How does unreal/DB latency work? High ping advantage?

[EnderWiggin.DA]

I live on the NA west coast but am able to play on the UK servers very well. I don’t feel like I’m pinging 300-400 there at all. I feel like I’m pinging 80. Yet when I play on the US west coast servers where I ping 16-24 I feel like my shots are missing my targets and I die behind cover more. This is all based on perception. So my questions are:

Does anybody else feel this way?
How is latency handled in Unreal/Dirty Bomb?
Is there ping compensation like in COD/BC2?
Is hit detection client side or server side?

Edumacate me.

[zenstar]

I hope hit detection is server side, or at least server-validated otherwise I see haxxing incoming.

[LaVaGoD]

I noticed a difference as well but I don’t recall which servers I was on. I just jumped on the one that had people and didn’t even look to see what it was.

When I did notice which server I joined I also felt like my high ping on the UK servers were a non issue.

[mitsuhiko]

How is latency handled in Unreal/Dirty Bomb?

Dirty Bomb has its own hit detection code and it compensates for latency like most other modern games.

Is there ping compensation like in COD/BC2?

Yes, same as with modern battlefield, call of duty or quake3+ games. Unreal traditionally does not have latency compensation but Dirty Bomb has for your gaming pleasure

Is hit detection client side or server side?

It’s client side. Before you all go mental about that: there are good reasons for that. The common argument against client side hit detection is that it means the server trusts the client. That however is the case even if you don’t do client side hit detection because people will just load aimbots into the memory space of the game and do it that way. For as long as the server does a general check if the hit is likely or not you end up with roughly the same result for security.

If there are issues with the hit detection they can be improved upon, at the moment I think it works pretty well, definitely better than no latency compensation.

[SockDog]

Have to say I “FEEL” that players with higher pings are harder to hit or that I see hit’s register but when I ultimately die I see in the debug that the player has like 80% health.

That said, I believe ECHO should be able to analyse certain players on certain servers and see if there are performance differences based on latency. So I’ll trust in SD to just be paying due diligence that having a high ping isn’t going to be giving players any advantages.

On the subject of me hitting stuff and not getting much damage can anyone confirm that there is damage fall off over distance? I must have shot Chris 5 times in the head yesterday (he was up at the Waterloo Data Panel and I was at the entrance with the luggage) and he still killed me.

[Breo]

Don’t forget not to compensate high ping players too much, because they have a horrible hitreg for others.

[INF3RN0]

I haven’t noticed any differences in reg at 40-200 ping for myself. And I haven’t seen any performance differences by players in the same situation.

[EnderWiggin.DA]

[QUOTE=mitsuhiko;413787]
It’s client side. For as long as the server does a general check if the hit is likely or not you end up with roughly the same result for security.
If there are issues with the hit detection they can be improved upon, at the moment I think it works pretty well, definitely better than no latency compensation.[/QUOTE]
Ahh, that it why I can play on UK servers without much issue.
Is there a built in latency assumption for DB? The point of my question is that I perceive that my hits and deaths are different at low ping and I wonder if there is a reason for that.

How do hit indicators work in DB? Is it possible for me (the client) to see/hear a hit indicator but actually miss because the other player has moved? I think this is an important question when perceiving how your hits are landing. In short, can my game lie to me? and how often does it happen?

[mitsuhiko]

How do hit indicators work in DB? Is it possible for me (the client) to see/hear a hit indicator but actually miss because the other player has moved? I think this is an important question when perceiving how your hits are landing. In short, can my game lie to me? and how often does it happen?

There are a few things that might happen as a natural result of the system that are not intuitive. If you have a really, really high latency player (latency higher than the time to kill) then you will die “in one shot” if he walks up behind you. However the inverse will also be true. If you shoot a high latency player that person will appear to hit you when he returns fire but will most likely already be dead until some of their hits were transmitted to the server.

I’m not entirely sure what the exact behavior of different latencies on the game are to be honest, but I’m sure as part of the test we will see how it works out in practice. For what it’s worth I think the way the hit detection is done is about as good as it gets in terms of pure accuracy and fairness.

[SRS-Kap]

How do hit indicators work in DB? Is it possible for me (the client) to see/hear a hit indicator but actually miss because the other player has moved? I think this is an important question when perceiving how your hits are landing. In short, can my game lie to me? and how often does it happen?

Hit indicators (hatch) and hit beeps for when you are shooting a target are accurate. If you hear a hit beep, you have hit the target.

[EnderWiggin.DA]

Thanks again for the replies.