*************************************************** * STOP LAG/DELAY IN WARCRAFT II OVER KALI (v1.22) * *************************************************** Brief Intro *********** This file is basically about a simple change in how KALI loads up a WAR2 game that will change how your game plays, performance wise. If you aren't interested in having better, more playable games, then read no further... ...still here? Alright, read on. :) Ok, talk to me! *************** First, let me explain in brief about a few things that I'll be referring to... LAG: Put simply, this happens when high latency ocurrs, or the time it takes for a packet of information to travel from one computer to another, usually measured in milliseconds. A garbage ISP (internet service provider) is often a reason for bad lag in a game. Transatlantic connections are also prone to lag, given the great distances between connections. Modems themselves are slow. There are so many different factors that can actually cause latency in a game, and some of them are just too unpredictable to always determine the cause. So, this file may not help you at all (especially if you use AOL, GOD FORBID!). PACKETS: In this case, are bits of information in the form of commands given by the user in a WAR2 game. DELAY: This occurs when you give an order to a unit, and that unit carries it out way later--sometimes as long as 20 seconds or more later. It's the most annoying thing in the world and comes up most frequently when there is a ton of action going on. In a game like WAR2, *response time* is almost everything. STOP THE INSANITY!! ******************* To fix this, edit your WAR2 launch icon in KALI95 (right click it). Next, check the 'Program:' field to be sure you are running WAR2.EXE (NOT war2kali.exe). Then go to 'Arguments:' field and type "pkt:4", without the quotes. You should then be sure to check that you do NOT have either box checked that say, "Allow kali to drop packets to speed the game up" and "Drop packets that are out of order", respectively. Checking these boxes will result in a lot of dropping (most noticeably when people attempt to join your game in the WAR2 chatroom) with people that have less than average internet connections. Also, if you use the old DOS KALI, simply run "war2 pkt:4", instead of "war2" or "war2kali", got it? Good. If you have a MAC, please visit http://ww2.dixie-net.com/jnaron3/kali.html for information on KALI and WAR2 on a Mac. It explains how to do pkt:4 as well. Syntax: "pkt:number" (range of number is 1 through 15, no quotes). (** NOTE ** Game creator's pkt:# determines game pkt:#! e.g. If I am serving and I am pkt:4, and you join my game using pkt:8, your pkt:8 will be ignored and the game will run at pkt:4 -- for everyone.) What will this do for me and why should I care? *********************************************** When you run WAR2.EXE, you are defaulting to roughly around 22 packets of information being sent a second and the game expects an immediate reply from other players saying, "Yes, I got that packet!". If it doesn't get that reply, then it has to resend it and wait for another reply which results in you seeing the hourglass, and perhaps a drop screen for that player. However, when doing pkt:4, you send roughly around only 4 packets or so a second, but allows for a slight delay in milliseconds (perhaps 300-400ms). This allows greater control over the game. With pkt:8, you send roughly only 2 packets a second, allowing for delays of up to about a full second! This is why you have a more fluid game on pkt:8, but terrible response in unit commands. So, generally, the higher the pkt:#, the more delay, but less lag (terrible unit response to commands, more fluid game speed -- it's important to know the difference between lag and delay). Another thing you should all know, because I KNOW that a lot of you don't, is the /KALI (/GAMES) command. It lists all the players and their various information, but what are really important are the last two columns. The 2nd to the last column contains every player's PING time to the server in milliseconds. The last column contains a player's packet loss--the % of packets not being sent or received. Packet loss is definitely more a factor than a ping time. This is so because when someone has packet loss, that person is having to resend packets to all players until they're all received before the game can continue, thereby causing a drop screen. There should be NO loss whatsoever. If there is, try reconnecting. In some cases you can't do anything about it and should just find other servers to play on. You can also try increasing the pkt:# which will allow for bad response, but less lag in the game. A good ping time for a 4-player game of WAR2 is easily 200-300ms. You can even stretch that, but be careful, an 800ms player for example can really bog down a game. Reconnecting to server often helps. So remember, check /KALI -- know who lags, and who doesn't! Also, I'd like to note that you can tell if someone is lagging by the type speed in the WAR2 chatroom. If it seems choppy, kick whoever just entered. It's usually a good indicator of how the game will perform. I can't tell you how many times I've heard "ALT-M EVERYONE and F8". This is a dumb thing to say in the first place. "F8"--what is that supposed to mean? I know what people THINK it means to everyone else -- to raise game speed to full. F8 brings up a menu in which you can change the game speed, however, if the person saying this had a clue, they'd know that if they lower or raise the game speed, it does so for EVERYONE. One can also use +/- to increase/decrease game speed. Secondly, ALT-M turns off the music in the game. This should do absolutely nothing for the speed of a game. All it does is simply lessen the workload off the computer because it won't have to play the music--whoopee. A pentium class or something close to can handle playing the music no problem. The only situation I can think of where this may help, is a x86 class machine. About the game speed, lowering it one notch is often desireable to help compensate for laggy games. If it seems laggy at full speed, lower it one notch--it may help. One more thing, you should definitely have at least a 28.8 modem--FORGET 14.4 modems! They're no good for big games, and may cause some lag as it tries to keep up with the 28.8s. Optimizing your Win95 Dial-Up Connection! ***************************************** Some info has come to me about optimizing your Win95 Dial-Up Connection. This is untested by myself, but I recommend checking it out and see if it improves your results. The web site is http://www.sysopt.com/maxmtu.html - check it out! To conclude... ************** In closing, let me say that your results may vary depending on who you play with, if they even have the slightest clue whatsoever, and if they have a good ISP (Don't forget miscellaneous factors :p). All of the old school WAR2 players agree that using pkt:4 is the *ONLY* way to play WAR2 over KALI. It has allowed all of us to play in 8-player (all 28.8s, no ether connections!) games with amazing speed. So please, spread the word... ********* * PKT:4 * ********* NOTE **** It has been suggested that pkt:3 will work even better. The above information will still apply when using pkt:4 or pkt:3. See which works better for you and stick with it! SPECIAL THANKS ************** To Shlonglor, for being kind enough to place this upon his site, at http://games.nextlevel.net/fraizer/, the best Warcraft 2 site on the net! To Dan Zerkle, for all the information he mailed me. To Jay Cotton, for some insight to pkt: information per Blizzard. To everyone I know on KALI for being quite cool as always, and without them WAR2 just wouldn't be what it is today! :) DISCLAIMER ********** This didn't take me very long to do, so please forgive the unprofessionalism as it was not my intention to make this simple text anything more than it is. My intention is to get people to know what pkt:4 can do for the performance of your WAR2 games and thereby use it! The WAR2 community will be better off if I succeed. :) If there are any errors, please let me know. Send any comments to rfreas@ais.net. Thanks again, and see you out there... v1.0 ---- I got fed up of joining slow games so I finally took a few minutes to write this stupid thing. :) v1.20 ----- Bunch of revisions and some other small additions. v1.21 ----- Slight revision, and some added info on the infamous "ALT-M and F8 everyone!", as well as lowering game speed. (Note: To append v1.0 comments up above, this is no longer taking "a few minutes"!! sigh. :) v1.22 ----- Added some new info about optimizing your Win95 Dial-Up Connection. This file can always be found on Shlonglor's Warcraft 2 site, or from me in Kali chat, usually on the Warcraft Server #451, or my never updated web site at http://www.cl.ais.net/rfreas --- ~Mage;.~ 004629 rfreas@ais.net