At work I play Nexuiz on my work-issued (and docked, which may be important) laptop, running XP Pro (with SP2/current patches, current stable drivers). Laptop is a Core 2 T7400 @ 2.16 GHz, 2 GB RAM, ATI Mobility Radeon x1600 w/ 256MB RAM. Soundcard is one of those sorry on-board SoundMAX chipsets. Mouse and keyboard are on PS/2 from docking station.

The problem is input-lag. I am using the nexuiz.exe, not nexuiz-sdl.exe, because the -sdl appears to use directinput (which sounds right), which doesn't recognize the scroll wheel on my mouse (it does recognize the wheel button, though). I've confirmed directinput is the issue there, since starting nexuiz.exe with -dinput also results in no scroll wheel.

As I said, the issue is input-lag, or dropped input, or both. I am not sure how to diagnose it properly. Some input does get dropped entirely. Some input registers after some non-fixed time. And some input seems to get interpreted incorrectly, though that could just be a combination of the other symptoms.

I'll happily provide any information I can and try suggestions to resolve the problem. However, this is only going to happen during my work hours, since I am loathe to even touch the laptop except when I am being paid (ironic, I know).

And just so I'm perfectly clear about how mysterious this game config stuff is to me, I have no idea what dinput or any of the rest of this stuff is about!

My english may not be enough to exactly understand what your problem is. But I'm quite experienced with the difference between playing in my company and playing at home.

I reccommend enableing the Netgraph by entering the console and command "shownetgraph 1" and look what's happening there.

Urmel wrote:My english may not be enough to exactly understand what your problem is. But I'm quite experienced with the difference between playing in my company and playing at home.

I reccommend enableing the Netgraph by entering the console and command "shownetgraph 1" and look what's happening there.

Thank you much, Urmel. I'll turn on the netgraph tomorrow night at work and let you know the results.

heh, playing at work...

yeah your corporate firewall/filter is probably dropping a lot of packets...

Doesn't sound like a net issue, more of a local, hardware issue.

Dave wrote:Doesn't sound like a net issue, more of a local, hardware issue.

Netgraph didn't look bad. A little spiky at times (the comb effect) but not *that* spiky. No red.

Sauerbraten doesn't exhibit any of this weird behavior - it's fast as hell, stable and responsive to input (and I mean with all eye-candy ON versus Nexuiz with zero eye-candy and everything reduced to junk). Tonight I'm going to give that game a shot under Linux on my home box - running an Nvidia card versus the laptop's ATI. I love Nexuiz but these problems are a killjoy. And someone just made a comment about Nex being graphics intensive, but FFS I've run UT04 and HL2, *those* are graphics intensive *and* responsive.

Generally you can't compare Nexuiz with HL or UT, as those are commercial games that mainly use DirectX, while Nexuiz is relying on openGL. Nevertheless your hardware should be really strong enough (even though ATI sucks there in comparison to equally powered Nvidia cards).

Could you enable the fps display and tell us about the framerates?

Another thing: You haven't tried Nexuiz on other computers yet? Well, have you ever thought about a certain difference that Nexuiz has in movement physics?

Urmel wrote:Generally you can't compare Nexuiz with HL or UT, as those are commercial games that mainly use DirectX, while Nexuiz is relying on openGL.

I understand the difference between DirectX and OpenGL rendering.

Urmel wrote:Could you enable the fps display and tell us about the framerates?

Framerate average on the laptop is, IIRC, 81 average, with all the effects off.

Urmel wrote:Another thing: You haven't tried Nexuiz on other computers yet?

Actually I run it from this home box as well. I've got another thread about that. 0_o Generally my experience has been, with both boxes, weird/dropped input that just doesn't compute.

Urmel wrote:Well, have you ever thought about a certain difference that Nexuiz has in movement physics?

Yes. I'm pretty savvy on the physics differences among a number of FPSs. Since I can't go romp around, FPSs are my funktionlust.

I just gave Sauerbraten (OpenGL) a go on the home box (Linux), and it's responsive and sane like it was on the Windows work laptop. I'm not trying to compare them as games (Sauerbraten's kinda neat, but they don't even have a CTF mode yet), just the engine/client bit. Oh, and I have run the OpenGL version of UT04 on the home box, and that ran sanely too.

Home box thread is here.

nexbender wrote:ATI Mobility Radeon x1600 w/ 256MB RAM

No you don't!

Now that leileilol posted this (which may not really help, as you don't seem to have Linux on that laptop): this video chip should be one with Hyper Memory (or whatever ATI calls that), which is a hybrid between small "native" video RAM and shared memory. Anyway, shouldn't be a problem.

Still I'm doing hard in understanding which problems exactly you're suffering. If I were you, I'd enable auto recording to take a look if those "lags" are still recognizable there. If yes, I'd take a look at the demo on another box, and maybe you could upload that demo for me/us so we can have a look ourselves.

Urmel wrote:Now that leileilol posted this (which may not really help, as you don't seem to have Linux on that laptop): this video chip should be one with Hyper Memory (or whatever ATI calls that), which is a hybrid between small "native" video RAM and shared memory. Anyway, shouldn't be a problem.

Still I'm doing hard in understanding which problems exactly you're suffering. If I were you, I'd enable auto recording to take a look if those "lags" are still recognizable there. If yes, I'd take a look at the demo on another box, and maybe you could upload that demo for me/us so we can have a look ourselves.

The ATI chipset on the work laptop does seem to have 256 megs of its own memory, at least according to the info I get from its BIOS*. And I dual-boot it with Linux, have fglrx for that - it sucks donkey turds but hey, it's ATI, no surprise.

OK, I'll record myself tonight at work. If I have shownetgraph and showfps 1 will those end up in the recorded file? And how will you tell when I pushy the little button and the game responded, didn't respond, responded incorrectly or late, or just went "bork bork bork" like the swedish chef? I suppose I could simultaneously record the keyboard clatter and colorful language.

*Dump from ATI Tray Tools:

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the netgraph won't be recorded, nor the fps. Doesnt matter. I'm frequently lagging while the netgraph is absolutely quiet and 0 ping. I don't think one can rely at all on lagometer and netgraph. Heh, and of course it will be you who will tell us at which time of the demo you see lags (if they show up), i.e. by typing a chat message.

I'd just like to know if some lags will be recorded, will show up when playing in slowmotion. What would definately be saved is packet loss when playing online.

Another thing is, do the lags occur both on local and online matches? Would be kinda interesting to know.

And forget about the VGA. I really dont think it's the problem. 80fps is quite okay for an X1600.

Urmel wrote:the netgraph won't be recorded, nor the fps. Doesnt matter. I'm frequently lagging while the netgraph is absolutely quiet and 0 ping. I don't think one can rely at all on lagometer and netgraph. Heh, and of course it will be you who will tell us at which time of the demo you see lags (if they show up), i.e. by typing a chat message.

Well I forgot to type messages when I lagged, but I think it's pretty obvious from the demo. Anytime you see me land someplace stupid or obviously not where I meant, or fall off of something, or look down then back up for no apparent reason (weapon wouldn't switch to laser for jump), or dot someone with the nex only to have the shot appear after I'd already fired it and begun to peel out, or...you get the idea...those are lag. There's an unintentional rocket jump on the back top of enemy's tower where I had already switched to laser but it failed to register...classic. There are a dozen or so laser jumps that weren't pointed the right way, for no apparent reason (mostly lasering to increase speed at wrong angle). And a few funnies where I couldn't switch to shotgun, gave up and pinged an enemy with laser. The top of the tower rocket jumps were never at the angle I moved to. The two mortar jumps were intentional and purely for my own amusement.

Urmel wrote:I'd just like to know if some lags will be recorded, will show up when playing in slowmotion. What would definately be saved is packet loss when playing online.

Another thing is, do the lags occur both on local and online matches? Would be kinda interesting to know.

I don't know how to guage packet loss.

Lagging does occur on local matches as well, no significant difference I can feel, i.e., spend as often compensating for weirdness.

Demo is here.

To a lesser degree I get the same stupid behavior on my big home box. To reassure myself I'm not crazy I ran Sauerbraten, which is a "thick" client where damn-near everything except position happens on local box. I picked a busy DM pub, got on and started cleaning up. After I passed the admin's score (I started late), he kicked me.

nexbender wrote:I don't know how to guage packet loss.

I just press TAB and take a look at the scoreboard. No big deal

nexbender wrote:To reassure myself I'm not crazy I ran Sauerbraten, which is a "thick" client where damn-near everything except position happens on local box. I picked a busy DM pub, got on and started cleaning up. After I passed the admin's score (I started late), he kicked me.

lol, I hope we'll manage your probs soon and meet you on the nexuiz servers

Watched the demo. The lags are obvious on my box as well. AND it's quite familiar to me, it exactly looks like the lags I suffer when playing at work (going online over M$ exchange server). Or when I play at home while my daughter is watching vid streams or something, and I forgot to enable bandwidth control.

What makes me wonder is when you're saying it's no difference if you're playing online or local, at work or at home. Wow. Now you got me. I have no idea why this happens. Dammit!

Ever tried to mess around with cl_movement ?

@nexbender: try "gl_finish 1", that might help in case broken input drivers are causing your problem...

KadaverJack wrote:@nexbender: try "gl_finish 1", that might help in case broken input drivers are causing your problem...

I had already tried setting gl_finish and cl_movement to non-zero values - both independently and together - and they only _increased_ lag. I'm not just talking on the laptop (ATI on XP), I mean the beefy home box (Nvidia on Linux) as well. I've been through Xeno's list of variables and read through other threads and I'm fairly certain I've exhausted the possibilities.

OK, I'd like to enter a minor correction (I'm thinking I should combine the two threads): I can almost eliminate all input lag on the _home_ box (not the laptop) by disabling absolutely everything and playing offline on a map that is not poorly implemented. Other than that, when I clicky the button, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, and sometimes (like just now) in the middle of match, out of sheer frustration, I just drop out of the game because I don't want to ruin other ppls good time by complaining. It is not my style. In fact it's not my style, generally, to _care_ about any one particular game, but this game is decent and, more importantly, the players are very decent and generally adult, which is so refreshing, really, I'm not sure if I'd care we were stuck playing pong (gross exaggeration, btw).

Urmel: I do play online. I'm usually on in the middle of the night (in California).

What boggles is that few other people have mentioned these problems and that a number of skilled players online do not appear to have these problems: they are able to get up to speed correctly (run, jump, jump again and hold down, land-jump, jump again and hold down, rinse, repeat), rely on hit-scan, and combo jump/laser-jump at the right time/angle. Since I can't, I'm basically stuck playing ketchup and close-quarters rocket/mortar whore, which allows me to be somewhat useful on a few CTF maps, but blah blah blah. Blah blah blah. Fffffffflllllpppppppppttttttttttt. Etc.

EDIT: Out of sheer masochism I'm going to get back online with the HOME BOX and demo a match on Galt's no-hook CTF server. I'll post it as a link in both this thread and the home-box thread.

OK, just so I'm perfectly clear, I have completely given up on Nexuiz being playable on my laptop. I may still do it occasionally while at work, but um, yeah, either the network code is complete garbage or something in the engine is horked the hell up.

What am I basing this on? Simple f'ing logic. When I'm at home (home box), I kick ass, even though Nexuiz on my home box is still glitchy and input lags. When I'm at work, I get my ass kicked, most times without even seeing what was going on.

If I sound worked up, it's because I really like this game and, more importantly, the vast majority of its players have good will and share a spirit of camaraderie and teamwork. This is the _only_ FPS I've ever played which I advocate to other people (and they've become regulars), the _only_ FPS where I've taken time to instruct newbies.

Cripes, maybe I need more work to do, hmm, Urmel?

EDIT: If you're a dev and you saw this and it pissed you off, good! I hope it pisses you off so much you contact me to beta test!

Err, nah, I'm no dev at all, just someone with great experience how bad it can hurt to play over a company's internet connection. Additionally my job comes with a bunch of PC toys to test, and I'm always pissed off with sucking hardware

If you want to talk to the developers, you better connect to their irc channel which is #alientrap on anynet.org

Urmel wrote:Err, nah, I'm no dev at all, just someone with great experience how bad it can hurt to play over a company's internet connection. Additionally my job comes with a bunch of PC toys to test, and I'm always pissed off with sucking hardware

If you want to talk to the developers, you better connect to their irc channel which is #alientrap on anynet.org

I know, but I really don't care that much now. For the gang who usually see me on, they know if I'm playing from home or work. Home = I rock. Work = totally useless. Hell, I can't even get up to speed or maintain speed properly, which is probably the single most annoying thing. I'm just going to blame it on Windows and leave it be. I'll play from home and that's it. Besides, I'm probably moving to a new job soon, where I will actually have to work occasionally, so the laptop will go bye-bye, which is fine. I hate this piece of crap.

This might sound stupid but try a different version of linux? I mean maybe its arch's implementation of Xwindow or something similar. Otherwise I am also out of ideas.

BB (still borrowing summers acct for another day)

Summer Willow wrote:This might sound stupid but try a different version of linux? I mean maybe its arch's implementation of Xwindow or something similar. Otherwise I am also out of ideas.

BB (still borrowing summers acct for another day)

BB, the laptop runs Windows XP, not Xorg on top of Archlinux - that's the home box, which Nexuiz has also been glitchy on (last night I kept losing jumps so I couldn't get up to speed and sometimes couldn't jump at all), but nowhere near as bad as the laptop. Xorg is Xorg, be it on Arch, Gentoo, Fedora, Debian, etc. So, yeah, I'm blaming Nexuiz probs on laptop on Microsoft, and I'm blaming Nexuiz probs on home box on mystery meat, cuz all the other OpenGL games I've run on it are fine.

And that's the last I'll post on this. Die, thread, die!

I lied, I'm resurrecting this thread. Not three feet from me I have a couple decent desktop boxes I could game on, but I use them for all my monitoring (remember, this is at work). So I'm stuck with this stupid laptop. And the input lags so freaking bad even _offline_ I can't screw around with bots. I pressy the jumpy button...and a half second or more later I jump. I switch to laser...and a half second or more later I've got my laser. And so on. I've got the laptop docked, keys/mouse on PS/2. Sauerbraten does fine. Some of those other garbage games also respond fine. It's just nex. And it's driven me insane!

Do you get input lag with -dinput too? I ask, because in 2.4, -dinput will support the wheel.

divVerent wrote:Do you get input lag with -dinput too? I ask, because in 2.4, -dinput will support the wheel.

Hmm, I've tried the nexuiz-sdl.exe, which uses direct input, yes? I haven't tried the non-sdl (glx?) Windows version with -dinput on the laptop, though. I will tomorrow and report back.

divVerent wrote:Do you get input lag with -dinput too? I ask, because in 2.4, -dinput will support the wheel.

nexuiz.exe -dinput is worse than without -dinput by another half second or more. I am quite boggled.

You haven't said if nexuiz-sdl has the lag too...

divVerent wrote:You haven't said if nexuiz-sdl has the lag too...

Yes, sorry, overlooked that; yes, nexuiz-sdl has the lag.

Ya know, I'm really thinking it's just that stupid laptop. Granted, there may be some issue with darkplaces that is being exacerbated by the laptop, but obviously no one else is seeing this sort of hit. Oh, and I can say for fair-certain it's losing input too (both -sdl and non with -dinput), because I tried using my "laser toggle" keybind and most of the time it fails to do at least one of three things - switch to the laser, _keep_ the laser while I'm still holding KEY, or switch back to last weapon when I let go of KEY. I've never seen any of that behavior on my home box with either -glx or -sdl on both Linux and Windows.

I'm kicking myself that I brought this thread up again. It's got to be the laptop.

Such things aren't hardware problems. Try:

gl_finish 1

on the console. If it doesn't finish, look for keyboard and mouse drivers on the notebook and deinstall them - you don't need them.

divVerent wrote:Such things aren't hardware problems. Try:

gl_finish 1

on the console. If it doesn't finish, look for keyboard and mouse drivers on the notebook and deinstall them - you don't need them.

Already tried gl_finish 1, didn't help. I've got a synaptic touchpad and the software crap for it...I'll remove it tonight and see if that helps.