This needs to stop.

[AK47]

As i explained ingame to Frank, it would require a major rewrite to make a noticable change.

However, i still can't understand this. Whenever i am ingame, i'm rarely having problems with lag and desync. Could it possibly be with all the people in Idlewood, there is a higher chance for desync?

Possibly, always gets badly desynced when I'm there :p Or that I've modded my whole game  :roll:

[KelviNC]

Agree 

[Ragdoll]

Could it possibly be with all the people in Idlewood, there is a higher chance for desync?

This.. I haven't experienced the tiniest bit of lag for a long time, yet everytime I go into Idlewood, Little Mexico or Willowfield, I get both fps and connection lag spikes.

[ClazzyJogel]

Be patient and wait for RS5.
I havent experience any lag since the last DDos ...

[Frank_Hawk]

They are the more recent common cause, however yes the scripts of RS4.1 do play a major role from what I can see. The scripts simply were not designed to have this many properties, this many vehicles and this much of really everything we have. Numerous time the limit of properties and vehicles had to be extended due to limitation. This, overtime leads to decay in efficiency due to the large processing time of the locations in which the data is stored.

Correct, to many timers are a great and common cause of major lag issues in the SA:MP community. While I don't know the RS4 scripts entirely well so I can't really speak to the amount of timers, but I do know from what I've seen during fire missions seem to be when some of the hardest timer stress is pushed. I do suppose it would be possible to re-evaluate some outdated code and update it to match standards and eliminate overhead, that would be at the decision of Management as our last direction was that the development other than major bug fixes was to be halted.

Yes, I do. CLEO is strongly discouraged and is a major cause of issues between server and client. The SA:MP scripting community all seem to be in favor of a way to disallow CLEO on SA:MP, however the SA:MP Developers remain hesitant to add it and the ability to detect the CLEO package is not yet a possibility.

As i explained ingame to Frank, it would require a major rewrite to make a noticable change.

However, i still can't understand this. Whenever i am ingame, i'm rarely having problems with lag and desync. Could it possibly be with all the people in Idlewood, there is a higher chance for desync?

Hi Teddy and Zaila,

Thanks for your responses.

I'm concluding that the code base of RS4 was not originally designed to accomodate the scale of players executing commands. However, saying that - I remember prior to many cosmetic changes being introduced (i.e. gates, glasses, hats and so on) that lag did not exist with the same number of players, properties and vehicles. So I'm not clear how this happened?

If we know that timers are responsible for lag not only in our community but also others, we should pre-dominately spend some scoping time to check this code branch out:

- What is the effort (hours) behind carrying out a intital scoping exercise to identify the number of timers in RS4 code base?
- Which segment of code (for e.g. Fireman mission code) do timers exist most in?
               - It's possible, if we identify an area of code which holds many timers - to strip out that functionality entirely
               - It will cause a impact to those group of people, but sarifices need to be made where poor code is attributed and workarounds are possible
- Does the removal of these timers have an impact on other segments of code or are they isolated?
- What will be the impact of the removal of these timers on performance?
- Who originally designed/deployed timers in the code base?
               - It would be best practise to contact them before the removal of these timers and in FAQ to the above

If CLEO is also attributed to lag/issues between the server and client - do you and Zaila recommend the stoppage of using CLEO mods across the server from a development perspective? On your recommendation, it needs to be highlighted to the owners on these recommendations from the development team in aim of enforcing a server wide ban on these enhancements until RS5 is delivered. Is it possible for the admin team to enforce a CLEO ban in the sense whether it's visible to spot or not?

Instead of focussing on a major rewrite - we need to identify areas of code which are quick wins in aim of improving the efficiency.

Can you both also recommend any other areas which are quick wins within RS4 code base which will improve efficency?

Also for your information - I experience lag everywhere:
- I have a i7 laptop, which is very fast and capable of handling GTA:SA in other servers except for Argonath
- I have a very fast connection speed (check my original post)
- This problem is not only in Idlewood, but elsewhere too
- I have no mods, only default settings

All,

I feel like the only person with this issue sometimes, or is it people are afraid to stand up and confront the issue which is the elephant in the room?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant_in_the_room

[Cyril]

I spent most of my time at Pershing Square when I do my admin duties, I have to admit that I never lag there. Unless the server is being DDoS, I almost never see lag, except for Christmas where server was full and it was so laggy

Just wait for RS5. They are working hard on it and it'll be awesome.

[JackWhite]

The lag on Argonath is brutal, constantly getting desycned which annoys everyone. Argonath should bring in a few more scripters to help out the development team, they are obviously not doing a good enough job when the lag has been here for over a year, and its not getting better. You can't blame this on peoples mods or ping. If its because of a bad hosting company, get a new one. I'm sure you will reach 200 players usually with no lag. But I doubt this, I guess its the scripts.

So now, get your fingers out of your asses and finish RS5 which was supposed to be finished months ago, people might start enjoy staying on argo when there is over 70 people ingame.

[Gandalf]

There are many myths about lag and what could cause it.
For a large part it is nothing but a non-existing excuse for other things.

From a technical perspective these are components that can cause lag:

1. Bandwith: as in time of not being attacked we are at maximal 10% of our bandwith, this is certainly not a cause of lag.
2. RAM: similar, our RAM is mostly around 40% usage, not going to be any influence.
3. Processor occupancy: At peak times we are below 60%, while experience is that when it goes above 80% it can cause lag.
4. Disk usage: This is an issue as players accounts have grown to over 200 lines, meaning that when many players are online there can be 10k to 15k write operations per second. By changing to a better database design for RS5 we expect to solve this
5. Player connections: Players with a high ping send less updates meaning the total amount of updates the server processes fluctuates.
6. Player mods: any mod that changes the character, vehicles, weapons or ny other aspect that is non-visual will cause lag because collisions are not detected correctly. This is not limited to CLEO but to any modding that changes more as the txd files.
7. Player induced-lag: As lagging can give an advantage in a fight, a number of players who are obsessed with 'winning' and 'pwning' have methods to make themselves lag when it fits them. While this is bannable, it is hard to prove.

[Kostas]

Note: I did not ready anything except from the First Post

I just want to add that the ping of our players isnt the problem . In argonath I usually have arround 100 ping , but do lag a lot . In another server I used to play the standard ping was arround 250 and I didnt lag at all . Lag Shot was almost non needed and every players life was easier . I do believe we ,all of us, must try to fix that ...

[Aiden.]

True i Agree .....

[Hevar.]

A ping limit about 400 should be good =) So if a ping limit is 400 then all players who gets ping over 400 gets kicked, that makes less lagg ingame. Why should we people get lagged because some players got bad internet?

Also remove Disneyland, we dont need that place. Too much object and makes lagg.

[Devin]

A ping limit is not needed for a roleplay server, stop with the ridiculously selfish suggestions like ping limits.
Bad internet and high ping has absolutely nothing to do with passwords being acquired.

And I highly doubt disneyland causes and sort of lag.

[Cyril]

Stop asking for ping limits, it will never happen and it won't solve anything anyway.

[JackWhite]

Why should we people get hacked because some players got bad internet?

LOL WTF

[Nexxt]

@Hevar

The ping is definately not the problem, atleast not in case of a roleplay server. Disneyland isn't the issue either, as Disneyland is here for a few years and never caused lag. Apart from that, objects are loaded on the moment the server is being loaded. As far as my knowledge goes, the objects are loaded on the "OnGamemodeInit" and "OnFilterscriptInit" lines in the script - when you are near these objects, they will load for you as all other infomation (packages) the server sends to you.

Only reason of lag near Disneyland, is the amount of objects to be loaded on your screen. Which causes lag on bad computers, but that's not server lag.
Correct me if I am wrong, as I am not not an expert in the scripting systems of SA:MP.