than the mobile phone bars.

- During the match, there is a banner on the top/bottom of the screen, that constantly displays connection information:
Average Ping so far.
Worst ping so far.
Packet loss stats.
Current Input Delay setting.
(if there are any "special events" that occur from the netcode, like resyncing or waiting for packets or whatever, then icons will appear in the banner to indicate when it is happening.)


This will provide much needed information to help give feedback, and also allow people to properly understand what is going on under the hood in the netcode.

[zeech]

This. Everyone listen to this guy it's basically what I was trying to say lol. Thank you, zeech.

Hahah, actually I was trying to argue against you too.  I think the possibility exists that rollback netcode could be tacked onto KOF13. Or at least they could have made the decision to go with rollback way back when we were begging for it for KOF12.  And we certainly shouldnt stop asking for it.

But its not as trivial as some people think it is, and SNK might have valid reasons for not being able to do it.

[Sabin]

zeech, ive already done this. i wouldnt be posting as much as i have otherwise. Furthermore I haven't seen anyone in the US with a solid connection like I have posting in this thread. I've tested it over a variety of games, most notably, MK9, KOF, SSF4, GGPO and umvc3. still needs work.

Also, what youre asking for is a complete overhaul of the netcode. i dont expect that to happen at all. netcode honestly has to be buit from the ground up, you cant just patch it to have ggpo style rollback, or lobbies or anything ike that, serious capital expenditure.

its better to ask for something that is realistic imo like asking for them to improve their input delay netcode to something close to SSF4AE, which is reasonable and not totally unrealistic

[zeech]

Yes, but anyone wanting to feedback to Atlus needs to do it too.  It's not enough just to say online isnt working well for them, because a host of other factors could be present.  Its more meaningful to report back that KOF isnt performing as well as other games.


As for rewriting their netcode, I certainly agree that it's not a realistic expectation.  But I think the difficulties are more economic/political than technical.  I'm still puzzled why SNK continually sticks with GSS when it has been proven to underperform in past titles. (at least in the west... I vaguely recall hearing something about it being tied to a special service in japan?)

Not to mention the fact that RollCaster shows us that a single person can implement a rollback netcode onto a game that doesnt even support online play, without access to the game source even.  Yes, the technical challenges are different with KOF13, but none of us can really say just how different it is.

Heck, given that GSS seems to be middleware of some kind, a fantasy scenario would be those guys getting their act together and writing a new version of their libraries with big improvements, and then all SNK has to do is get the new files and recompile hahah.  Fantasy indeed.


Like I said, the most practical and useful first thing to ask for, is for more data on the inner workings of the netcode to be displayed so we can understand whats going on.

[arstal]

I like KOF, but with netcode like this and an inability to consistently get offline play, I'm going to be dropping the game once Blazblue or Skullgirls hits, games I know will play well online.  

I can tolerate mediocre netcode,I could tolerate online Tekken, but this falls short of mediocre.  I've seen a few guys actively try to lag abuse also.

[shinefist]

Bets thing to do is sit in player match and play practise intill you get a challenger, at least you can quit if you dont want to play them. Ranked match you cannot do so that needs fixing.

Had some better connections where you had lag but small amount where you can just about play, but thats still rare to get consistantly & thats the main problem. Being only able to play certain players with a good connection is going to limit the players you can play.
What i find is that most players suck anyway as there is alot to learn in this game i'm one of em lol, that doesn't help either as being shite and having bad connection isn't a good combination to bring new players into the game.

Overall the game itself seems really good, but wheres the PATCH, at least they can do is message people saying they will fix necessary issues.

[jinxhand]

I like KOF, but with netcode like this and an inability to consistently get offline play, I'm going to be dropping the game once Blazblue or Skullgirls hits, games I know will play well online.  

I can tolerate mediocre netcode,I could tolerate online Tekken, but this falls short of mediocre.  I've seen a few guys actively try to lag abuse also.

Have you played either game yet??? If not, you can't be so sure of its performance... Everyone thought that 3SOE was gonna be great online... Well, it sure ain't HDR in terms of netcode performance...

As for BB, it was best during BBCT, and kinda declined as it progressed forward... That's been the view of quite a few players in the scene...

I'm honestly surprised you could bear Tekken 6 online. I have it for both psn and 360, and aside from the 2 frame delay, it worked better on 360 when it came to online matches. Either way, its still not saying much, because the netcode for that game barely passed the performance of T5DR Online...

You shouldn't just ditch something that fast... I'm pretty sure a patch of some sorts is in the works... The same thing happened to MK9, and the game is still getting mad play online...

Well, I haven't had many 1 bar matches. 2 bars, I've had quite a few, but even still, they all performed rather differently. I've had a bit of 3 bar matches, too... What kills me is I face people in Mexico with 2 bars, and it performs pretty good. I fight someone in the states that's not East Coast with 3 bars, and its meh sometimes. Only 2 games dropped on me so far, with no one at fault.

[StickyStaines]

I think the best testing is done this way:

- Get a pair of players who own several recent FGs, including well regarded netcode BB, and big popular game SF4AE.
- Try playing each FG together and compare the experience with KOF13.

This makes it easier to spot issues with your setup.  If all FGs work poorly for you, then KOF cant be expected to do any better.  Similarly, if SF4 and BB work better against the same opponent under the same conditions, then its a powerful argument for Atlus/SNK that KOF13 is not performing up to industry standards.

I play my friend in every fighting game that has come out. Ranging from SF4, 4 bar BB matches, SNK games to Tekken. When i play him i can definitely feel  something weird going on. My normals seems to come out ok but movement feels REALLY weird. Jumping will first start off really heavy when i first start playing it.

[Sabin]

Yes, but anyone wanting to feedback to Atlus needs to do it too.  It's not enough just to say online isnt working well for them, because a host of other factors could be present.  Its more meaningful to report back that KOF isnt performing as well as other games.

exactly, which is one of the main reasons that im streaming so much - so that there is some kind of record of the common problems. I mean if I seriously got contacted by someone at SNKP, yea best believe i would provide them with a good amount of data including traceroutes, etc. but again, japanese company (not the language barrier part, but i know jp devs are extremely stubborn)

As for rewriting their netcode, I certainly agree that it's not a realistic expectation.  But I think the difficulties are more economic/political than technical.  I'm still puzzled why SNK continually sticks with GSS when it has been proven to underperform in past titles. (at least in the west... I vaguely recall hearing something about it being tied to a special service in japan?)

hard to say..like i said earlier in this thread, all the devs (including NRS staff which i asked) all say they cannot use rollback style netcode since this generation of games maxes out the current gen consoles, leaving no CPU/GPU left for ggpo style rollback...Ponder on the other hand says its possible, just need strong netcode to be built from day 1 not the other way around.

i think its a combination of economic and politics in house as well as technical issues for sure, and they obviously did not hire any network engineers in the US..if they did they would have figured this out right away. (obviously im spectulating here, but seriously, did they do quality tests in the US?)

Not to mention the fact that RollCaster shows us that a single person can implement a rollback netcode onto a game that doesnt even support online play, without access to the game source even.  Yes, the technical challenges are different with KOF13, but none of us can really say just how different it is.

Heck, given that GSS seems to be middleware of some kind, a fantasy scenario would be those guys getting their act together and writing a new version of their libraries with big improvements, and then all SNK has to do is get the new files and recompile hahah.  Fantasy indeed.

Like I said, the most practical and useful first thing to ask for, is for more data on the inner workings of the netcode to be displayed so we can understand whats going on.

Rollcaster is amazing, but yea, thats either here nor there. Wouldnt be able to know unless SNKP showed someone the sourcecode which i really doubt they will.

The first step is though to get the community to rally behind a universal message that the netcode is subpar in the first place. Unfortunately, some ppl are in denial and I'm having trouble even doing that

Jinxhand: Mk9 is getting a lot of netplay in spite of the crappy netcode. Not b/c its patched properly. It just went from unplayable to "alright if you have a godlike connection its playable". It's still extrmely subpar. It sold 3 million copies which is why its getting play. You cant get 1 player to defend the netcode without getting laughed at...at least its a unified message. Not the case here.

[arstal]

I like KOF, but with netcode like this and an inability to consistently get offline play, I'm going to be dropping the game once Blazblue or Skullgirls hits, games I know will play well online.  

I can tolerate mediocre netcode,I could tolerate online Tekken, but this falls short of mediocre.  I've seen a few guys actively try to lag abuse also.

Have you played either game yet??? If not, you can't be so sure of its performance... Everyone thought that 3SOE was gonna be great online... Well, it sure ain't HDR in terms of netcode performance...

As for BB, it was best during BBCT, and kinda declined as it progressed forward... That's been the view of quite a few players in the scene...

I'm honestly surprised you could bear Tekken 6 online. I have it for both psn and 360, and aside from the 2 frame delay, it worked better on 360 when it came to online matches. Either way, its still not saying much, because the netcode for that game barely passed the performance of T5DR Online...

You shouldn't just ditch something that fast... I'm pretty sure a patch of some sorts is in the works... The same thing happened to MK9, and the game is still getting mad play online...

Well, I haven't had many 1 bar matches. 2 bars, I've had quite a few, but even still, they all performed rather differently. I've had a bit of 3 bar matches, too... What kills me is I face people in Mexico with 2 bars, and it performs pretty good. I fight someone in the states that's not East Coast with 3 bars, and its meh sometimes. Only 2 games dropped on me so far, with no one at fault.

Well, I'm not ditching the game until SC5 at a minimum, so that's two months.  

I refuse to play 1 or 2 bars period.  As for Tekken, it was bad for doing some things, but the things it was bad at, were the reasons I think VF is a better game, so I didn't mind it so much.  I know that will have good netcode.

next year has 3 games that are likely to have great netcode: Skullgirls, next BB, VF5FS.

Tried for half hour to get a match, got one, and the guy was a super lag abuser.  Really annoying, only could deal with him by shutting my game down to his level.  Then again I bet everything is lag abuse online to a degree.  Still, weaksauce.  I get more matches even playing Arcana Heart that are good, and that's much more poverty then KOF.

[Spooty Whiteboy]

After practicing offline for hours, playing online does feel like underwater.  At first, my actions were all a little off anyways, and I was dropping shit left-and-right.  Now that I have gotten a little better at the game, I can definitely feel the difference.

I hate to say the netcode is bad, because I want to be a positive person, but it definitely isn't good.

[nilcam]

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