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Sync Errors while playing online...


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#21 ArkhanTheBlack

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Posted 03 December 2006 - 10:35 AM

Since the player drops seem to occur at the start of the game, it's probably not because of lots of unit traffic.
I've a suspect that the capture plans are responsible since they need a lot of performance at the start of the game and they still had some relics of 'object info bombardement'. I've a suspect that those info is always requested from the server which could severly hurt the multiplayer communication.

I've created a high performance version now, which addresses exactly this problem. But I'd need someone with those problems to test it. If it works, I might release a new hotfixed version instantly. If anyone is willing to try, send me a PM with your E-Mail, so I can send you the updated AI folder.

#22 danuker

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Posted 03 December 2006 - 03:07 PM

My buddies and I played a number of games with the Skirmish AI over the weekend, with a couple of 2 v 2, some 3 v3 and 4 v4. The only time I ever get a Sync Error is when I turned on AI Donations. The game was proceeding fine and crashed towards its conclusion, about 20 mins into the game.

The other times, there were no Sync Errors with AI Donations off.

BUT, if one of the players gets eliminated and he quits, it seems to crash the game entirely, with some AI error.

#23 ArkhanTheBlack

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Posted 03 December 2006 - 04:35 PM

If it's a regular AI error, we're probably able to fix it if you post the error message displayed on the console. (You get the console with strg + shift + ~ ...)

#24 Guest_michael, StE_*

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Posted 03 December 2006 - 08:28 PM

Yesterday, we were playiing a LAN skirmish - three humans v 3 hard 2.0 AIs on Bloodshed alley. Sync errors occured progressively, dropping one player after ~25 minutes, a second after ~30, with the last player surviving to a rather bitter end. AI donations were on. The disconnected player crashes to desktop on quiting to the scorecard.

A similar scenario, with AI donations turned off, and a standard level 2.0 AI gave a similar staggered set of sync errors, though not in the same order.

We also had a desync on a hard 3v3 bloodshed alley game, "friendly" team had two humans and an allied AI. Unsure about donations setting.

PCs were a P-M 1.8/6800 laptop, amd dual core/x850 desktop, and a c2d/7950 laptop, 100base-t ethernet.

At our last attempt, we desynced within 30 seconds of the level starting, same map, AI donations off, graphic options turned down from the usual high to medium/low (just for the voodoo factor).

Replaying the same level, on the vanilla AI, with the 2.0 Skirmish AI uninstalled, worked as expected.

We'd have tried a different map, but our interest in empirical testing was wearing quite thing by that point, and we just wanted to have a proper fun game... :p

The only mod installed in our copies of DC (none updated with the recent subtitle/language patch) are identical copies of the three camera mod .lua files.

We play a few hours of DoW most weekends, and whilst we have had sync errors in the (distant) past, we've never had so many in such a short space of time.

To end the night, we went back to the 1.9 Skirmish AI on Winter Assault. Beautiful though it is for single-human skirmishes, for our LAN skirmishes the 2.0 Skirmish AI proved essentially unplayable.

Bother.

#25 ArkhanTheBlack

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Posted 03 December 2006 - 10:01 PM

The problem is more DC itself and not the mod. The DC 2.0 AI is faster than the WA 1.8+ versions, but DC itself needs a lot more performance. I had no problems with DOW/WA but with DC my computer is at the limit (regardless of mod or not).
I didn't expect such heavy multiplayer problems since it works fine in single player. Anyway, I've still the faster code ready for testing.

#26 Guest_michael, StE_*

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Posted 03 December 2006 - 10:57 PM

I didn't expect such heavy multiplayer problems since it works fine in single player. Anyway, I've still the faster code ready for testing.


I'd love to help, but my DoW cabal only gather on Saturdays, so I won't be able to test multiplayer skirmish before next weekend.

I can cross my fingers though, if that would help. :p

#27 ArkhanTheBlack

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Posted 03 December 2006 - 11:28 PM

@michael
That would be great! Besides my speed optimization, I want to add a high speed option which will simplify some calculations. The AI could be slightly weaker because of that, but it should be still much better than the default AI. I'll send you a PM when I'm ready...

#28 Guest_Guest_*

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Posted 04 December 2006 - 06:17 AM

Maybe you could create a control panel option where you use the high speed code and weaker AI if it is turned on in the AI Mod control panel, but use the more complex AI as the default for those who don't try playing online.

For some, turning off AI donations worked, and for others it didn't.

I haven't turned on AI donations yet, so I haven't had an problems with anything so far. No crashes or sync errors whatsoever while watching replays. I haven't tried the AI Mod online, yet. I play skirmish mod and skirmish mode offline most of the time.

#29 Excitus

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Posted 04 December 2006 - 05:38 PM

I've been testing the mod online with a friend, with default settings (i.e. AI donations off). We got sync errors every time, within three minutes of starting up. The sync error appeared even when we switched off the mod and restarted the game. So we had to remove the mod altogether...

I'm hoping your new bit of code can relieve the situation. The default AI code is in some aspects directly flawed.

#30 michael:StE

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Posted 04 December 2006 - 07:11 PM

The sync error appeared even when we switched off the mod and restarted the game. So we had to remove the mod altogether...


This, I think, happened in the first of our DC games after we'd given up on the Skirmish mod AI. We swapped using the game manager, and then each restarted from the desktop with the non-Skirmish shortcut, and got a sync error.

At least my friends claimed they did the above - I didn't watch their screens, so I wasn't totally sure that they'd done exactly what they said they had, and it was sufficiently odd that I didn't want to make a problem report I wasn't 100% sure of.

Paranoid? Me?

Deinstalling the skirmish AI on all three PCs produced a stable, if deeply annoying, game against the vanilla AI.

#31 UberMorse

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Posted 06 December 2006 - 11:53 AM

I've been testing the mod online with a friend, with default settings (i.e. AI donations off). We got sync errors every time, within three minutes of starting up. The sync error appeared even when we switched off the mod and restarted the game. So we had to remove the mod altogether...

I'm hoping your new bit of code can relieve the situation. The default AI code is in some aspects directly flawed.



This is exactly what happend to me and my posse too. We have no other mods installed and run the latest patch for DC. We all have decent to good machines and high speed connections.

We got sync error spanning from the very first second to three minutes into the game. All players were thrown out of DC with dual error report requests. The same happend when we tried to play without the mod. When we tried to play 1v1 the sync error were delayed and came at a later stage, but it still came. We tried through GameSpy and through direct connect/join with the same result.

Two players then uninstalled the mod and it now works fine for them.

Worth noting is that two of my friends ran the game, with the mod flawlessly under Hamachi the day before.

#32 thudo

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Posted 06 December 2006 - 05:21 PM

We're currently testing v2.1 to ensure it properly works in MP. Sofar our testing have been going very well so standby..
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#33 übergeek

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Posted 06 December 2006 - 05:57 PM

I've got about 15 guys who have been testing the 2.1 RC, and it seems to work fine as long as Donations is turned off, but the game is a bit less sluggish with Fast AI turned on. So those of you having trouble hang in there, they should have a finalized version ready for you soon that will get rid of the problem.

#34 michael:StE

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Posted 06 December 2006 - 05:59 PM

We're currently testing v2.1 to ensure it properly works in MP. Sofar our testing have been going very well so standby..


Further 2.1 testing - ran a game, with AI Donations off, Highspeed AI on, 3v3 on Bloodshed Alley (or Old Disastrous as I like to call it) 1 direct host, 1 direct join on the same LAN, 1 direct join via internet. Game played well through to a human-side-defeat, but as the hosting player was eliminated, his game crashed to desktop. It then refused to restart (implying some resource was still active) until the PC was rebooted. It happened a second time a few games later.

The forced reboot scenario had not been observed with the 2.0 AI or vanilla DC, though these have not been played remotely.

Also had two very-start-of-game desyncs with 2.1, same set of human connections, AI Dons off and the Highspeed AI. No mid- or end-game desyncs, however.

#35 ArkhanTheBlack

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Posted 06 December 2006 - 06:26 PM

Further 2.1 testing - ran a game, with AI Donations off, Highspeed AI on, 3v3 on Bloodshed Alley (or Old Disastrous as I like to call it) 1 direct host, 1 direct join on the same LAN, 1 direct join via internet. Game played well through to a human-side-defeat, but as the hosting player was eliminated, his game crashed to desktop. It then refused to restart (implying some resource was still active) until the PC was rebooted. It happened a second time a few games later.

It's very likely that those sync problems are already fixed. Übergeek has the newest version of 2.1 where the critical captureplan precalculations are moved to the AI initialization phase before the game starts.


I've got about 15 guys who have been testing the 2.1 RC, and it seems to work fine as long as Donations is turned off, but the game is a bit less sluggish with Fast AI turned on. So those of you having trouble hang in there, they should have a finalized version ready for you soon that will get rid of the problem.

Good to hear that most people don't seem to even need the fast AI option, though the critical effect of the donation code is still a mistery to me.

#36 michael:StE

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Posted 07 December 2006 - 03:41 AM

It's very likely that those sync problems are already fixed. Übergeek has the newest version of 2.1 where the critical captureplan precalculations are moved to the AI initialization phase before the game starts.


The 2.1 end-of-game crashes-and-refusal-to-restart look to be some interaction between the 2.1 code, and the Bulldog firewall software that this machine runs. Turn that off, and the symptom disappears.

(Or leave Bulldog on, uninstall 2.1, play vanilla DC, and the symptom disappears).

Odd.

#37 ruprechtus

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Posted 07 December 2006 - 09:22 AM

Hi ArkhanTheBlack,

Do you need any more testers for new 2.1 code. Using Hamachi and playing with 2 other players on-line I was getting an AI Sync error around 20 mins into the game when using the 2.0 AI Mod.

Regards

Ruprechtus

#38 ArkhanTheBlack

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Posted 07 December 2006 - 11:27 AM

Do you need any more testers for new 2.1 code. Using Hamachi and playing with 2 other players on-line I was getting an AI Sync error around 20 mins into the game when using the 2.0 AI Mod.

We are already finished. I'm only waiting for Thud to make the release announcement and mod upload stuff. He's busy with AI adjustments for Steel Legion at the moment, so he probably didn't have time yet to release the new version.

#39 thudo

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Posted 07 December 2006 - 02:20 PM

Release looks like a go tonight. Delay isn't SL-related.. thats minimal. Had "personal" stuff to contend with. :p
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#40 LarkinVB

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Posted 10 December 2006 - 06:24 PM

Since AI donations seems to be a killer in multiplayer games I suggest that I disable it even if it is ticked in the game mode setup as soon as there is more than one human player involved. Good idea ?



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