open wrote:
If you say it's not ping time or packet loss then you mean only with 3rd party utilities. latency and packet loss are the only 2 options for a packet to be lagged or lost and effect the game.
This is way too simplistic way of looking at things, and it clearly does not translate to reality. When it comes to gaming, it is all about UDP packets, what happens to them and how they are being treated, forwarded, retransmitted and prioritized by your ISP. If what you say would be the only way to affect things, then the game would feel exactly the same at all times with the same ping time (1-3ms variance which is normal) and with 0 or very little but costant packet loss (again, no variance), but it doesn't. It is not always about what data is being reported from ping/packet loss measures and what number shows up. People that are being affected by this problem DO NOT have issues with ping spikes or packet loss, and this is precisely why they often start looking at things like input lag, their system and PC components looking for the cause of the issue while completely disregarding the internet aspect as the potential culprit. No one ever was able to fix this issues on their own, because it does not happen on the clients side. And when it comes to hit registration problems, in 99% of cases it is the internet problem due to internet performance fluctuations that happen randomly during the day, all depeneding on how overloaded your ISP's network is in your area where you live in. This is exactly why gaming may feel way off on a different days or hours during the day, while there are no changes to your ping time and packet loss. For example, gaming may feel worse at peek times like an evening, in comparison to playing at night or earlier in the day. When that happens it is a dead giveaway of a network congestion. It is a completely separated issue to what sudden latency increase/difference and packet loss causes.
Things like error detection and correction algorithms (trelis, reed solomon, fec), interleaving, artificial delays, and tools like DLM that monitor clients signal quality and make changes on the fly on the clients line are there for a reason. All of that is fine tuned to avoid having an interrupted connections, packet loss and disconnections. All of that improves network stability, decreases a number of complaints from customers but at the same time quality of service when it comes to gaming is being worsened. Unfortunately, it clearly interferes with proper UDP packets handling and delivery, which mess up with gaming side of things like hit registration and enemy player model positioning that player sees on his screen. It is pretty well known phenomenon, but these days it has been largely forgotten, and often times when someone complains about bad hit registration it is often seen as complaining while being bad at the game and other players being just better etc. Some people like you, seem to be completely unaware of this issue, but it is all because you have never been affected by it.
#1. WORSENING OVER TIME. There have been a lot of reports in the past from people who had internet connection in their house for years (early adopters, back in early ADSl/DSL days), and at some point in time (after few years) the gaming started feel worse and worse year after year. Their ping didn't change, sometimes it even got better, and they even got faster internet speeeds over time, so what really happened to their gaming experience ? It all perfectly coincides with ISP's expansion, connecting more and more customers to their network, increasing internet speeds, while operating on the same old infrastructure.
#2. THE CASE OF INTERLEAVED VS. FAST PATH. Pretty much everyone started with fast path back in the day, but once ISP's started expanding and connecting more and more customers to their networks, increasing internet speeds, they noticed that there are a lot of problems with network stability, people are experiencing disconnecting, lines are getting overloaded etc. The way to mitigate that was by introducing interleaving and artificial delays, because it improves network stability. But at the same time gamers started experiencing weird things happening to their gaming experience, most of the time it was hit registration issues, gaming felt not as smooth, laggy like, sometimes it may feel like an input lag problem, especially in action etc. The solution at the time was to ask the ISP to make switch from an interleaved line to fast path, and all of a sudden all hit reg problems were gone immediately, even if some minimal packet loss was introduced (!). After some time ISP's refused to switch people on fast path and basically forced everyone onto the interleaved line.
#3. INTERLEAVING DEPTH, ARTIFICIAL DELAYS, DLM. Another trick that people tried to use to improve their gaming experience was by trying to buy better modems (broadcom chipsets), because it gave them a more stable line, decreased numbers of errors on the line, and therefore decreasing interleaving depth and artificial delays applied by DLM. Another trick was via SNR margin manipulation, and lowering the sync internet speed to lower number of errors, and therfore get a lower interleaving depth etc. The improvement varied from nothing (still a bad line, still lots of errors)to a clearly perceived improven in gaming due to lower interleaving depth.
#4. DSL AND PACKET PRIORITIZATION. Yeah, that was a thing back in the day and is was glorious. It was available in some countries for both private and business customers, but at a steep price. You basically got usually a slow but good enough internet speed, but the stability and reliability of the service was first class. You also enjoyed a packet prioritization over anyone else in your area and in your ISP's network, gaming was perfect/near perfect. After few years, again ISP's started to care more about overall network stability and packet prioritization was removed from DSL service, although it should be still avaialble in some countries.
#5. DISTANCE. How far are you from your ISP's backbone network and/or ISP's central network matters. The shorter the distance, the better the signal noise with less or no interferences, with less possibilities of experiencing of bottlenecks and network congestion. This is precisely why when you experience problems with your gaming and you visit your friends house that uses the same ISP, you might have a completely different gaming experience, sometimes it may even look like you playing a completely different game. It may feel like you are literaly crippled or handicapped playing at your home. This is what user reports suggests, and this is what is recommended when troubleshooting the problems behind hit registration problems in FPS games. Just take your computer to your friends house, play for a few days or over the weekend and then it will become clear what is really the problem.
#6. AN UNDOCUMENTED SCIENCE EXPERIMENT. No one ever has probably done that (at least not to my knowledge, and at least not in a FPS gaming world). The closest i ever came to a scientific study with the limited resources i had is this: I was gaming during an important national football match (my country is big on football) when the whole country was watching the game (in home, in bars, on jumbotrons/jumbovision in big cities) etc. In this scenario you can safely assume, without shadow of a doubt, that the internet, not only in my area and my city, but in the whole country could catch a breath and there was no chance that my ISP's network was overloaded. And ? My hit registration was almost perfect, and all other problems that i have been plagued with for years (!) have disappeared, my reaction time was elite (as it should be) and i probably had the best gaming experience from my home in years. Same private server, same people playing, same ping, even with exactly the same interleaving depth and with error correction enabled (according to my router). I have tested it few more times in the next few months, and it has became clear to me, less network usage in your area/city at any given time = the better gaming experience and hit registration you will have. As soon as bottleneck is relieved the issues completely disappear.
The only problem with this approach is that you can't really measure it. At least not by a normal measuring standards and practices via coming out with a number and showing it via score/graph. All you have is just going by your feeling of the game, and you can do that with years of experience in gaming, because you know when things feel right and as they should be (game mechanics, aiming/shooting wise etc.), and you also know when something is off. You also know the difference how it feels to playing on LAN, at your friends house, at internet café and in your own house. 100% not a placebo when you are an actual experienced gamer, that is able to detect the things that affect your gaming performance. You know what happens and what should exactly happen when you do certain plays, moves etc. You know the difference between missing when you actually missed, in comparison to casual players, and you know when bullet didn't register. And you know when you experience worse gaming performance due to hit registration problems among other things like incorrect player positioning on your screen (they see you faster then you see them), etc.
Now i have received some critique in the past, basically it went like this, "if you can measure it and show it somehow, it doesn't exist". And the saddest part was that it came from so called "experts", people who thought that they know and understand networking in relation to gaming. The problem is that you simply have no control over your connection and what is happening on the other side (outside your home), so you can't isolate it and test it the way most people think. There are lots of intermediates on the way, that you simply cannot control for. You can't measure it because it is not software/hardware related, at least not on your end. You can't isolate the internet for yourself. It is not as simple as testing cpu, gpu, ram or monitor/mouse input lag in a isolated and fully controlled environment. And what makes it even worse, it doesn't affect everyone, just a certain % of people. So we end up with some people who are being plagued by this issue for years to various degrees and some people who have never experienced it and are simply not aware of this problems existence.
#7. INTERNET PERFORMANCE VS. THE REALITY. No one ever complains about hit registration issues on LAN. Think about that. It only happens over the internet. This is where things are being vastly misunderstood and underestimated. Internet performance varies all the time, at least af far as gaming packets (UDP) are concerened. As mentioned before, your gaming can be affected negatively by network congestion and network performance fluctuations, even if your ping hasn't changed. When playing via internet, apart from players skill, network performance is the single most important factor when it comes to FPS gaming, it is so important that it basically renders everything else irrelevant. And by everything else i mean EVERYTHING ELSE that you use to play a game, mouse, monitor, having low end pc (low fps), tearing, stutter, motion blur. Even things like playing at 60fps@60Hz. All of it doesn't really matter, as long as player has great skill and great network performance, meaning low ping and perfect or near perfect hit registration. Example:
1) high skilled player will play at the same level, even with 60fps@60hz, low end pc (low fps), random mouse, as long as he has low ping and great hit registration. Your eyes can adjust to 60fps@60Hz (even when you change from 144fps@144hz or 240fps@240hz), and you can get used to random mouse, tearing, motion blur and stutter, in the end it will not affect your performance to a significant degree as long as you have low ping and great hit reg.
2) high skilled player will not be able to play at the same level, when he has really bad network performance (bad hit registration / incorrect enemy model visibility and positioning) even if he has best hardware in the world at his disposal. Bad network performance can skill cap you so bad, that you can sometimes go from being elite/high skilled to seem being average skilled when gaming via internet. Bad network performance may render gaming unplayable, regardless of what your hardware is. It may make your gaming not enjoyable and very frustrating, you may feel like you are handicapped.
In the end, network performance and UDP packet handling is all what matters, but it changes all the time, every case is different and some people are affected by network congestion and network performance fluctuations more than the others, and some people can enjoy perfect or near perfect network performance without any bad effects on their gaming performance. Also, some people may seem to be better players than they actually are, and some people may seem to be less skilled, just because of their inconsistent network performance.
#8. CLOSING WORDS. Now. What gives me the authority to talk about that ? I have been personally affected by this problem and have been interested in this topic for years and have seen it being reported by many players over the years, probably since around 2003. Always tried to fix this issue by buying fast PC, good gaming gear, fastest monitor, tried applying system optimizations (many famous and unfamous tips & tricks) etc. and it never helped or made any difference. No one ever was able to fix this issue to this day. The only things that helped me and others are the things described above. I have been gaming online probably since 1998, starting with internet cafés, and finally getting an ADSLin the early 2000s. I was playing many FPS games at above average/high but not on elite level but the things changed when it comes to CS. I was one of the best CS players in my country back in the day, played with and known personally many famous and legendary players, some of them are still playing CSGO at the highest level (pro) to this day. As i mentioned before when you are at the elite level or you have a lot of experience, you understand the game mechanics perfectly, you know what happens and what should happen when you do certain plays, moves etc. You know the difference between missing when you missed, and you know when you see and feel that something is off. Basically, if you do something long enough for long periods of time you became good at it. You know when something feels perfect and just right, and you can clearly see and feel when you are getting ping spikes/teleports, without a need of checking your ping. Same goes for big packet loss, you can see, feel and even hear it (cause of missing sounds) ! Same goes for cheaters, if you are really good and you have great knowledge and understanding of the game you can clearly see and spot cheaters (even non obvious ones) without actually watching a player for even a second, and only just by having a short interaction and exchange with other player. Experience allows you to see and feel inconsistencies and abnormalities happening in the game.